Wellington Iron Duke: It's from Canada?
Jun 30 '01
The Bottom Line Strong ale with strong North England influences. Seems to borrow much from Newcastle Brown while verging towards McEwan's Scotch as a strong ale. Would do well in USA.
Wellington Iron Duke, Wellington County Brewing, Guelph, Ontario
Those of you who read my Casta Morena review a couple of weeks ago would have noted my lack of enthusiasm, that a beer club I paid $35 a month for was going to send me a 12 pack from Mexico. You would have also noted how Michael Jackson has a great knack of picking up sensational brews that we may never hear of here in the USA, and Casta Morena proved to be no exception.
Wellington Iron Duke actually came the month before Casta Morena, although it has taken me some time to actually review a bottle. It was with similar initial disappointment when I heard that of all the nations steeped in brewing tradition, of all the breweries Michael frequented, I was going to be getting something from Canada.
The Canadian brew market was something of a mystery to me at that time, with brands such as Molson, Labatts and Moosehead carrying little more in substance than what we get from the big American breweries. Also at that time I was yet to discover the outstanding Quebec brewer, Unibroue.
Wellington County Brewery
The early brewing influences in 19th century Canada borrowed much from English, Scottish and Irish settlers and their traditional ales. Ale brewing pretty much disappeared in the 20th century, except in Quebec, until Canada followed the American trend with a microbrew revolution.
Wellington was one of the early players in this revival, located in Guelph (40 miles from Toronto) in 1985. The brewery was established with a view to making classical ale styles, benefiting from Guelph’s artesian wells and hard water (which works better for ale brewing).
Real Ale
Real ale is a British tradition, and Wellington claims to be the first North American brewer in modern times to use this technique. Also referred to as cask-conditioning, real ale undergoes a secondary fermentation in the cask, so the beer is still not complete when it leaves the brewery ideally reaching prime condition upon arrival. Real ale is naturally carbonated and neither filtered nor pasteurized. This method only applies to the draft versions that are available in Canada.
The Iron Duke
This is the brewery’s “strong ale”, and is named after the Duke of Wellington who is best known for his defeat of Napoleon at Waterloo. An English ale will carry an alcohol content of 3-4% ABV, with premium ales a little over 5%. So at 6.5% ABV, this certainly is an English strong ale and probably deserving of the name “Iron Duke”.
The brewery does use some North American raw materials, but also British malts and traditional English hop varieties such as Fuggles and Goldings.
So How is it?
The beer pours to a ruby-reddish brown color, something close to well-polished mahogany, and certainly looks English on first impressions. There’s a nice adequate tan foam formation and a fairly light bubble activity. The bubbles of course are always harder to spot in darker ales.
The aroma tells you right away that this is going to be a fruity, malty ale. It’s deep and instantly noticeable with signs of raisin and plums as well as a definite alcohol presence.
The palate is slightly fizzy at first, but not too heavy and smoothing out a little in the middle. Carbonation is not typical of an English ale, although this does remind me very much of a Newcastle Brown at first.
Right away I got the fruity malt in the flavor. The fruitiness lingers right into the aftertaste and picks up some nutty, woody, toasty notes along the way, followed by a satisfying dry bitter finish. The aftertaste is persistent; you’ll certainly know you’ve been drinking it with an alcohol presence that warms both the palate and the soul.
Verdict
This beer tastes and feels like it came right out of the North of England, reminding me very much of such ales as Newcastle Brown and Bass. The aftertaste and alcohol warmth pushed this a little more towards a McEwan’s Scotch Ale. The flavors balance each other out very well with nothing being too dominant.
It’s a strong ale and would work better as a nightcap than as a quantity beer. It would also pair well with traditional English cuisine such as lamb shank, prime rib with horseradish, and roast beef.
This is a beer that I’ve thoroughly enjoyed, and would be very successful on the shelves in the USA. I for one would certainly buy it, and can only sit here and dream about what it would taste like on draft.
If you would like to try this beer you’ll have to go to the Real Beer Tour website. Here’s the link, from my own page:
http://worldofbrews.tripod.com/clubs
Ratings
Appearance: 3/5 Aroma: 8/10 Palate: 4/5 Taste: 8/10 Overall: 16/20
Score: 3.9
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