Halo Brewery GOTO
Halo makes some interesting beers, and is a brewery with whom I associated IPAs, sours, and sour IPAs, perhaps unjustifyably. I recently visited and bought one of everything. I felt like they were a little annoyed at this, but what can you do?
GOTO is a pilsner. They are not laying claim to geographic origins, which is completely fair, and there is no hop listing, which is less fair, but makes the tasting more interesting.
It’s a straw coloured beer, maybe. In my left hand it was indeed straw, but my right was more yellow. Peculiar but perhaps different wave lengths were coming from different directions. It’s fairly clear, and the head was somewhere around the midpoint of tight and loose.
The aromas here are not what I expected. Pilsners, strangely, are invariable derivatives of the German type, and I usually expect, and am confirmed on, a delicate but firmly present floral “noble hop” nose. Often there is some big myrcene freshness as well. This nose is grassy, citrusy and minerally. It was fairly hard to pinpoint at first, and short of running out and sniffing through the citrus fruits, I would say it’s a dialed back lemon, maybe like a salty lemon. Salt has no smell, but there you have it. There is a bit of a yeasty quality to this as well, which is inconsistent with the process, so I chalk it up to the citrus hop expression pretending to be an ester.
The malt is like fresh bread. Bitterness is firm and sharp. Almost lightly acidic, or mildly tart, but perhaps it’s again a suggestion from the citrus. The mind is afterall, a powerful thing. I did plug my nose and attempted to fully dial in my tongue with the intention of isolating chemosensation from any retronasal. I can say that there is a mild tingle afterall. It just adds to the refreshing nature of this one.
The finish is pretty lengthy. The malt drops off hard and leaves the bitterness to remain on the palate for around 23 seconds. I timed it. Nerd alert.
It’s a refreshing beer, a good thirst quencher that one could make their way through rather quickly. At the same time, the decision to veer slightly off the beaten path offers the drink something to think about. Fast or slow, taster’s choice.
- 4.4% ABV
- Pilsner
- Halo Brewery, 247 Wallace Ave, Toronto, Ontario, Canada