VCBW Women and Beer
Vancouver Craft Beer Week has come to an end, and sadly I was only able to attend one event (holy shit ticket prices were INSANE.) However, I thoroughly enjoyed the event I was able to attend.
On Thursday, my trusty beergeeklady and I went to the Republic to check out the Women and Beer event.
It. was. amazing.
There were beers from Spinnakers, Crannog, Salt Spring, Howe Sound, Big River, I’m sure I’m forgetting some and there was a keg of the Women’s Collaborative Brew (a smoked cherry saison).
Spinnakers brought a Northwest Ale. Pale, hoppy and was…I can’t even put into words how much I liked this. It was a perfect beer. The aroma was floral with a bit of citrus, it was light, but had good body. I didn’t get a chance to ask if they would be bottling it, but if they are, this is going to be one of my summer beer. Chloe was very impressed with the aroma, and yes, several days later, we’re still talking about how awesome that was.
I’d never had a Salt Spring beer, so I was looking forward to it. They had a maple bud ale. It was light on the maple flavor, but honestly, I prefer that. I’m not a big fan of really sweet maple beer. I’d definitely get that again.
I was somewhat hesitant to try the Howe Sound. I’m not really a fan of theirs. Nothing I’d had from them has really wowed me. However, I quite enjoyed the keg they had. I can’t recall if it was the King Hef or another one (I think it might have been another one) But we had at least 2 of these.
Crannog. Oh Crannog. I wore my Backhand of God shirt to the event, which the owners seemed to appreciate (we got coasters!)
Crannog had the Backhand of God and a Porter. The porter had a wonderfully silky mouthfeel and a sweet chocolate taste. I had at least 2 of them as well.
Big River Bitter was decent, but the aroma put me off a bit. However, the collab brew was AMAZING. I’ve never had a smoked cherry saison (has anyone?) and it was so. fucking. good. It literally had a smoky, cherry taste. I would love to get this on a semi-regular basis.
Also in attendance was The Beer Goddess (http://beergoddess.com/) Lisa Morrison, who wrote a fabulous beer guide to the Northwest and is a lovely lady to chat to. I lovelovelove that there is a strong female interest in craft beer.
My only complaint about the evening is that the beer/food pairing was a bit..off. I thought it would be a sit-down dinner with beer to go with each plate, but they just had bar staff bringing plates of food around while we all sipped various samples. If you were lucky, the one you were having matched what food was going around.
A List
Because who doesn’t love a fucking list.
As of now (and I say as of now, because there are always new and delicious things to try), this is my list of Top 5 Stouts.
In no particular order.
Crannog Backhand of God Stout
Brooklyn Double Chocolate Stout
Garrison Martello Stout
Dieu du ciel! Aphrodisiaque
McAuslan St-Ambroise Oatmeal Stout
ALSO. Read this and learn something.
Birthdays, beer and Blades of Steel
My lovely and talented friend Nick suggested we have a beer potluck for our birthdays.
We did.
It was glorious.
In a crazily amazing gift from the universe, Garrison arrived in Vancouver the day of the gathering at Chez Lesbos. HAPPY BIRTHDAY TO ME. Needless to say, we had some. And a lot of other stuff. Nick and his equally lovely fiancée Lauren brought a shit-ton of beer. I love that I can count on them for beer and beer snobbery (and we will seriously miss the HELL out of you two when you depart the Great White North for your respective fancypants Ivy League educational experiences). Katie and G-Hump showed up with some Innis and Gunn and a couple of Belgian beer and Ashley and Derek obliged my request to bring me a Garrison Mixed 6.
ON TO THE BEER!
A shot of most of the beer.
First up, I made everyone drink Garrison because I rave about it.
The comments were:
Me: FUCK YES, GARRISON IN VANCOUVER.
Lauren: That’s like a punch in the face with hops…but with a smooth finish!
Nick: Jesus, yeah, it is. It’s good though.
Chloe: FUCK YES, GARRISON IN VANCOUVER.
I have others backing up my ranting. Huzzah.
