On our most recent trip to Central City’s Brew Pub in Downtown Vancouver, Cousin Sip’s husband ordered this brew, but didn’t expect how smoky it would be. Always hunting for smoky beverages, I agreed (out of the kindness of my heart) to swap him my drink – ironically, a light on the smoke Smoked Porter – so he could enjoy his experience.

My reward was this Scotch Ale, which surprised me with how flavourful it was. Already rocking the prerequisite notes of caramel/toffee, the smoky finish wrapped the beer up in a nice, neat package.

The 6.1% ABV, 34 IBUs ale takes much of its composition from peated malts, an ingredient the Scottish seem to have specialized in and perfected. Scotch Ales have been growing on me lately, thanks to the Sip Advisor coming across the paths of a number of good ones, in recent times.

On this venture to the Central City Brew Pub, we had trouble getting many of the beers we wanted, as we visited at a time when the restaurant was changing a number of kegs and menu items over with the spring season in mind. Still, with a large list of prospective brews, we were still able to stumble across diamonds in the rough, such as the Scotch Ale… we just had to have our choices narrowed down for us.

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