Category Archives: Beer

#notallIPAs

by

0

Want some beer with your foam? Don't be like me.

Want some beer with your foam? Don’t be like me.

The Specs: Coal Harbour Brewing Co. Powell IPA
6.5 per cent ABV, 650mL

An IPA is a bit of a dangerous choice for this blog. Though 2014 was my year of hop discovery, IPAs are generally right at the edge of what I consider an acceptable beverage. The mediocre ones taste grassy and soapy, and where other people allegedly find interest my palate registers a blast of bitterness and little, if anything else.

But, on the recommendation of a brewhound at Kamloops City Hall, I ventured forth.

I will admit a small bias right off the top. My 1950s fridge has a pretty heavy door and a couple of harder than average latchings over the course of the day did nothing good for this beer. No beverage has ever cascaded from a bottle with the force of this IPA.

On the plus side, while wiping off the floor I noted it smells quite nice. Bit of a fruity tang to it, which usually bodes well. The colour’s quite good too — a bit amber, great against the tiles.

Compared to a lot of IPAs which cross my path, Powell is quite mild. I was bracing for the shock and awe of hops, and it didn’t ever show up. There’s a characteristic bitterness to it, but it’s not overpowering (though you will notice more of it as the beer comes up to temperature). More in the fore are juicy flavours of grapefruit, maybe a tinge of apricot.

Oh, and as you may have guessed, I’m pretty sure it’s very carbonated, even without a good ice box smackaround. I don’t think I’ve ever had a beer continue foam up so much that many minutes after being opened.

Overall, this is a really great place to start if like me you’re trying to expand your horizons, or if you enjoy a certain amount of bitterness — but only so much. Or, if you really need an excuse to clean your floors on a Monday night.

Nuts to you

by

2

But seriously what is that dude on the bottle's DEAL?

But seriously what is that dude on the bottle’s DEAL?

The Specs: Dead Frog Brewery (Aldergrove, B.C.) Nutty Uncle Stout
6.1 per cent ABV, 650 mL

So. Yeah. Peanut butter beer. That’s a thing.

When it comes down to it, I know this beer isn’t that weird. I’ve read news stories about American brewers making beers out of Count Chocula and Boo Berry cereals. A little nut butter? That’s nothing, especially since I love peanut butter. I might even consider peanut butter cups, which Dead Frog’s label so clearly evoke, the greatest candy of our generation.

And yet, man. Even taking a sip of this beer felt like a hurdle.

I took extra photos of my mug, I Skyped people, I sniffed the beer over and over, trying to decide whether I could smell peanuts or just the usual mix of malts and sundry common to your average B.C. stout.

Finally, the first sip.

Yup. Nuts.

Nutty Uncle is less peanut butter and more roasted nuts, with a certain smokiness to it on the first sips that I never quite shook off. As befits a stout, there are also notes of chocolate (coffee, as the brewery claims, not so much) though I wish they’d been milkier and rounder, the way Parallel 49’s pumpkin and milk chocolate porter manages. That’s chocolate in practice, where Nutty Uncle is chocolate in theory.

It’s sweet, but not incredibly — to the point where I almost wondered if more sugar wouldn’t have been worth it.

Overall, a peanut butter cup.

Kind of.

Ish.

As much as you can with a beer.

Yeah, OK, it’s weird. It’s totally weird. Super freaking weird. There is a picture of a dude who looks like a low budget Adam Sandler on the front of the bottle — I don’t know what I was expecting!

This I guess. Weirdness.

Props to you for inventiveness, Dead Frog. But to be honest now I mostly want a real peanut butter cup. But then again, when does one not?

(Also, tiny side rant: Strong beer again? Guys stop. Stop guys.)

Time to drink my words

by

0

Shoutout to the B.C. Liquor Store employee who told me to get this one chilled, but not too cold. You get a much better sense of the yeast that way.

Shoutout to the B.C. Liquor Store employee who told me to get this one chilled, but not too cold. You get a much better sense of the yeast that way.

