B.S. Grand Cru is an amped-up version of Bent Stick’s witbier, and a brewery-only exclusive purchase. Hey, it gave me an excuse to head back on up to the splendour of the Fort Road area of Edmonton, at least!
This 650ml bottle pours a murky, dark apricot amber colour, with two hipster skinny fingers of puffy, loosely foamy, and fizzy tan head, which leaves a few instances of hanging archipelago lace around the glass as it quickly blows off.
It smells of banana Peeps at Easter time, bruised banana peel, and banana bread (get the picture?), with some mild clove, white pepper, and estery yeast spiciness, chewed-out Hubba Bubba, and very tame leafy, weedy, and perfumed floral green hop bitters. The taste is bready and doughy caramel malt, still complex ripe banana notes, fading pink bubblegum, muddled earthy spice (maybe some musty clove stands out), a plain Belgian-esque yeastiness, and more underwhelming (by design, of course) weedy, dusty, and gently soused-up floral verdant hoppiness. The carbonation is quite active in its palate-pinging frothiness, the body a solid medium weight, and generally smooth, with a gentle airy creaminess slowly evolving as things warm up a bit out of the ol’ basement fridge. It finishes off-dry, the malt, banana esters, and fading spice the order of the day.
Overall, this comes across mainly as the midpoint between the base witbier, and a higher-test Belgian Strong Dark Ale. It is not entirely quite the latter, but essentially pumps up the former, by maintaining (at the very minimum) the yeast, spice, and lighter fruitiness. Yes, not exactly perfectly definable, but an enjoyable and drinkable offering, especially given the totally obfuscated 17-proof wowee sauce quotient.