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 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 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.
BeerBlog! Part 1
Hello and welcome to my beer blog project!
Thanks to everyone that suggested stuff for me to try. I’ll do my best to track it down and blog it (giving you credit for the suggestion).
Over the last few years, I’ve really become a beer fan (or snob. or geek. whatever). When I was younger and living in NS, there seemed to be a strong “Keith’s or nothing” mentality when it came to beer. Sometimes people would go for Coors or Bud or Blue, but rarely would I see anything that fell into the craft beer category. So I ended up with that “Keith’s or nothing” mentality for a while too. As I got older, my tastes changed. Thanks to Wild Rose Brewing in Alberta, I discovered the awesome world of craft beer and microbreweries. As pretentious as it sounds, craft beers are so much better than mass produced ones. Take a drink of a Bud, then a craft beer. The differences are incredible. I’m not saying that all big-breweries are making subpar beer. There are some large companies that I like (Rickards, Big Rock, Oland). The main difference is quality. Big breweries are out to profit (well, they all are really) so they brew stuff to appeal to everyone. Basically they make beer with little flavor and variation so people will drink it, and drink lots of it. Craft beer has a focus on quality. They brew in smaller batches to maintain quality control and their brews have more depth or more inventive (jalapeno beer, anyone?). The downside is, they’re not pulling in the profits of the big guys and it’s hard to get space (literally) in a market with multi-million dollar companies. (Watch the Beer Wars documentary. It goes into a lot of detail about this.)
Anyway. I dig a lot of beer. And I like to talk about it, try new ones and if I had the space/money, i’d make my own. But I don’t, so I’m just gonna drink my way through the Vancouver beer selection based on what you guys said to try, and share with you my story of how it goes down (har har puntastic).
To start with though, I’m going to go on for a bit about Garrison Brewing Co in Halifax, NS. I cannot say enough good things about this place. When I moved back to NS from Alberta, my friends were raving about Propeller beer. And I gotta say, I don’t see the appeal. Maybe the bottles I tried had skunked, but they didn’t taste that great. I had the IPA, Bitter and something else, but nothing impressed me. So when I went to a function at Garrison, I was hoping they weren’t like Propeller.
They are not. I will argue that their Irish Red is one of the best in the country. The colour is fantastic, it’s crisp and delicious and in my excessive purchasing of their product from various locations in the province, never once did they taste off. Their raspberry is the best I’ve had (WR comes in second) and their Tall Ship Amber can’t be beat, but there’s a place in Victoria that does one that’s about as good. The staff at Garrison are great. They love their beer and love to talk about it. I’d get Growlers filled on a regular basis and while it was often a mission given Halifax’s shitty transit system, it was totally worth it. My mom, who is NOT a beer fan, has tried the Red, Raspberry and Amber and even she says they’re amazing. So that says something. Their seasonals are great, though the jalapeno would probably be better for cooking than drinking.(But I drank it anyway).
Yours truly. In my old and messy room in Halifax, avec Garrison.
Here’s a list of what I can recall tasting:
Raspberry Wheat
Tall Ship Amber
Irish Red
Hopyard IPA
Octoberfest
Winter Warmer
Martello Stout
Nut Brown
Jalapeno
Blueberry Wheat
Blackberry Wheat
Blackberry at the beach!
The only one I wasn’t a huge fan of was the Hopyard because I’m not into mega hoppy beers. The Martello Stout is to die for. I’m getting more into darker beer, and this one definitely is one to try.
THE TRIO OF AWESOME
My rantings about the awesomeness of Garrison led me to chatting about beer with classmates, and one suggested Pumphouse blueberry (also suggested by my badass cousin Bev). The little card with it at the NSLC said it had aromas and flavors of blueberries with a hint of red peppers. My first thought was “……the fuck? Red peppers?”, but it was SO good. It did have a wee bit of a peppery undertone but holy shit it was a nice brew. It had a great golden colour, a clean taste and a really light, frothy head. And it actually smells like blueberries, which was cool.
So, Bev, thank you for suggesting Pumphouse Blueberry. It’s been a while since I’ve had it and I can’t get it in Vancouver and that makes me sad. Because I can’t drink it here, you should drink my share for me 😀
And thus concludes my first entry. Since I can’t drink and blog about these beer, the reviews are a bit short and I don’t have many pictures. But tomorrow, it’s on to bigger and….well, just bigger things. I’m picking up a vat of Corona, as it was recommended and Chloe (who has graciously volunteered to sample every beer with me and co-write the blog) and I will work our way though it, complete with commentary.
The cat will probably make an appearance too.
Sláinte!
“I’ll just have a coffee.” “Beer it is”
Crooked Coast Amber Ale
For an amber, it tastes more like a red. It’s not bad, but the guy at the liquor store said it was the best he’s ever had. I’ve had better. Garrison Tall Ship Amber is the best I’ve had. And it is far superior to this stuff. It’s not OMGAWFUL but it isn’t deserving of the epic praise.
Still on the hunt for a good beer here. Sigh. Whistler gave me a bit of hope and I’ll try more of their Winter Mixer later this evening.
I have a bottle of Innis and Gunn triple matured chilling in the fridge. At the very least, if I can’t find good beer here, I can at least get that, and get it for cheap.
BEER
Potentially found a good beer in BC. Potentially. For now I am going to try a deep-fried Wunderbar. Then I shall write about beer. Beer good. Fire bad. Tree pretty.
g's blog 'o wonders 