Nick shows off beer #2
Rogue Northwestern and Garrison.
I will admit that I was geekily excited for this because I watch Deadliest Catch. I also fucking love Rogue. I found this one to be pretty hoppy, but didn’t have the “punch in the face” hops taste that I dislike about a lot of ales. It was a good way to start the evening and it followed the Garrison IPA well. I’m by no means a giant fan of hoppy beer still, but I’m starting to find specific ones that I really like. Chloe agrees; hoppy, but not overly so, but she’s still more of a dark beer girl.
The one on the far right is up next: Samuel Smith Imperial Stout
Chloe made a good point: It was really sweet with an almost port-like quality. And it totally did seem like a beerport. Y’all know I love me my stouts and I did like this, but I didn’t *love* it. The colour was fabulous and had a great head and was smooth. But it was sweet and lacked a bit of that coffee/chocolate/roasty flavor that I’ve come to expect in a stout. I’ll probably try it again though, and I’ll definitely pick up a bottle when I eventually get around to making my stout chocolate cake.
Nest beer!
Made with real owl! (not really). Lauren loves owls so I wasn’t overly surprised that she arrived with a beer with an owl on the cap. If only the beer was as tasty as that owl is cute. The general consensus was “HOLY FUCK THAT IS SWEET” and both Chloe and Nick made some interesting faces upon tasting it. I’ve since seen a few other kinds from this line and I’m tempted to give ‘em a shot out of sheer curiosity.
Upright
I had such high hopes for this. Open fermented beer, the beer nerds online go mental for it but damn. I was totally disappointed. As strange as the owl beer was, this one wins for strangest and, well, worst. The first couple of sips were ok. Not great, but ok. But then it tasted like vinegar. No really. Actual vinegar. I couldn’t finish my glass. Chloe and someone else said it tasted like wine that had gone bad. Upright does a hot pepper beer that I might try because I like stuff in that vein, but I will not be trying the Six again.
Moylan’s Irish Red
I’ve had a lot of Irish Reds. I’ve had some godawful ones, and some amazing ones. This was an incredibly interesting one. It had low carbonation, was surprisingly balanced and had a great roasty finish. I don’t think I’ve had a Red quite like it. I’m definitely going to get this again.
Ok. So it was at about this point that Katie came out of the bathroom wearing one of my bras over her shirt (i’m not putting that picture up) and I realized how much (strong) beer we’d consumed so some of the details are a tad fuzzy.
Drinking this later didn’t help:
In this, you can see O Pale Ale, Edelweiss, Brooklyn, and the Tripel I forget the name of.
The O was GREAT. I need to get that again.
Brooklyn. Nothing needs to be said aside from excellent. I’ve had it before and I will continue to drink it. It’s in my top 5 stouts for sure.
Edelweiss, from what I recall, was a wheat beer and was really smooth with a citrusy-clovey taste. And so was the Tripel.
Russell Blood Alley Bitter
Nick: Hey, look at this. Have you had this?
Me: Russell? Seriously?
Nick: I KNOW! But they’ve been doing new and interesting things, and this is really good. I was surprised that something this good can come from Surrey. SURREY!
Russell, I hate most of what you make but you make a good bitter.
Bees!
We had an owl beer and a bee beer. I’ve had some of the Fullers stuff before and it’s not terrible. Chloe had more of this than I did and she said it’s sweet, but not sickly sweet and is completely drinkable, but it’s not something that makes you go “OMFG this is brilliant”.
After we had consumed everything containing alcohol in the apartment, I mentioned that I had Blades of Steel on the Wii. The guys lost their minds and then had a serious male bonding session.
To those who’ve given me suggestions on what to drink. I have not forgotten, I’ve just been unemployed forever and figured that using the limited funds I had to pay rent were slightly more important than beer. I have the list saved and will be getting to them over the next few months. I will still publicly acknowledge your awesome taste in beer when I get to it 
How’s she goin, b’y?
I’m going to interrupt the BeerBlog for a minute and ramble about something.
It’s been pointed out to me again recently that Cape Bretoners are weird.
