Tag Archives: tofino brewing company

BC Beer Awards 2015 / Beer Festival – October 24th 2015

by Mike

Once again it is time for the BC Beer Awards.  A time to celebrate the best beer being made in the province of British Columbia.  The awards were held on October 24th, 2015 at the Croation Cultural Centre.

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I have been going to the BC Beer Awards since 2012 and this years awards were much like every year.  The event started at 4pm and ended at 9pm with a beer festival happening during the event.  This year the festival expanded to two rooms to accommodate all of the breweries that came out to celebrate the best BC has to offer.  This year 56 Breweries and Cideries came out to celebrate.  The breweries pouring were as follows:  Bad Tattoo Brewing, BC Tree Fruits, Big Ridge Brewing, Big Rock Urban Brewery, Bomber Brewing, Bowen Island Brewing, Brassneck Brewery, Bridge Brewing, Callister Brewing, Category 12 Brewing, Central City Brewers & Distillers, Coal Harbour Brewing, Dead Frog Brewery, Doan’s Craft Brewing, Dogwood Brewing, Driftwood Brewery, Fernie Brewing, Four Winds Brewing, Fuggles & Warlock Craftworks, Granville Island Brewing, Hearthstone Brewery, Howe Sound Brewing, Kwantlen Polytechnic Uni Brewery, Left Field Cider, Lighthouse Brewing, Lonetree Cider, Main Street Brewing, Merridale Cider, Moody Ales, Moon Under Water Brewery, Off The Rail Brewing, Old Yale Brewing, Pacific Western Brewing, Parallel 49 Brewing, Persephone Brewing, Phillips Brewing, Powell Street Craft Brewery, R&B Brewing, Ravens Brewing, Real Cask Brewing, Red Arrow Brewing, Red Truck Beer, Ridge Brewing, Russell Brewing, Spinnakers Brewpub, Stanley Park Brewing, Steamworks Brewing, Steel & Oak Brewing, Strange Fellows Brewing, Tofino Brewing, Townsite Brewing, Tree Brewing, Twin Sails Brewing, Whistler Brewing, Yaletown Brewing, Yellow Dog Brewing.

Once again Stephen Quinn of CBC Radio was the presenter for the awards.  Once again the beer entered in this years BC Beer Awards has jumped in a big way.  Last year there were 500 beers entered in 18 Categories .  This year 70 breweries entered almost 800 beer in 20 Categories.  To say this was a large increase is would be an understatement!  Lets get to the winning beers of the year!

North American Light Beer

1. Tofino Brewing Company: Tofino Blonde Ale
2. High Mountain Brewing: Lifty Lager
3. Granville Island Brewing: Island Lager

Light European Bier

1. Parallel 49 Brewing Company: Craft Lager
2. Central City Brewers and Distillers: Mayor Kolsch
3. Russell Brewing Company: Eastern Promises

UK Pale Ale

1. Big Ridge Brewing: Big Ridge Clover Ale
2. Forbidden Brewing Co.: Forbidden Pale Ale
3. Bomber Brewing: Bomber ESB

Amber/Dark Lagers

1. Steel & Oak Brewing Co.: Dark Lager
2. Persephone Brewing Company: Oktoberfest
3. Tree Brewing Co. Captivator: Doppelbock

UK Red/Brown Ale

1. Whistler Brewing Company: Black Tusk
2. LIghthouse Brewing Company: Race Rocks
3. Parallel 49 Brewing Company: Old Boy

North American Pale Ale

1. Howe Sound Brewing Co. Sky Pilot Northwest Pale Ale
2. Persephone Brewing Company Pale Ale
3. Russell Brewing Company Hop Therapy ISA

North American Amber/Brown Ale

1. Big Rock Urban Brewery: Hollow Tree
2. Russell Brewing Company: Cream Ale
3. Brassneck Brewery: Brassneck Ale

German/Belgian Wheat

1. Barkerville Brewing Co.: White Gold
2. Big Rock Urban Brewery: Dunkelwiezen
3. Granville Island Brewing: Hey Day Hefeweizen

