Tag Archives: tasting

B’s Craft Beer Lounge – Langley

by Mike

If you either live out in Langley near Willowbrook Shopping Centre or just find yourself in the area then you need to check out B’s Craft Beer Lounge.

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This craft beer lounge gives you the brewery tasting room feel but it does one better.  They serve beer in tasting racks of two volumes or single glasses of beer from all over the world.  You are able to choose beers for the tasting racks from a preset menu that has enough beer that you can have two full tasting trays and not try every beer.  They also have beer that you can enjoy a full glass of.  Everything is poured from bottles (usually bombers) and recapped.  Luckily the beer moves quite fast and will never sit long enough to no flat.

The staff is very knowledgeable and will have information about all the beer that they are pouring which is a very nice touch.   This tasting lounge is attached to a liquor store (Berezan Liquor Store) but you can also purchase beer to go from the lounge.  The lounge seems to have some amazing gems for sale and I walked out with two great beers one being a Fifty Fifty Brewing Eclypse!

Full sized photos found here.

B’s Craft Beer Lounge
https://www.facebook.com/BsCraftBeer
http://berezanhg.com/divisions/bs-craft-beer-lounge/
19665 Willowbrook Drive
Langley, British Columbia
(604) 539-0046

 

Cannery Brewing Company (Old Location) – Penticton BC

by Mike

Hanging out in the Okanagan for the Canada Day long weekend I thought it would be a great idea to hit up Penticton as there are a few great breweries there and I had also never been there.  I contacted Cannery Brewing to find out that they were closed on Canada Day Monday much to my dismay.  After a few messages back and forth though I was told that Ian would be at the brewery and I could stop by.  When I arrived I was greeted by Ian at the front door and we headed to the retail space for a few tastings.  With a few samples down we headed into the brewery to take the tour.  We started in the grain loft as it was already brutally hot up there (it was mid to high 30C!!!)  and were shown the different malts used.  We then moved down to the brewing level where I was shown all the new fermentors as well as the original brewing system that the brewery was founded on.  We then moved into the cooler were their older tanks are held as well as their kegs (they were a little low on kegs as everyone wanted lots of their beer for the long weekend).  After the great tour we headed back into the retail space for a bunch more samples.   By the end of the time at the brewery I had sampled most of the beers they currently have including Paddles Up Pale Ale, India Pale Ale, Anarchist Amber Ale, Naramata Nut Brown, Blackberry Porter, Lakeboat Lager and the Apricot Wheat Ale (I could be wrong as I drove from Penticton to Vancouver after this with no notes).  I was also fortunate to meet Ron and Patt the owners of the brewery and parents to Ian.  This is a great family run operation with some great beer being produced!

Before  I left I had to pick up a shirt and some beer for future reviews.  It only seemed like the sane thing to do.  So the next time you end up in Penticton make sure to stop by the brewery to pick up some beer in either cans, bottles or a 8.5L party pig mini keg!  If you don’t have a reason to pass through Penticton it is high time you make a reason. Cannery Brewing Company 112-1475 Fairview Road Penticton, BC V2A 7W5 250-493-2723 info@cannerybrewing.com http://www.cannerybrewing.com

The River Boat Throwdown! – VCBW – June 6th, 2013

by Mike

By June 6th, 2013 the Vancouver Craft Beer Week was in full swing with some amazing events all over the city!  “The River Boat Throwdown” held at the Portside Pub in Gastown was just one of these amazing events.  It was also the second event of Vancouver Craft Beer Week that I was able to attend and was the nights Feature event.  The ticket to the event was $25 dollars and it included a collectors glass, gambling token as well as one drink ticket with more drink tickets came in at $1.  Once the casks emptied you could purchase pints from the bar.

“The River Boat Throwdown” was a presentation of the Portside Pub and VYR Beer Tweetup.  The pub was set up like a River Boat Casino for the event including game tables with professional dealers, dancers and a proformances by The Sweetpea Swing Band.  The night also included casks from some amazing local breweries including Deep Cove, Lighthouse, Vancouver Island, Parallel 49, Central City, R&B, Red Truck, Russell, Tofino and Howe Sound Brewing.  To top it all off costumes were encouraged for the event to give it more life!