The wonderfully talented Carmen Townsend and the Shakey Deals played a show here this week. Being a fan/friend of the drummer/Caper in Van, I put on my band t-shirt, took my Cape Breton flag off the wall, put it on like a cape and went to the show.
I fully expected that there would be a small herd of Capers there with mainlander friends in tow (which is what I had done). I know how awesome the band is and knew that people would respond well to a rock show like this. I also knew that even though I didn’t know any of the others from home going to the show, I’d still be able to talk to them and chat.
An example. I was sitting with my friends when a guy came running up to my table and asked “OK! So who here is Baby Jungle?*” to which I replied “Me! But I’m actually Older Jungle. You’re Ryan!” and he gave me a big hug and we talked for a bit.
*Jungle is my brother’s nickname. We’re big on nicknames at home.
Ryan said that he had been talking to Jungle that day and was told that he had to find me and give me a hug. I gladly accepted and we got on like old friends who hadn’t seen each other for a while. My friends found it kind of odd. Our “patriotism” is strange to people not from CB. I was questioned as to why we do this, what is the “Cape Breton thing”, why do we forge connections with total strangers based simply on the place we live(d)? Other parts of the country don’t do this (aside from perhaps Newfoundlanders). I cannot give a definite answer as I cannot speak for all of us, but I have my theories.
We, as east coasters, have to deal with our fair share of stereotyping. Here is a list of some of the comments I’ve heard over the years regarding NS/CB/NL.
“Well, you’re all poor out here so you can’t travel and you don’t know anything about world cultures”
“Wait, you’re not all poor fishermen?”
“You’re just a bunch of unemployed alcoholics/fishermen/uneducated hicks”
“Nova Scotia and Newfoundland are the same thing. No really, they are”
“I thought everyone out here played fiddles and stuff and lived on boats”
and so forth. Most of these came from people from Ontario and Alberta. When I lived in Alberta, I was given SUCH shit for my accent and had to deal with a barrage of “Newfie” jokes (despite only being a Newf by heritage) and actually got into an argument over the geographical locations of both NS and NL (people still refuse to believe that they are in fact 2 SEPARATE PROVINCES). I heard so many mangled attempts at mimicking my accent, lobster jokes and references to being stupid and “on pogey” (which I still hear in Vancouver and honestly, it’s not funny anymore). When I was at university, a good number of students from Ontario were surprised to find out that yes, we are in fact rather educated, speak English (and sometimes French/Gaelic) fluently and were not all children of retarded alcoholic fishermen.
I grew up in CB in the 80s-90s. I am clearly too young to remember the heydays of the steel/coal industries, but I distinctly remember the economical climate after those industries crumbled. To say it was not good is an understatement and the economy at home is still highly sub-par. However, I’m willing to bet that the vast majority of those who have secure employment in CB are quite grateful for it, no matter how shitty that job may be. It can be hard to get by, and I know many families, even years ago, who had members go elsewhere to find work and sent money home. Because of that economic downturn, yes, many people are far from rich, but it doesn’t mean that everyone is poor. We did (and still do) the best with what we can. It’s a small area, so a lot of people just ended up doing the same things and going to the same places for years. We’ve got shared experiences that will connect us.
We’ve had to grow up and live in an area with a struggling economy, that has some of the highest cancer rates in the country, and that’s home to one of the country’s biggest and grossest toxic waste sites. However, it’s also home to one of the biggest Celtic music festivals in the world, some of the most amazing scenery in Canada, epic weather bombs (White Juan, anyone?), our own tartan, our own flag, Gaelic/English road signs, fabulous beer, kitchen parties and a staggeringly impressive music scene. I am incredibly proud of the bands and singers and writers and performers from CB that have had success and have “made it” on a national/international scale, and I am just as proud of bands and singers and writers and performers that are making a name for themselves on a local level.
