Review: Yukon Brewing Breakfast at the Brewery Mimosa Kölsch


It's 1AM so that means it's the absolute best time to have a mimosa.. screw sleep, let's have breakfast! Yukon Brewing is bringing out 12 different beerss for Canada's 150th birthday throughout 2017 as well as the brewery's 20th anniversary: some of them are old favourites, others are new recipes and of course there's going to be some unique styles in the mix.

The first time I ever had a beer mimosa was at Unibroue - it was Blanche de Chambly and orange juice and frankly.. it was amazing! The folks over at Yukon Brewing just came out with Breakfast at the Brewery, a kölsch (lagered ale) brewed with four kinds of oranges. The beer tops out at 5% ABV and I absolutely love how Yukon Brewing pays homage to classic films like Breakfast at Tiffany's on their limited release beers.

Appearance: Pours a cloudy, juicy, orange ale with a bit of off-white head on top. The head is just a supporting actor in this beer as the body is the main star of the show - it reminds me of a really heavy witbier or of one of those popular juicy IPAs everyone seems to be making now days.

Aroma: For some reason, this smells exactly like I was expecting it to - it kind of has a gose vibe to it as it's giving off a mild sourness to it with the yeast, a hint of lemon, for some reason some salt, a hint of graininess and a moderate orangey citrus aroma that's giving off mostly marmalade, nectarine and bitter blood orange.

Taste: While the aroma reminded me quite a bit of a gose (which for some reason I was expecting even before buying it), to me.. this is very much a kölsch with a lot of oranges to it.. which is exactly what the beer is aiming for! The first thing I get is a crisp, light yet grainy lagery-like beer that leaves behind a bit of a toasted barley aftertaste, then I get notes of blood orange that gives it a bit of that grapefruity flavour it seems to have.. which I hated until only a few years ago, a bit of a sweet juicy valencia orange and a bit of tangerine in there to be the middle ground between those two, I know there's other oranges in here, but this is all I'm tasting right now. Light amount of saltiness reminiscent to a gose but the mouth-puckering sourness isn't there, in fact - this is pretty much a delight.

Overall Thoughts: I'd like to be drinking this on a morning day off with an additional splash of good not from concentrate OJ but it's past 1AM and the beer has been calling my name since 3:30PM. You do notice the lagered ale (kölsch) notes in this beer but this really does remind me of a beer mimosa to an extent. I'd recommend this to radler, shandy and beer cocktail fans, it's reminiscent of a decent radler or shandy but with a normal 5.0% ABV. Breakfast at the Brewery is very easy to drink and if it was a permanent product in can form, it would sell really well to the radler demographic as it's the least heavy beer I've had all day.

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