The Specs: Bad Tattoo Brewing Co. (Penticton, B.C.), Dia de Los Muertos Cerveza Fuerte 2014
9.2 per cent ABV, 750mL, limited edition

OK, OK, let’s get it out of the way: Today’s beer of choice is not only a strong beer, it’s a damn 9 per center — which is nearly as high as we can go before we enter the murky territory of barley wines.*

So, yeah, I’m not over strong beer after all, but drinking Bad Tattoo’s new limited offering reminded me it’s not so much the alcohol content that counts as how you use it. And Bad Tattoo, I’m coming to realize, really knows what it’s up to.

What’s most surprising about this beer is how sweet and boozy it smells — and how normal it actually tastes.

So many of the strong Belgians I’ve tasted lately have this almost rotten fruit flavour to them, but Dia de Los Muertos Cerveza Fuerte is concerned with other flavours. Dark and dense, it’s another of those hearty bread-style beers, all rye toast and nuts. Despite the smell, I didn’t find it particularly sweet — nary a vanilla or caramel tone here. This is a savoury beer for sure.

According to the bottle copy these bad boys have more than a full pound of malt per 750 mL and two strains of yeast. Of the two, it’s the yeast that stood out most for me, and tipped the beer from good to fascinating.

To call a beer fermented is to state the obvious, but you can taste it here in a way that I’ve not experienced often, similar to the notes of a good sushi-joint soy sauce or a well-crafted kombucha.

While it’s got some fizz to it, this is one heavy beer, best drunk very slowly over the course of the evening while making a slow slide from couch to floor (just because this beer isn’t upfront about its alcohol content, doesn’t mean it’s not there). Or you could share it with friends, I suppose, but since this is an extremely limited 1,200 bottle run you’ve got a built-in excuse to horde it all to yourself.

On a final quick and shallow note, I’ve bagged on Bad Tattoo a bit for its regular series bottle designs, but these black, long-necked, wax-dipped bottles are things of beauty. I’m tempted to stick a candle in the empty and use the light to illuminate a garret as I write gothic novels.

*Riders, do I dare? I considered a bottle at the shop today but I am mad skeptical about anything that is not wine but feels the need to identify itself as such.

Strong beer, grumpy Andrea

by

0

Oh Red Truck, you are not quite the start to 2015 I was hoping for.

Oh Red Truck, you are not quite the start to 2015 I was hoping for.

The Specs: Red Truck Beer Co. (Vancouver, B.C.) ’46 Porter
6.6 per cent ABV 650mL, limited release

 

Hey Bad Riders, let’s start the year with a controversial question:

Is anyone else starting to feel like they’re over strong beer?

This may be the winter doldrums talking, or the result of having too much Steamworks Blitzen (a 9 per cent tripel that wishes it had Red Collar’s cleanness of flavour) in my fridge that I don’t want to drink — but it’s also in part because I can’t figure out why the porter I’m drinking right now needed to be 6.6 per cent.

I like porters a lot. Over the course of the fall, they’ve become a go-to beer style for me. From what I’ve seen of the B.C. beer landscape, porters will get you a degree of experimentation I don’t see from other dark styles like stouts, and there’s generally no risk of ending up with a glass of something grassy, soapy and over-hopped, as has happened to me more than once with IPAs and ales.

With that fondness in mind, I was expecting good things from Red Truck’s limited edition ’46 Porter, with its silver medal from the Canadian Brewing Awards and its very charming bottle label (exhibit no. 150 in the ‘Andrea is a shallow drinker’ case).

But, instead, here I sit wondering only this: what the point of making this a strong beer?

In the right circumstances, a little booziness is fine and dandy in a beer. The little edge of Goose Island’s Sofie is one of the reason it became my favourite American beer of 2014.

Here, however, I don’t know what the extra alcohol is supposed to be adding to the mix.

