Lagunitas Re-Launches in Canada – Butcher & Bullock Vancouver

Sep23 by Mike

Lagunitas Brewing had in the past been available in Canada but had left the territory. They are now back though and held a launch event at the Butcher & Bullock in Vancouver. The brewery brought representatives form their California operation including their VP of sales as well as some from their Chicago brewery.

The event brought their flagship IPA to the taps as well as an Imperial Coffee Stout that had been aged for some time. If you know their beer you should know that both of these beers were great and their addition to our stores shelves should be celebrated. I look forward to seeing a little Sumpin’ Sumpin’ in our liquor stores.

Expect to see Lagunitas beers on the shelves in Canada soon! After talking with the Lagunitas staff on hand as well as the representatives from the distributions company I expect good things from this partnership.

Brewski Tour Launch Party 2016 – Granville Island Brewing

Feb27 by Mike

Granville Island Brewing has set out on their inaugural Brew Ski Tour touring BC for great powder and great craft beer.

Their mission is as follows “The BrewSki tour is on a mission. We’re looking for the best powder and pints BC has to offer. From February 23rd to March 3rd the Granville Island Brewing team will be touring some of BC’s best mountains and breweries. And we’d like you to join us. Along the way we’ll be hosting a series of BrewSki après parties; there’ll be live music, games and the chance to hang out and drink some brews with the Granville Island Brewing team.”

The tour is heading out on the road to check out power around BC and will be partnering with local breweries on the way including Bomber Brewing, Mt Begbie Brewing, Bridge Brewing, Red Collar Brewing and Howe Sound. If you would like to join them on their adventure check out their website to see where they are currently.

On February 23, 2016 they held a launch party at Granville Island Brewing to kick off the festivities. Tickets could be reserved online for the party that included two free beer, food, live music and a version of cards against humanity called cards against BrewSki. The brewery dressed their tasting room up a bit like a ski lodge for the event.

Thanks for putting on a great party Granville Island Brewing and I hope you have a great rest of your BrewSki Tour!

For more information on the BrewSki Tour check out this link.

http://brewskitour.ca/

Full sized photos found here.

SunSetter Summer Ale – Stanley Park Brewery

Jun30 by Mike

From Stanley Park Brewery (Turning Point Brewery) in Delta BC comes their “SunSetter Summer Ale” an unfiltered Peach Wheat Ale. I have had this beer both from a glass and from the bottle and I think I am about to break my own rules. The beer pours a golden colour with a white head. The aroma consists of peach wheat and yeast. Where things get a little funky is the flavour for me (in an interesting way). When you drink the beer from a glass you get wheat, yeast, grain and some very mild peach. Now in comparison when you drink it out of the bottle the peach flavour hits you up right up front with notes of wheat yeast and grain coming in at the end. I am a huge advocate for drinking from a glass but this beer seems to have more peach in the flavour when consumed from the bottle. Also drink it fairly cold (but not ice cold) as it seems to shine through better. The alcohol content comes in at 4.8% with an IBU of 16. This is a tasty beer to be drinking on the patio in the summer!

Commercial Description: Make a ‘magic hour’ moment with our new Summer Ale. Ripe peach flavour and bold Citra hops come together for a refreshing & sessionable wheat ale that’s as much a treat for the senses as a sunset walk on Second Beach. Enjoy the moment!

Food Pairing as per brewery: Peach Caprese salad, SunSetter steamed clams, grilled peach & pork tenderloin
Food Pairing as per me: Fuzzy Peaches candies!

On June 25th, 2015 Stanley Park Brewing held a launch party in English Bay on the Rooftop Lookout beside the Cactus Club. The party was a closed event for media, bloggers and restaurant staff to learn about the beer. The event had some great food to sample while drinking the Sunsetter Summer Ale. They also had a bunch of their other beer for sample on tap as well as some beer cocktails to try out.

Full sized photos found here.

The Beer Formerly Known as Detective Saison Launch Event – Central City Brewers & Distillers

Mar10 by Mike

Recently I was sent an invite to a new secretive launch event to a new exciting line of beers coming from Central City Brewers & Distillers.

Then came the press release we unleashed on the masses (excerpt to follow):

“Surrey, B.C. – Central City Brewers + Distillers has unveiled a bold new mythical world filled with full-bodied drama and malty mystery for the launch of a series of character-based beers. A complete departure from the Central City brand that many have come to know, the new Central City world tells a tale of a post-industrial, mythical metropolis port town.