So this is what I think it comes down to. That Cape Breton thing. We’ve all had to deal with the stupid stereotype comments at some point. We know the same scenery. The same landmarks. The same local historical events (The last time the Oilers won the Calder Cup, when John Morris Rankin passed, the McDonalds Murders, the Cabot Trail, Mira Gut, Ingonish, Mabou, Inverness Beach, the Causeway, Tim Horton’s). We all know what it’s like to live there. It’s not always fun, it’s not always pretty, it’s not always exciting, it’s far from perfect, but it’s home. It will always be home. When we’re out, away from home, meeting someone from CB is almost like having a little piece of home returned to you. It’s nice to hear the accent, to talk about home and just chat with someone who, at a very base level, understands the culture the way you do.
BeerBlog Returns!
Gah. I do apologize for the delay. Crippling unemployment makes it hard to purchase beer. But I’ve managed to try some via gifts and having a temp job before NYE, so huzzah for us!
First up is this:
St Ambroise. Good god, that place makes a delicious brew. We’d had the stout a while back and absolutely loved it. It’s in my top 5 favourite stouts for sure. Interestingly enough (to us, anyway) their stout goes incredibly well with M&Ms. No really. It does. Anyway, that wasn’t a new brew, technically but hey, it was offered so we took it.
We also had the Scotch Ale. Scotch Ales are a bit of a new thing for me, as I’ve only been able to really find them en masse out here. We’ve had a few, but this was the best. Have you ever had really, really good Scottish shortbread cookies? Like really rich buttery ones that almost melt in your mouth? Yeah this beer tasted similar to those, but, beer-y. I know that doesn’t make ANY sense but that’s ok. It was so good, my brain shut down for a minute. Chloe put it quite well: “It tastes like shortbreads but with more butterscotch flavor”.
Unfortunately, this stuff is hard to find in regular stores. Even the fairly well-stocked Dover Arms doesn’t have it. Most BC Liquor Stores have the stout, the apricot and the blonde. But the Scotch ale comes in a variety pack and I’m thinking I’m going to have to trek out to East Van or down to King Edward and Oak to check out some independent stores there.
Anyway, sorry we’ve taken forever to do another entry. We’ve had a few lately and if I get a full-time job soon, we’ll be able to do this more regularly. Yay!
Coming soon: Cannery Scotch Ale, Cannery Mixed 6, Sam Adams Boston Lager
BeerBlog: A Rant
Keith’s to be brewed elsewhere?! ZOMG IT WON’T BE NOVA SCOTIAN!!!~`~!!!@“11
UGH. Newsflash, people. THIS IS NOT NEW INFORMATION.
I feel badly for those losing jobs. It’s a shit economy (jebus knows I’m still looking for a job and would take anything if it came my way now) and the Nova Scotian job market is rough at the best of times. But really. People should really do a bit ‘o research before they bombard the Keith’s Facebook page with shrieking, mis-spelled rants calling for boycotts.
If you read through the Keith’s website, you will see that there is a page titled The Brewmasters’ Journal. Take a little read through that, if you will.
Notice anything? Notice the posts saying that they’re brewing in Creston, BC? Since 2009?
Keith’s has never, ever been a quality brew. It’s flat, bland and has an awful smell. I noticed a bottle at a pub recently and chuckled to my friend that it was so weird they still branded themselves as a Nova Scotian beer despite not being exclusively brewed there. Also, the “brewery tour” downtown? That isn’t a working brewery, in case people hadn’t caught on. The Red Stag has lovely food, but the “brewery” is a facade.
I’ve said this for years and I’ll keep saying it. If people really, truly want to drink and enjoy Nova Scotian beer, please, support local breweries. I’ll even link you to the places to go.
Garrison Brewing! Lovely staff, lovely beer. They have a variety of seasonal brews and almost every beer I’ve tried has been wonderful
I don’t like Propeller, but they’re local and deserve support nonetheless.
Rogue’s Roost Pub, on Spring Garden.
So, again, in case I end up getting hatemail, I DO feel badly for people out of work now. Especially with the holidays approaching. What I do not feel badly for is hating on Keith’s.
Support REAL local beer!
BeerBlog Continues!
Apologies for the delay. Work was busy, and now I’m unemployed again so I have free time.
MOVING ON!