Where this porter smells like it should have a round, dark coffee taste in line with a good after-dinner espresso, and the malt mix would have me expecting some caramel or vanilla tones, the actual flavour here is… a little brittle. Coffee, but more like the store brand stuff I’ve been brewing because I’m too lazy, post-new year, to grind beans.

Oh, and booziness. We’ve got that.

Compared to other porters I’ve tossed back, it doesn’t feel as interesting, as dynamic. But it’ll get me cut slightly faster if I want, so I suppose there’s that.

You’ll have to decide for yourself if that’s worth the sacrifice.

Best of 2014 — Beer edition

by

0

By all accounts 2014 was a huge year for craft beer in B.C. According to a December report from The Province, 17 new breweries launched in 2014, enough to put the total number in British Columbia alone at more than 80. And with more in the works, it looks like the province is on track to crack 100 breweries in 2015.

Here at Bad Rider, your faithful reviewer discovered a number of new faves, took her first stabs at hop appreciation, and drank more fucking pumpkin beer than anyone should ever be required to imbibe. Talking about myself in third person aside, it was a heck of a lot of fun.

But, with only four months of reviews to fall back on, and a local government election which interrupted beer-side scheduling, any real look back at my favourite brews of 2014 has to go outside the parameters of this blog. Consider it bonus content.

For me, a best-of beer isn’t just tasty in the moment. It’s the sort of beer you want to purchase again and again, even as weird and fascinating new releases crowd  into the best spots at your local liquor emporium. They’re the beers you text message friends and co-workers to recommend while half cut, or drag everyone you know out to sample first-hand.

Not all of them are flashy, but all of them are definitely worth the time.

BEST EVERYDAY

It’s the sort of thing I’d never even considered reviewing for this blog, but man did Phillip’s Blue Buck ever turn into my craft brew of choice on non-review nights. With its pleasantly hoppy but not overly bitter finish and medium body, it’s such a solid choice when you want a beer that can deliver some interest without requiring too much of your attention. I fished a lot of these out of sampler packs during after work hangouts, and it was my go-to choice for meeting friends for strictly one (OK, maybe two) pints on weeknights.

Hon. Mention: Red Racer’s Pilsner, which graced every picnic this summer that was too highbrow for PBR.

BEST IMPORT

I bought six bottles of Goose Island’s Sofie this year, which is more than any other bomber in my life, probably. But, because it hails from Phoebe’s country, it never merited a full review. Bright yellow, bubbly, a bit fruity and a little sweet, it works well with veggie-heavy cuisine (more important than usual, when the reviewer is vegetarian) and the champagne-style bottle is great for presentation.

BEST FRUIT

While I’ll always love Whistler Grapefruit, Cannery Brewing’s Blackberry Porter was one of my best finds of the year. Jammy, smooth and full of flavour, it’s completely unlike most of the fruit beers I tasted this summer, and one of the small number of brews where the fruit seemed less stunt and more an obvious enhancement.

BEST LIMITED

I need to buy more of Lighthouse Brewing’s Seaport Vanilla Stout. The beer — smooth, packed with pure vanilla bean, but not too sweet — is like the best beer milkshake without the heaviness (or lactose) of dairy. It’s been on my mind constantly since I reviewed it.

BEST LOCAL

Red Collar Brewing’s Trippel, a light-coloured but syrupy 9 per cent-er, taught me and many of my co-workers a valuable lesson about the value of pacing oneself and knowing the alcohol content of your drink before you swig. I don’t actually think it’s my favourite Red Collar beer — that may be the Doppelbock going on tap in February, or the Mild, which I haven’t yet imbibed enough times to call with certainty — but it’s a brew I’ve gone back for multiple times and had a few interesting evenings out of as a result. And what more can you ask, really?

BEST BEER RESOLUTION FOR 2015

Less pumpkin, more anything else at all seriously never again what were you thinking Andrea.

Slam Dunkel

by

0

Normally I take the photo before I take a sip, but this smelled so unique curiosity got the better of me.

