The Collines-de-l’Outaouais region was developed around mining, mainly of mica. A russet beer with caramel accents, a clean bitterness and hop aromas reminiscent of black tea.
The town of Cantley flourished during the heyday of industrialized mining, which began around 1890 and ended in the mid-1900s. This municipality was rich in mica, at first considered a waste product, until the discovery that it was an excellent electrical insulator. The most important mines in the area were the Blackburn and Dacey mines. Although the former was the most prolific, if not the most important mica mine in the West, it was the Dacey mine that produced the artifact that inspired the beer’s name.
On display in Mary-Anne Phillips Park is a mine cart from the property on which the old Dacey mine once stood. This miniature steel rail car, reminiscent of Bip Bip and Coyote’s crazy run-ins in Looney Tunes, was used to transport ore from the bottom of the mine. The display of this rare specimen of a perfectly preserved and over 100 years old wagon, in a Cantley public park, is a demonstration of our Hills’ rich past.
For our English IPA, we imagined the mine wagons carrying hops, the brewers’ green gold, to produce beer. IPA (Indian pale ale) is typically the style most associated with hops and their sharp bitterness. It goes without saying that, in the early days of this style, the more massive addition of hops and the higher alcohol content meant that the beer would better withstand transport to the far-flung English colonies of India.
While many modern IPAs and all their North American variations present us with beers that are on the blond, golden or slightly orange side, English IPAs were historically red or caramel. Before the advent of blond lagers, English pale ales were russet, as the hardness of the water in the UK made it impossible to produce a blond malt.
Made entirely from Quebec ingredients, Innomalt’s English pale ale provides a nice biscuity base to the product, accented by a nice dose of Maltbroue’s CaraUnic 60 barley, giving it caramel flavors, balancing the bitterness and hop flavors of this beer. A magnum base of Houblonnière Lupuline provides the hearty 50 IBU of this beer, whose bitterness hints at the English teas of Golding and Jarret Noir’s Fuggle. A medium-attenuated yeast from Labo Solution Brassicole gives the final product a nice roundness, contributing to the beer’s balance of bitterness, sweetness, caramel, toast, and herbaceous notes.