The very lovely Lauren brought us some Driftwood Ale on our Games Night a few weeks ago. Now, I like ales. I do. But I prefer reds and ambers and some fruit ales. Pales and IPAs are good, but I’m not big on the BAMHOPS taste that you get. Even Garrison’s Hopyard didn’t win me over, and we all know my thoughts on them. I don’t know what it is, but the overwhelmingly flowery aroma of most hops doesn’t do much for me. However. Chloe and I both agreed that Driftwood Ale is quite nice. It definitely has that floral scent of hops and the taste is a bit like a punch in the tongue but it isn’t as intense as others, which was nice. What I quite enjoyed was that as I kept drinking, the taste stayed the same. I know that sounds weird, but with some beer I’ve had, the taste gets to be too strong or too bitter or too weak and so forth. But this was a great, clean, consistent flavor. Considering my intro to IPA’s and their kind was Alexander Keith’s (which NO ONE, EVER, AT ANYTIME, SHOULD DRINK), to taste a REAL ale was a bit of a shock at first. Maybe I’ll grow to like ‘em. Who knows. I wasn’t big on porters/stouts a while back but now I’m quite the fan. Another thing to note was how awesome the colour was.
Great ale colour and a really frothy head.
I’m not in a big rush to try the ale again (but thanks again Lauren!). I am curious about their other brews though. They have a wheat and something else I noticed last night at the store but the name escapes me.
That, to me, is the sign of a quality brewery. Even though I’m not keen on one beer, it was interesting enough to get me curious about other brews.
BeerBlog Part 4: Fruli
This one was suggested by 2 people (thanks to Heather and Chelsea for it!) so I had to get it rather early on.
I have tried various fruit beer over the years: Garrison, Pumphouse, Cannery Blackberry Porter (amazing), Cannery Apricot (good not not as amazing as the blackberry), St Ambroise Apricot, Pyramid Apricot, Swans Berry, GIB Raspberry, and now Fruli.
Fruit beer, or at least the ones I’ve had, tend to go in several directions. They can be an incredible balance of beer and fruit flavor, they can be fruity drinks that kind of taste like they might have beer in them, or they can be utter, total, shit. Most of the ones I’ve listed up there are a great balance of beer/fruit. Garrison and Cannery are the better ones. Swans was good, but it was a tad on the sweet side. Granville Island should just stop making their raspberry all together. That shit is offensive to beer drinkers. Think Corona-style, but almost neon pink and with the most offensively grossly sweet taste that left a rather odd film in my mouth.
So when I poured the Fruli, I was glad that it at least looked like a wheat beer. It was pink, yes, but it was at least cloudy. Huzzah! It could be good!
The aroma was incredible. Sweet, but not overpoweringly so and it still had that underlying “yes, this is definitely a beer” scent that GIB lacks. It WAS sweet. Sweet to the point where one is enough, but I still liked it very much. I don’t think I’ll be getting it on a regular basis, but I’ll definitely be picking it up as a bit of a treat in the future. This was the first strawberry beer I’ve had and I must say, it’s set a bar for other strawberry beer out there.
For some reason WordPress isn’t letting the resized picture show up. So sorry about that and blame the website.
Here’s Chloe’s take on it.
I was a bit hesistant going into this beer, as fruit beers can either be tasty and nuanced or sugary dreck (I’m looking at you, Granville Island Raspberry!). If a fruit beer pours almost see-through it’s probably going to suck. Fruli pours a cloudy pink and has just the right amount of carbonation. Its strawberry flavour is front-and-centre without being cloying, though I imagine it would start feeling that way after more than one bottle. It’s definitely not a beer I would drink multiples of in one sitting; by the time I’d finished my small bottle, I’d felt I’d had enough. If that sounds like a harsh criticism, I don’t mean it to be: think of Fruli as the dessert wine of beers.
