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!
g's blog 'o wonders 