Cascade Spéciale

Venturing out further into the more exotic offerings of the Quebec micro-brewing scene, I tried the Cascade Spéciale from Brasseurs Illimités' Simple Malt line of beers. The brewery is located in Saint-Eustache, just north-west of Montreal, and I had tried their Alt beer with some satisfaction about a year ago. I have to admit, that this is another brewery about which I know very little - it is a member of the third generation craft brewers in Quebec. The craft brewing movement started here, as elsewhere in Canada, in the 1980s, followed in the 1990s by a second generation that was able to build on the pioneering success of breweries like McAuslan, Unibroue, Brasseurs du Nord, Brasal, Les Brasseurs GMT, and Seigneurial. Toward the mid-1990s and the turn of the last millennium, things got shaken up. Some brewers consolidated (e.g., GMT merged with Brasseurs de l’Anse and Brasserie du Cheval Blanc to become Les Brasseurs RJ), some went under (e.g., Brasal - their equipment was sold off to help Steam Whistle set up in Toronto, I think) and others were bought up by bigger outfits (e.g., Seigneurial and Unibroue were both acquired by Sleeman) or entered into joint ventures (e.g., McAuslan hooked up with Moosehead in 2003 or so, a liaison that has since been dissolved). In the new millennium, many more smaller outfits have populated the Quebec landscape and made this province a place to come and drool for beer freaks, beer snobs, beer aficionados, and Lupumaniacs (see post on La Houblonniere). As previously mentioned, I will work my way through many of these breweries, as well as the old guard.

The Cascade Spéciale is billed as an American Pale Ale, and the name certainly promised a fine morsel of pleasure for the Lupumaniac in me. I have to admit, though, that this beer somewhat disappointed. Its colour was too dark for my expectation of a pale ale, its flavours were too malty for an American style pale ale, and as you might be able to see in the picture, it was cloudy from a residue of yeast in the bottle. Indeed, there were bits and chunks of yeast floating around, leaving a quarter-sized blob of sludge in my glass after I emptied the old Totenkopf mug. It was not a bad beer - the malt-hops balance was pleasant, and there were slight hoppy flavours at the front of the palate that I enjoyed thoroughly. You can also see the nice head development on the skullcap (credit to one of my fellow beer aficionados for using this term to describe the head on the Totenkopf mug). But overall, the brown toast and caramel flavours gave this beer a character that was too malty for my liking and did not fit the style. I had expected more hops aroma and a more pungent Cascade nose.