The 10 casks were as follows:
1 – Central City Brewing – Imperial Red Ale of Doom & Awesomeness
2 –  Parallel 49 Brewing – Lord of the Dry Hops
3 – Vancouver Island Brewing – Kaffir Lime Leaf Saison
4 – Lighthouse Brewing – Crowded House Pineapple Head
5 – Deep Cove Brewing Company – Wise Crack West Coast Lager
6 – Russell Brewing – Summer Daze Saison
7 – Red Truck Beer – Heavenly Delicious English Strong Ruby Ale
8 – Tofino Brewing Company – IPA w Lemongrass & Tamarind
9 – Howe Sound Brewing – The Dark King
10 – R&B Brewing Company – Apple Jack Moonshine Ale

Nick and Jonny of YVR Beer Tweetup were running twitter contests all night with the final contests centering on the casks themselves.  There were three categories for the casks including first emptied (Quick Draw), best name (The Gambler) and best beer (Cask Maverick).  The Winner of the Quick Draw award went to Russell Brewing – Summer Daze Saison, The Gambler award went to Lighthouse Brewing – Crowded House Pineapple Head and Cask Maverick went to none other than Parallel 49 Brewing – Lord of the Dry Hops.  If I made my own choices for these awards it would have been a bit different with The Gambler going to Central City Brewing – Imperial Red Ale of Doom & Awesomeness and the Cask Maverick being a split between Parallel 49 Brewing – Lord of the Dry Hops and Red Truck Beer – Heavenly Delicious English Strong Ruby Ale.  But hey that is half the fun of craft beer isn’t it?

Having this blog has introduced me to so many really cool people and it still blows my mind.  I find that I am visiting with so many new acquaintances and friends that I forget to pay attention to things like gambling and voting for best cask at events.  Saying this if you see me at an event like this please say hi as I love meeting new people!

I would like to finish by saying Cheers to YVR Beer Tweetup, The Portside Pub, Vancouver Craft Beer Week and all the amazing people in the local Craft Beer Scene that made not only this event but every event so much fun to be a part of!

East Van Brew Crawl (YVRBeerTweetup) – Vancouver

by Mike

On April 6th 2013 the Guys from YVRBeerTweetup threw their first ever Brewery Crawl in East Vancouver.  The cost was very low at around $13 and the ticket availability was just as low at around 30 tickets.  The group was split in two and each group headed to the 4 breweries in a different order.  The breweries involved included Storm Brewing, Powell Street Craft Brewery, Parallel 49 and Coal Harbour Brewing.  Everyone met up at the tasting room for Parallel 49 and sampled a few brews while waiting for everyone to arrive.

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The group I was part of (Team Awesome) headed to Storm Brewing first.  The Brewmaster James is a very busy guy as he is a staff of One at the brewery and as such does not usually do tours.  I was stoked to be heading to this brewery first.  I am a huge fan of his beer especially his sours.  A very interesting point about Storm Brewing is that everything used in the brewery is second hand and re-purposed.  For example the mash tun was used for making yogurt originally.  James’s past growing up on farms has made him handy enough to do all the alterations and welding to his brewing equipment.  We were treated to samples of his “Scottish Highland Cream Ale“, ” Hurricane IPA” and the “Imperial Sour Flanders Red“.  One more interesting note is that James may be the first person making sours in BC but it was all by accident.  His beer turned out different than he expected and in turn turned all of this other beer sour as well.  To me this was a very happy accident as the Imperial Sour Flanders Red was my fist experience with sour beer and still the standard I hold all others to!

Once done at Storm Brewing we thanked James for his hospitality and headed by foot to our next destination Powell Street Craft Brewing.  Once there we met up with the brewmaster David and his wife Nicole that works the tasting room.  This is by far the newest brewery on the circuit for the day opening its doors in December 2012.  They may be young but they are making amazing beer and already starting to expand from the sound of it with a new fermentor on the way!  I hope this means they will be able to keep up with demand a little better now.  We were all very lucky on this day to be able to try their brand new “Belgian Witbier with Ginger And Cardamom” that had just been released that day!  We also sampled their “Old Jalopy Pale Ale“, “Hopdemonium IPA” and their “Dive Bomb Porter“.  All of these beer are top notch buy my personal favorite and most often filled growler is the Old Jalopy Pale Ale.  David went though his brewing process at the brewery (the very small nano brewery!).  All of their bombers are filled off of a filler that fills only 2 bottles at a time from kegs.  To see a more in depth look at the Powell Street Brewery check out this link Banner Hanging.

