Brewery Preview: Aurum Brewing, Carrying Place, Prince Edward County

Just before I left for my Christmas break, I received a message from Jordan St. John about a new brewery called Aurum. He had been in touch with them, he said, and had requested some tasting samples, not just for himself, but for me, as well. “(E)verything I hear is very positive,” he wrote me.

Said samples, one of each of six different brands, were dropped off at east Toronto’s Godspeed Brewery and there they waited – refrigerated, of course – for my return. Earlier this month, I drove out and picked them up, and since then have spent some time sampling each and making notes.

And there arose my quandary. As I was obviously able to taste each only once, and not my customary two or three times, I am reluctant to offer here reviews and scores. Add to that the fact that Jordan informs me these were the brewery’s first beers, now up to four months old, and that they might not be made in precisely the same way again, and my reluctance grows further, as does my quandary.

All of which is how I arrived at this, my first-ever Brewery Preview. It is meant not to cast judgement upon the beers themselves, but rather to act as a crystal ball in predicting what you might expect to come from the brewery down the line.

From Aurum’s Facebook page, I know that the brewery is the work of two men, Joe and Prat, “two brewers from opposite sides of the globe who decided great beer was worth chasing.” Joe’s background appears to be in geology and mining, while Prat discovered his passion for brewing while in hotel school in India. The brewery they have built, which owing to legislative delays has yet to open to customers at the time of writing, sits on a farm on the south side of the Bay of Quinte, about a 30 minute drive from Picton.

The beer, in general, is off to a very good start. Lohe, their altbier-styled release, and the German-style pils, Klar, are the stand-outs, although in many ways I was most fascinated by the “Alsatian-Style Pils,” Bourg, if only because it is so rare to find a beer hopped with the French variety, Strisselspalt.

Ironically a little hazy, Klar, the name of which is German for ‘clear,’ is fresh, lightly herbal, and lively, with great thirst-quenching appeal, while Lohe nails the style wonderfully with a sweetish start and bone-dry finish, plus the characteristic earthiness one finds in Düsseldorf altbiers. Bourg is a beer that would be easy to dismiss as pedestrian, but actually becomes more intriguing with every sip, floral, biscuity, and a little lemony.

Dobrý 12°, the brewery’s ‘Czech-Style pilsner,’ is a bit more problematic with its slight lack of balance between the sweetish mid-palate and bitter finish, and the lagered ale, Heinzel, suffers from greater balance issues with an assertive bitterness that would put even the hoppiest of kölsches to shame.

While I have to give Aurum credit for attempting a Kiwi-style pilsner in Keen, something seldom seen in these parts, there is a heavy-handedness to this beer that belies the beauty of its base style. Turbid in appearance, it screams rather than whispers the fruity qualities of New Zealand hops and, aside from its massive retro-olfactory hit of tropical fruitiness, has frustratingly little to offer. I would be willing to lend the brewery my copy of Michael Donaldson’s book, Richard Emerson: The Hopfather, if they would like to gain insight into the development and character of the original New Zealand pilsner.

Still, I am very encouraged by this brewery overall and look forward to sampling their beers further as they mature and develop and finally get their taproom open to the public. My gut instincts are that perhaps you, dear reader, should feel the same way.