Village Gardener Beet Session Ale
Reviewed by Brady White on October 26, 2017 in Local Heroes Guide
The Details
- Brewery: Village Brewery
- Origin: Calgary, AB, CA
- Rated On: October 26, 2017
- Best Before: N/A
- ABV: 4.7%
- Ideal Temperature: cool to cellar temperature
- Style: Vegetable Session Ale
- Rating: GOOD !
The Review

This 650ml bottle pours a clear, bright pale salmon amber colour, with two fingers of puffy, chunky, and somewhat creamy off-white head, which leaves some random de-icing back car window lace around the glass as things slowly sink out of sight.
It smells of cold borscht (the only kind I’ve ever had, thank you Polish ex-girlfriend), grainy and crackery pale malt, and some musty, leafy, and herbal green hop bitters. The taste is bready and grainy pale malt, none-too-subtle earthy and vegetal beets, a hint of wayward son yeastiness, and more leafy, musty, and dead floral ‘verdant’ hoppiness. The carbonation is average in its palate-pinging frothiness, the body a decent medium weight, and not particularly smooth, but hardly leaning in the other direction, either. It finishes trending dry, the beets and fading malt in a dance of lingering death.
Overall – well, I cannot fault truth in advertising, when it’s actually true, right? This is a session ale (4.7% represent!), and the beets aren’t exactly shy, to say the least. Interesting, and very autumn-friendly, with a certain joie-de-vivre of Alberta harvest mentality. Good stuff.