The next stop on the tour was Parallel 49 Brewing the second youngest brewery on the tour but now by far the largest!  parallel 49 has been around since spring 2012 but has been expanding like mad since then.  One of the owners of the brewery also owns the restaurant St Augustine’s on Commercial Drive.  We were lucky enough to have a tour of the brewery from Graham the brewmaster.  This is my second time receiving a tour of the brewery by him although it looks nothing like it did back then (See here).  They have tons of new tanks and a new unit in a building across the alley with a barrel aging room, large cooler and packaging area!  Parallel 49 makes some amazing year round brews but really excels in their crazy interpretations of different styles of beer with their seasonals!  We even go to try one of these unreleased seasonals right from the tank before they have perfected it (lets hope it stays close to that as it was amazing)!  Everyone on the tour was in awe of the scale of this craft brewery especially due to its age!  Come on its only been selling beer for just under a year!  Graham has not slowed down on his ideas either and has even done a collaboration beer with Gigantic Brewing Company out of Portland Oregon.  If this brewery is to expand any more it will have to take over units in one of its two buildings it is getting so cramped.  We were free to try any of their beer that they had on tap in the tasting room and most of us did just that.

Last but certainly not least we headed to Coal Harbour Brewing Company which happens to be across the street from Parallel 49. The Head Brewer Ethan Allured was good enough to show us around the brewery and tell us all about their operation and how everything worked.  We got a look at their new canning line that they are quite proud of and for good reason as it is pretty impressive.  I think this would be the second largest brewery on the tour but someone could correct me on this point.  Coal Harbour brews both Lagers and Ales but their main production is craft lager without any adjuncts (think rice and corn such as Molson and Bud).  Everyone on the tour was able to sample both their “311 Helles Lager” and their “Smoke & Mirrors – Imperial Smoked Ale”.  Coal Harbour even hooked everyone on the tour up with a nice little gift of some beverages!  THANKS!

Once the tours were done everyone headed back to Parallel 49’s tasting room as it was nice and large.  The group had more samples or purchased sleeves of their favorite brew all while discussing all the fun they had just had!  I would like to thank the breweries Storm, Powell Street, Parallel 49 and Coal Harbour as well as YVRBeerTweetup‘s Jonathan (@JonnyBeers) and Nick (@VancityBeerGuy) for making this amazing event happen.  I look forward to what you have in store next.

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Storm Brewing
(604) 255-9119
310 Commercial Drive
Vancouver BC, V5L 3V6

Powell Street Craft Brewery
(604)558-2537
1830 powell Street
Vancouver BC, V5I 1H9

Parallel 49 Brewing
(604)558-BREW
1950 Triumph Street
Vancouver BC, V5K 1K5

Coal Harbour Brewing Company
(604)215-7471
1967 Triumph Street
Vancouver BC

YVRBeerTweetUp
http://yvrbeertweetup.wordpress.com/
http://yvrbeertweetup.com/

Old Cellar Dweller Barleywine Style Ale 2012 – Driftwood Brewing (Aged 0 Year)

by Mike

Winter Seasonal

From Victoria BC’s Driftwood Brewing comes the “Old Cellar Dweller Barleywine Style Ale 2012″.  This is a Winter 2012 Vintage opened up soon after release.  The beer pours a deep amber colour with an off white head.  The aroma of this beer consists of dark fruits such as plum, spices, molasses, nuts, hops, malts but not very sweet.  The flavour consisted of dark fruits, molasses, some spices and sweetness, huge hops bitterness and a pretty decent boozy kick.  This brew has a medium body and a very light carbonation.  The alcohol content of this beer is 11.8% with an IBU of 75.  Like most barleywines it is always good to lay them down for at least one year.

Commercial Description:  Three times the malt bill and five times the hops of a normal strength beer, this Barleywine tests the limits of our brewhouse and our backs! But the real struggle is in getting this massive brew to completely ferment, a true test of our skill and the vigor of our yeast. Consisting of 98% Pale Malt (with a bag of CaraMunch thrown in for color) and just one hop variety, Columbus, this beer showcases these two basic ingredients in their most concentrated state.

Enjoy this very special beer young, but save a few bottles for future winters. Enjoy not too cold, say about 13C! Barleywine will age indefinitely, like wine; thus the name.

Driftwood Brewing recommends food pairings as follows:  Rouquefort, Gorgonzola and washed-rind cheeses like Oka or Port de Salut, Dried fruits, and sweet nuts such as Brazils.

This beer was part of Mikes Craft Beer’s Barleywine Tasting.  It was highly regarded by all tasters involved.

Read about the tasting here

old cellar