I wouldn’t quite put Fruli in the league of the absolute best fruit beers I’ve had (Garrison’s Raspberry, Cannery’s Blackberry Porter and St. Ambroise’s Apricot Wheat Ale take that cake) but again, my sweet tooth isn’t very well developed. If I’m going to go for junk food, I’ll take chips over chocolate four times out of five. I love the other fruits beers I listed for their tartness and freshness. I didn’t quite get that with this beer, but considering that strawberry juice generally tends to be a little on the sweet side, I can’t imagine a better strawberry beer than Fruli.
In conclusion: Fruli=good.
BeerBlog Part 3: Bonus Beer!
Hello.
This is a bonus beer.
The liquor store near my house is hiring, so last night I ran down with a resume to apply (plz send me good vibes. If it’s full-time and pays more than what I get at this shit temp job I’m doing, I’ll dance from joy). I also picked up a bottle of Innis & Gunn and got a free glass with it (!!).
(Chloe is sick so she’s not partaking in this tasting).
I first discovered I&G when I randomly grabbed a bottle from the Kensington Wine Market in Calgary (check that place out. It’s lovely.) I was curious about it because the bottle says it’s aged in oak barrels, similar to whisky. “Hmm”, said I. “This could be interesting. Let’s see if it really DOES have toffee and vanilla tastes.”
Holy fuck it does.
What struck me most about the beer at first was the aroma. It was so strong, and so rich. I know how schmaltzy this is going to sound, but I really hadn’t smelled anything like it, especially in a beer. Even now, I still take time to give it a sniff before I drink. Aroma really does play a large part in the enjoyment of a good brew. It’s sweet, rich, almost warm and those toffee accents come through when you take a sip. The colour is a great gold and the head is thick, but doesn’t linger too long. It’s a little on the strong side, so I prefer this one to be a “sip over a little while” beer. It would go well with a hearty stew, with lamb or beef.
I&G do a couple of other lines as well: Rum cask (also delicious and wonderful), an IPA and a special Canadian Cask that was available here for Canada Day. That one fell kind of flat for me, unfortunately. It lacked that depth of the others. It was good, but I wouldn’t get it again. I’ll stick with the traditional oak aged or rum barrel ones.
A note on drinking this one, if you get it. I really recommend putting it into a glass rather than drinking it straight from the bottle. The flavour won’t be as well-rounded if it’s not. They have a special glass for it which enhances the taste, but any glass will suffice.
BeerBlog Part 2: Corona
Chloe: “It smells like mediocrity”.
Right then. After a long and mind-numbingly boring day at work, I grabbed that monstrosity of Corona on my way home (and got 2 bottles of something else for a future blog). I put it in the fridge, went to the Speakeasy for nachos and the Habs game, then came home and braced myself for the tasting.
I got it from the fridge, grabbed some glasses and sat on the couch with Chloe. She took one look at it, laughed, and said “well, you’re gonna be pissed tonight”. (Not so much). She also posed with it, while mocking it.
I popped the top and dispensed the brew. Immediately, I caught a whiff of what I can only describe as watered-down skunk aroma. The foam that could loosely be referred to as head lasted about 0.5 seconds and it looked and felt like pop, but with alcohol. Chloe pointed out that even for a light beer, it shouldn’t be that colour or THAT clear, and I agree. It was very watery, with a bitter start, then nothing. It was just “BAMGROSSBITTERTASTE……where’d it go?”.
No beer should look like that. Or taste like it, really.
Very early on, Chloe gave up. She said she didn’t need to taste any more of it to delve into it’s flavors because THERE AREN’T ANY (direct quote).
Credit for this one goes again to my cousin Bev and I gotta say, dude, how can you drink this? I couldn’t even finish the bottle, and that’s saying something. Even the cat was like “ahaha no, fuck that, it’s gross, take it away” (see photo)
Bev, I love ya but for the sake of your tastebuds, don’t drink it. You called it Mexican Pisswater on Facebook, and yes, I imagine if you were to drink the urine of a Mexican, it would taste like Corona.
It did not agree with my palate.
Next week! MOAR BEER! Not sure which yet. Might even be a BONUS BEER!
Also, I’ve had this bottle opener for years and I still laugh at it. Because I have the mentality of a 12 year old sometimes.