Normally I take the photo before I take a sip, but this smelled so unique curiosity got the better of me.

The Specs: Whistler Brewing Co.’s Winter Dunkel
650 mL, 5 per cent ABV, limited release

So, Bad Riders, how do you feel about chocolate oranges?

Depending on how you answer, you’re likely either going to love or hate Whistler Brewing Co.’s Winter Dunkel.

When I say chocolate oranges, I don’t mean any old orange and chocolate combo here. I’m thinking specifically of those foil-covered, milk chocolate, “whack and unwrap” balls that tend to appear in the candy aisle as the holidays get nearer.

If you’re in any way unenthusiastic about a beer version of that candy, Dunkel is probably not the brew for you.

On the nose, the beer is all fresh orange zest and milk chocolate, and there’s plenty of the same on the tongue. I say milk chocolate for a reason. The flavour’s on the sweet and creamy side, withs none of the bitterness or deeper cocoa notes you might expect with a darker chocolate.

There is, however, a little bit more going on with this beer than pure candy.

Thanks to the addition of coriander, this sweet-to-start beer actually has a finish that walks the line between savoury and spicy. Typing that out, I feel like it shouldn’t work. But it’s somehow right, in the same way that Mexican hot chocolate benefits from an infusion of chili pepper.

Without the coriander I suspect Winter Dunkel would be a little too sweet, verging on artificial. But, with the movement from candy to spice in each sip the beer stays interesting far longer, to the point where I was disappointed when my testing bomber ran out.

Another surprise — compared to Whistler’s other annual cold-weather offering, Chestnut Ale, the Winter Dunkel isn’t nearly as sweet or as heavy as I was expecting. That’s a relief. Dunkel has enough going on without piling on the richness.

(Sorry about that punny headline. I couldn’t help myself.)

Bon Voyage

by

0

MaidVoy

I’ll admit it, this is another bottle I bought at least 50 per cent for the label.

The Specs: Central City and Four Winds Brewing Co.’s Maiden Voyage
6 per cent ABV, 650mL

If there was any kind of storyline to Bad Rider’s beer section in 2014 (other than the bit where an election somehow made me too busy too drink) it was the slow erosion of my ‘I’m not into hoppy beers’ claims.

While I’m still not one to reach for an IPA, with Maiden Voyage I think I have to admit I enjoy hops.

And for this beer, you’d have to.

Maiden Voyage starts off with hops, then hits you with a bitterness that lingers. And lingers. While the hops are sharp and bright to start, it’s the bitterness that stuck with me most through drinking this.

I suspect this makes it “challenging,” or at least, that’s how I’d describe it to the many avowed hop-haters I talk beer with on a regular basis. But I’ve gone through a couple bottles of this now and for some reason I can’t stop going back to the well.

It might be the woodsy notes — to me it’s got a taste reminiscent of pine, though everyone else I know who’s tasted it says that’s because I apparently don’t know what cedar (which the beer was aged in) tastes like. The spiciness of the wood rounds out the beer’s other flavours, though since it’s not exactly subtle I wouldn’t be surprised if it’s just as challenging for some drinkers as the rest of what’s going on with Maiden Voyage.

It’s also got good carbonation, and after a month of mainly porters, stouts and winter ales with the heft of molasses it’s nice to drink something a little lighter for a change that nonetheless feels like a cold-weather beer.

The story of Maiden Voyage itself is pretty cool: according to the Georgia Straight, the B.C. Craft Brewers Guild paired up a larger craft brewer (Central City) with smaller Four Winds Brewing Co. to produce a beer that would have been out of reach for the smaller partner.

It wasn’t immediately clear for the guild’s website if this kind of teamwork is going to become a regular occurrence, but count me in for future iterations, should that be the case.

Such Ale, Very Winter

by

0

Looks like a little, felt like a lot.

Looks like a little, felt like a lot.