Central City is a once-rich township of honest, blue-collar citizens who are now governed by institutions run by old power and old money.

In a city where corruption and crime rule all, justice is brewing…

Detective Saison is the first character-based beer to be introduced, amidst the dirt and weeds sullying the streets of Central City. A breath of fresh air to the city’s moral compass, Detective Saison is a smooth, dry, classic French Saison-style wheat ale, balanced with a fine malt character and a spicy attitude with the added complexity of pink peppercorns. A witty intellect, Detective Saison has an iron constitution about right and wrong and her pursuit of truth and justice is unrelenting.”

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Something very unfortunate came up 5 hours before the launch event though for Central City Brewers & Distillers. It came to light through twitter that the new company they have hired to produce the new labels for this series had plagiarized (and not lightly either). Its safe to say they are no longer in the employ of Central City.

Click here for a story from the Surrey Now Newspaper.

Now everyone in the Vancouver and BC beer scene know that Central City Brewers & Distillers are a company of high moral standards and would never knowingly release anything plagiarized. This put them in a tough position for their launch party in 5 hours though. They had costumes and skits already planned to help launch this brand new character line of beer. To their credit not only did the show go on but they dropped all the bells and whistles and held the launch party for a now temporarily unnamed Saison and their new Dry Hopped Cider. This had to be extremely hard for them as its hard to sell a new product line while not being able to name it. So because of this I present you with the “The Beer Formerly Known as Detective Saison” (yes I am borrowing from Prince and I don’t care and I don’t even like him).

The “The Beer Formerly Known as Detective Saison” pours a light golden colour with a fluffy white head. The aroma consists of wheat, yeast, grainy malts, fruit and sweetness. The flavour was of citrus, wheat, grain, yeast, spices with a nice crisp finish. The beer comes in at an alcohol content of 6%.

The ingredients included water, malted barley, malted wheat, hops, pink peppercorns, yeast.

Sadly for everyone involved on the brewery side the first batch of bottles was released to stores for the launch and could not easily be recalled. To the consumer it was great to get a bottle of this beer right off the bat so not only could I review it but I could document the happenings. Below is the actual photo of the bottle.

Also launched at this event was their brand new and first Cider the “Hopping Mad Dry Hopped Apple Cider”.

With all that has transpired I can not think of a better name for their inaugural cider. One thing that caught me off guard with this cider was that I actually liked it! I am not a fan of cider and had not had a cider to this point that I would willingly drink. Being a launch though I had to do my due diligence. This is one tasty cider and I will be recommending it to all my cider drinking friends to be sure!

Lets get onto the party. Here are a few of the photos from the party portion of the event. I tried to take most of my photos with very few people in them. The room was very full!

After a few speeches one from Gary and one from Tim Barnes led into tours of the brewery. The group was broken up into two separate entities as there were way to many people to take on just one tour of the brewery. The tours were led by Gary Lohin the Brewmaster extraordinaire (yes I went there). I have had a tour before but I was not given a tour that included their sour barrel room and their whiskey aging room (Click here to see my first visit to this location). The brewery has also really grown since their grand opening party. It is amazing an a testament to the growth of BC craft beer!

It may not have been the smoothest launch of all time but it is bound to happen to a company now and then. The bigger you get the harder it is to keep above board with all the legalities of business. This may have been a rough growing pain for Central City Brewers & Distillers but they have created a new interesting beer universe with what seems to be intriguing new characters (snags and all). I hope you are all as excited as I am to see what is in store for this new beer line. Run out to your local beer store now to ensure you get a bottle from this initial release.

Full sized photos can be found here.

Stone Brewing Canadian Launch at Craft Beer Market – Vancouver

Oct23 by Mike

Stone Brewing from Escondido California has started a large scale expansion of their distribution. Their beer is being launched in BC and Alberta currently which is their first foray into Canada and to celebrate this Stone and Craft Beer Market held parties in Vancouver, Edmonton and Calgary. This was a very exclusive event and you had to either win to get in or get lucky enough to get and invite. Luckily for me I was invited at the last minute to the Vancouver event and was able to attend.

Like any event held at Craft Beer Market lots of appetizers were brought around although many of these ones were made using Stone Brewing beer. Stone brought 15 different beer to these events including the three permanent taps for Craft Beer Market including Stone IPA, Go To IPA and Arrogant Bastard Ale. All of the beer were amazingly tasty which should surprise no one that is serious about craft beer. If this was your first exposure to Stone’s beer than I would expect your mind to be blown.