The hop in Great Lakes Brewery's newest lager is called Anchovy, and the brewery gets the obvious point out of the way in its first sentence: the beer does not taste anything like anchovies.
What it does taste of, according to Great Lakes, is watermelon candy and raspberry with a hint of pine. All of that sits in an otherwise clean 4.0 percent light lager at 15 IBU. The brewery's own beer page fills in the hop's history. Anchovy was until recently an experimental selection numbered 24B-05, grown by Segal Ranch. It has only now picked up a name to go with it. New varieties usually reach the market attached to something aspirational. This one arrived as a small fish.
That is less arbitrary than it sounds once the rest of the can is accounted for. The beer is a partnership with Swim Drink Fish, the Toronto-registered charity whose name comes from the three-part test for healthy water: whether you can swim in it, drink it and fish from it. The organization monitors hundreds of beaches and waterways across Canada and runs the Swim Guide tool that reports what it finds. The can carries the three icons to match: a swimmer, a poured glass and a fish. Great Lakes has put a dollar from every one sold behind the work.
The brewery's framing is that great water makes great beer. For a light lager, that's less a slogan than a description of the recipe. At 4.0 percent, with 15 IBU and a hop that arrives in ripples rather than waves, there is very little between the drinker and the water it was made from.
Swim Drink Fish Light Lager is available today at the Etobicoke brewery and through the Great Lakes online shop, and from Friday at the GLB Brewpub on Lower Jarvis Street. It is $3.35 for a 473 ml can, or $65 a case.
Source & Editorial
JollyPint independently prepares release articles using information published by breweries through newsletters, websites, and other official public communications. Brewery-supplied descriptions and tasting notes are reported as provided, while editorial context is added by JollyPint.