Fruit

1. Stanley Park Brewing: SunSetter
2. Tree Brewing Co.: Mellow Moon Pineapple Hefeweizen
3. Strange Fellows Brewing: Framboise Noir

Spice/Herb/Veg

1. Tofino Brewing Company: Spruce Tree Ale
2. Stanley Park Brewing: Icebreaker
3. Tofino Brewing Company: Kelp Stout

Specialty

1. Brassneck Brewery: No Brainer Pre Prohibition Lager
2. Bridge Brewing Company: Wee Tipsy Peated Scotch Ale
3. Steamworks Brewing Co.: Steamworks Gose

Stout/Porter

1. Doan’s Craft Brewing Company: American Rye Stout
2. Barkerville Brewing Co.: 52 Foot Stout
3. Mission Springs Brewing Co.: Fat Guy Oatmeal Stout
Wood/Barrel Aged

1. Bridge Brewing Company: Imperial White IPA
2. Four Winds Brewing Co.: Pequeno Cabo Tequila Barrel Aged Berliner Weisse
3. Parallel 49 Brewing Company: Barrel Aged Vow Of SIlence

North American IPA

1. Central City Brewers and Distillers: Red Racer IPA
2. Red Truck Beer: Red Truck IPA
3. Hearthstone Brewing: Hearthstone IPA

Specialty IPA

1. Bridge Brewing Company: Black Rye IPA
2. Moon Under Water Brewery: Hip As Funk
3. Bomber Brewing: Blood From A Stone Red Rye IPA

Belgian/French Farmhouse

1. Persephone Brewing Company: Multigrain Saison
2. Dageraad Brewing: Randonneur Saison
3. Ravens Brewing Company: Farmers Ale

Strong Ale

1. Swans Brewpub: Legacy Ale
2. R&B Brewing Co.: Auld Nick Winter Ale
3. Swans Brewpub: Swans Scotch Ale

Belgian Abbey Ale

1. Dageraad Brewing: Blonde
2. Tree Brewing Co.: Trappist Artist Belgian Dubbel
3. Old Abbey Ales: Belgian Quad

Imperial IPA

1. Brassneck Brewery: One Trick Pony
2. Parallel 49 Brewing Company: 187 On An Undercover Hop
3. Parallel 49 Brewing Company: Hopnotist

Sours/Wild Ale

1. Four Winds Brewing Co.: Juxtapose Wild IPA
2. Strange Fellows Brewing: Roxanne
3. Dageraad Brewing: De Witte

BEST IN SHOW: Brassneck Brewery One Trick Pony

Richards Buell Sutton Rookie of the Year Award went to Doan’s Craft Brewing Company.

After the awards finished everyone got back to enjoying all of the great beer being poured especially the winners and the sours that were being poured as part of a competition on this night.  This was once again an amazing event with amazing beer being poured as well as great people be it craft beer fans or brewery staff.  Every year this event gets bigger and better!  With more than 100 breweries expected to be open by next year in the province I expect this event to only grow!  Here is to another year of sticking it to the flavourless garbage that macro breweries make.

Once again like last year I helped set the festival up between 10am and 3pm.  It makes the festival even more fun when you are able to get involved in any part of the event.

Full sized photos can be found here.

 

Spruce Tree Ale – Tofino Brewing Company

by Mike

From Vancouver Island’s Tofino Brewing out of Tofino comes their “Spruce Tree Ale”.  This beer is conditioned with sitka spruce tips.  The beer pours a golden colour with an off white head.  The aroma consists of malt, floral hops and some sweet citrus.  The flavour is of sweet citrus, caramel malts, hops bitterness and a light spruce finish.  The flavour is fairly light.  The alcohol content comes in at 6.5%.  The spruce was not as present as I had expected but the finished product is very pleasing and a pleasant sip.

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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!