The Specs: Howe Sound Brewing Co.’s Father John’s Winter Ale
7 per cent ABV, 1L, seasonal

There came a moment as I was scribbling notes about this beer, when I realized I’d forgotten to snap a photo.
Grabbing my half-empty solo cup and bottle, I attempted to set up the two in a way that would allow for our the beer section’s sort of shot.
No dice. I’d drunk to deep of the festive brew. And while there was enough ale left in the bottle to fill up the cup to appropriate levels… well.
If I pour it, I have to drink it, I thought, and snapped the pic as was.
All Howe Sounds brews are, due to their 1L packaging, a whole lot of beer.
But Father John’s Winter Ale would be a whole lot of brew even if served in a shot glass.
If gingerbread cake batter and beer had a torrid affair, I imagine their offspring would have a similar weight and density. This is a beer that feels thick on the tongue and heavy in the stomach. A cup of it has a richness that might sustain you through several months of winter hibernation.
The flavour profile — ginger and nutmeg, brown sugar, honey and malt — doesn’t exactly lighten the load. It’s quite sweet and while there’s lots of ginger here it doesn’t add brightness. I felt like the ale could have used something else to break up the taste. Maybe a hint of citrus, or a bit of vanilla, as you see in other winter beers.
Instead, it’s much of the same all the way through.
Whole lot of the same.
Add in the higher ABV, and I found a glass of this (OK, half a solo cup) to be as much as I could take.
I followed it up with a different beer that, while not great, was just slightly lighter and slightly more varied and breathed a sigh of relief.

Red Collar Brewing: Highway to the Danger Beer

by

0

Screen Shot 2014-12-04 at 10.21.26 AM

Thanks to Bad Rider friend and KTW reporter Jess W. for the awesome layout, and using a picture of me where I wasn’t making an awful face.

You can read Bad Rider’s special Kamloops This Week brewery review here. A few extra notes:

  • Red Collar‘s concept is a little different, and relatively new for B.C. The brewery has a liquor licence that only allows it to serve its own product — so don’t bring your friend who only wants gin and tonics here. Food options vary quite a lot. While they partner with local food trucks some nights, on others you’ll only have pepperoni sticks and the like to soak up the alcohol.
  • As to the brewery’s tasting room, it’s definitely bare bones — pretty much a concrete box with tables. There’s no music, no televisions, and not much in the way of sound dampening. The one thing I’ve noticed on a few RC visits is you may find yourself shouting a bit, because voices tend to echo in the room. Brewmaster David Beardsell said he’s mostly interested in beer, not “nightclubbing” and sees the Spartan nature of the place as a feature not a bug.
  • A lot of these beers are sweeter than I’d normally like, but I think the clarity of the flavour balances the added sugar in some cases. The Dubbel, Tripel and Marzen were definitely sweet. Mild, IPA and IPL much less so.
  • As I mentioned at the bottom of the review, Beardsell ended up offering us a quick tour of the brewery at the end of the evening (though we didn’t alert staff we were reviewing the brewery at any point earlier in the night). The Doppelbock we sampled was a hit for most of the crowd, and our tastes in beer vary wildly. It’s dark, very smooth, and very powerful. I’m looking forward to trying it in early 2015, preferably when not I’m not half cut already.

An Exciting Preview of Things to Come

by

0

As some of you may have noticed, my newspaper co-workers make fairly frequent cameos in the reviews for this blog. After all, who’s better qualified to give an opinion on alcohol, really, than a bunch of journalists?

I’m excited to announce that equation now goes both ways. Starting this Thursday, the beer section of Bad Rider Reviews will appear periodically in the pages of Kamloops This Week.

While this won’t normally disrupt our blogging schedule, my first outing for KTW is so ridiculous and massive I’m going to let the paper have the glory (and not just because they paid for a portion of the beer up for review). Check back here on Dec. 4 for a link to the finished product and some too-tipsy-for-primetime thoughts cut from the final review.

In the meantime, here’s a taste of what to expect…

photo 1

photo 2