The Banff Ave. Brewing Co. is part of the Bear Hill chain of brewpubs across Alberta, and is indeed located in the picturesque mountain tourist mecca of Banff.  They have brewed this Kölsch as an ode to celebrate the nearby Mt. Norquay ski resort’s 90th year of being in business.

This 650ml bottle pours a hazy, pale golden straw colour, with one finger of weakly puffy, fizzy, and bubbly dirty white head, which leaves some streaky coral atoll lace around the glass as things quickly recede.

It smells of semi-sweet, bready pale malt, an overripe apple and pear fruitiness, neutered lemons, subtle earthy yeast, and gentle leafy, floral, and dead grassy hop bitters. The taste is grainy and doughy pale malt, none too tart lemon, muddled pome fruit, wandering estery yeast, and more plain earthy, weedy, and floral hoppiness.  The bubbles are pretty tame in their wan and stretched-out frothiness, the body a so-so medium weight, and generally smooth, nothing particularly egregious suddenly popping up to say boo. It finishes off-dry, the gritty pale malt doing well to linger, I suppose, but in the absence of most other previously good to go flavours.

Overall, not a bad version of the style, if a tad simple and underdeveloped at certain junctures, for example, the lack of any biscuity edge to the malt. In the end, however, this goes down rather easily, and I would imagine even more so sitting outside on a sunny summer day in the Canadian Rockies.