Posted by Greg Clow in beer, beverages on March 25, 2008 at 4:31 pm

"Contract Brewing." It's a short phrase, but one that carries a lot of baggage in the beer-making world. In simple terms, it refers to situations where a person or company with no brewing facilities of their own pays an existing brewery to make beer for them, which they in turn sell under their own brand name.

Often, it's a route used by marketing companies that have more interest in "building a brand" or making a buck than in selling decent beer. One particularly obvious (and obnoxious) example of this approach was Bootie Beer, a low-rent lager with the slogan "America's Entertainment Beer" that claimed to be made in Florida, while it was actually brewed at City Brewery, a large plant in LaCrosse, Wisconsin. (I refer to Bootie in the past tense, by the way, because the brand was a colossal failure that went bust earlier this year.)

Beers like Bootie have given contract brews a bad name, but being brewed under contract isn't necessarily an indicator of poor quality. South of the border, the popular and well-respected Boston Brewing Company (known for their Samuel Adams brands) and Brooklyn Brewery both started out with beers brewed on contract. And closer to home, the outstanding Denison's Weissbier and Dunkel are both brewed at Black Oak.

All of which is a roundabout way of introducing my picks for this week's column, a pair of contract brewed beers called Headstrong Pale Ale and Headstrong Munich Lager.

The Headstrong name was originally used for a pale ale brewed by Big Hole Brewing in Belgrade, Montana, and the brand and recipe was licensed for Canada a few years ago by beer import agency Premier Brands. The agency contracted Guelph's Wellington Brewery to brew it, as well as the newly created Munich Lager, for distribution on draught and in 650 ml bottles. Recently, in keeping with the LCBO's push to stock beer in cans rather than bottles, both beers were relaunched in 473 ml cans ( LCBO 50914 & 50922 - $2.20/473 ml), with production being moved down south to the aforementioned City Brewing.

Yeah, it's a bit of a complicated history, but the end result is a couple of quite decent beers, starting with the Pale Ale, which is a bit of a hybrid of the original UK and new-fangled US pale ale styles. It's very well balanced, with a solid malt backing holding notes of caramel and toffee, and robust hops with strong elements of orange and tea. The hops linger in the finish longer than is typical for an English pale or bitter, but aren't as tongue-scrapingly bitter as in many American examples. The alcohol also sits somewhere in the middle - the 5.5% is stronger than a usual UK ale, but fairly mild by American pale ale standards. But style niggling aside, it's a very nice quaff.

The same can be said about the Munich Lager, which actually surprised me a little, as I had been disappointed the couple of times I'd had it in bottles. I enjoyed the draught version, though, so I think it's probably a question of freshness, which is something that cans do a better job of protecting than bottles. It has a golden-orange hue that's a bit darker than the European lagers that are most familiar to Ontario drinkers, and a flavour profile that is a bit bigger as well. The malt flavour has some caramel tones similar to the Pale Ale, but also a nice fresh bread note, and the hops hold some essence of citrus zest along with some pleasant herbal characteristics that also come through in the aroma.

Like the Pale Ale, the Munich Lager doesn't cleave to one particular style, although the Helles lager style from Bavaria may be the closest point of comparison. Also like the Pale, it proves that it's possible to produce a great beer via contract brewing, as long as beer itself is considered to be as important as the brand - or preferably, more so.