No Corporate Beer Reviews: Jam Up the Mash

Beer: Jam Up the Mash
Brewery: Collective Arts Brewing (Hamilton, Ontario)
Style: Sour – Other
5.2% ABV / N/A IBU

The dominant character of Jam Up the Mash is its dryness. This former seasonal brew that Collective Arts Brewing has added to its year-round line-up is somewhere between a sour and a wild ale; perhaps a sour in name only, and more like a wild ale based on the mixed fermentation process that guides its creation. It’s crisp and tart, rather than mouth-puckeringly sour, and the perfect kind of brew for hanging out on your porch in your underpants, or whatever other exhibitionist thing you do when you think no one else is looking.

Jam Up the Mash is also remarkably balanced for a sour, due to bouquet of hops used for the dry-hopping phase. The O.G. Version of Jam Up the Mash split the difference between Nelson Sauvin hops from New Zealand (the secret weapon of the New Zealand Pale Ale style) and Vic Secret. The newer formulation of Jam Up the Mash runs the table on Pacific Northwest hops, keeping the Vic Secret, and subbing in Citra and Mosaic. If you’re going to dry-hop a sour or a cider, basically anything with a “fruitier” profile, that’s absolutely the right thing to do and the right way to do it.

Jam Up the Mash is easy to drink and sports a very clean finish, with juicy, lemony notes throughout. It ain’t much to look at in a glass, but shout-out to Collective Arts for its continued excellence in reproducing the work of up-and-coming visual and street artists on each of its tallboy cans. Collective Arts has a distinct visual aesthetic for its products, and is doing some pretty wild things with gruited sours and hoppier styles of beer. There’s magic inside and outside of the can.

For more info, check out Collective Arts Brewing here.