Category Archives: Beer

Pumpkin Head vs. Crooked Tooth

by

2

photo 4

Week One: Fernie versus Phillips

This October Bad Rider’s beer section is pitting gourd against gourd in a battle to determine which B.C. beer is king of the pumpkin patch. Welcome to Pumpkindrome, Week One.

The Challengers: Fernie Brewing Co. Pumpkin Head Brown Ale (5 per cent ABV, 650mL) versus Phillips Brewing Co. Crooked Tooth (5 per cent ABV, 650mL)

We begin our epic showdown with a battle of light and dark, sweet and more-sweet, pumpkin and …wait, where’s the pumpkin?

If Pumpkindrome were a battle of smell, Fernie would have the match after one whiff of the pint glass. With a moist pumpkin and spice aroma, Pumpkin Head smells like a slice of pie that’s been lingering on in the fridge a couple days past Canadian Thanksgiving. Crooked tooth, meanwhile, offers a light nutmeggy scent, but none of the pumpkin funk.

But, when it comes to flavour, Fernie’s offering can’t make up to its pre-sip hype.

Where I was hoping for notes of cinnamon, allspice and sweet, cooked pumpkin, all this dark beer had to offer me was sugar. To its credit, it was a rich, brown-sugar, fall-style sweetness — seasonally appropriate, at least. And as far as brown ales go, if you like your brew mid- to very-sweet, you’ll find nothing to complain about here.

You just won’t find any pumpkin.

Phillips, on the flip side, offered me a taste quite like what I would have expected from Fernie, based on smell. Crooked tooth is a pure slice of pumpkin pie, with a slightly sweet pumpkin custard flavour and mellow spicing.

While the Phillips website claims ginger, cinnamon and nutmeg in the brew, it’s the latter I noticed most, which actually seemed to work quite well. While your standard pumpkin spice fare can get abrasive and heavy from cloves and cinnamon, a light touch of nutmeg adds some depth to the sweetness without overwhelming the pumpkin.

This time around, it’s no trouble to pick a winner. After all, if your pumpkin beer doesn’t taste of pumpkins, what’s the point?

Phillips moves to round 2.

Welcome to the Pumpkindrome

by

1

The muesli will not be competing in Pumpkindrome.

The muesli will not be competing in pumpkindrome.

A year ago, around Thanksgiving, I got it in my head I wanted to try as many of the pumpkin beers at the BC Liquor Store as I could. After scouring the aisles, I took about five bottles up to the counter, feeling both pleased and a little over indulgent with so many beers on the counter before me.

What a difference about 346 days makes.

Have you been in a government liquor store lately? It’s like the Great Pumpkin went on some sort of bender. Orange everywhere. From Seattle to St-Ambroise, every craft brewery worth its stock is getting into the gourd game. Even Anheuser-Busch’s craft beer knockoff brand Shock Top had its own pumpkin wheat offering. I bet we’re two years away at most from Bud Light Pumpkin.

So far this year, even though I’m only buying B.C. beers, I’ve amassed a collection of nine different brews, and been promised still more to come. With so many bottles and so little time before winter sets in, what’s a humble beer reviewer to do but make them fight to the death?

Thus, I present Bad Rider’s first ever Pumpkin Madness Bracket. Every week, we’ll be pitting two brews against each other to see what combination of spice, squash and hops you should be cuddling up to during your annual leaf peeping trek.

Each brew will get a couple rankings: Spiciness, actual pumpkin flavour (potentially a dicey category, given how many pumpkin spice products contain no pumpkin at all, but we’ll give it a go) and overall performance. Based on past experience, the best pumpkin beers balance both spice and gourd, but with some dark horses in this year’s line up who knows what we’ll find.

And now, ladies and gentlemen, your first round matchups (so far):

Fernie Brewing Co.’s Pumpkin Head Brown Ale versus Phillips Brewing Co.’s Crooked Tooth

Prohibition Brewing Co.’s Harvet Pumpkin Spiced Ale versus Howe Sound Brewing Co.’s Pumpkineater

Parallel 49’s Lost Souls Chocolate Pumpkin Porter versus Nelson Brewing Co.’s Organic Pumpkin Ale

Tree Brewing Co.’s Jumpin’ Jack India Pumpkin Ale versus Red Racer Pumpkin Ale

and

Steamworks Pumpkin Ale versus ????*

Who will emerge victorious? Who will be crushed like a rotten Jack o’lantern on November 1st?

The challenge begins next week..

*So far Kamloops only seems to have 9 B.C. pumpkin beers stocked in the entire city. While Bad Rider has several plans in the works, for now challenger 10 must remain a mystery of its own.

Howling for You (Barkerville Brewing)

by

0

Barkerville, that dog is too cute and you need to be stopped.

Barkerville, that dog is too cute and you need to be stopped.

The Specs: Barkerville Brewing Co. (Quesnel, B.C.) Hound of the Barkerville Brown Ale
5.9 per cent ABC, 650mL, regular series

 

I didn’t initially intend to review this beer right now. In fact, had it not been for last weekend’s Prohibition ale review, I might have given the little brewery in Quesnel that could a few months off before returning to their lineup.

But, a couple nights after reviewing that nice, but totally average brew, I found myself needing a brew that could stand up to both latkes and stuffed peppers and discovered the brown ale I’d been hoping for.

On the face of it, Hound and Bootlegger look pretty similar — same deep amber colour, though much less head and overall carbonation on the former — but there are surprisingly few points of commonality on taste.

Where Bootlegger is wheat bread, Hound is a much more interesting loaf.

Starting with a deep, roasted malt flavour and rounding out into a quick hit of pluck hops, it’s in some ways a much simpler beer. Where Bootlegger offered hints of citrus and sugar, Hound offers a straight-ahead nuttiness and virtually no sweetness.

With the slightly hopped finish, you’re not weighed down by the darkness at the front of the sip, and with no sugar the lack of acid isn’t an issue — there’s no syrupy tones to cut through.

Once again, Barkerville’s done a solid rendition of a standard. And, in case you were wondering, it indeed stood up beautifully to peppers and potatoes. I’m on my second bottle in less than a week, and if that’s not a seal of approval I don’t know what I can do for you.

Good versus average

by

0

Prohibition Ale

That blindfolded pig is on every bottle, btw. Cheeky, Prohibition.

The Specs: Prohibition Brewing Co. (Kelowna, B.C.) Bootlegger Ale
5.5 per cent ABV, 650mL, regular series

It’s the straight-ahead, nice-enough beers that are really the hardest to write about, and such is the case with Bootlegger Ale.

After a summer featuring quite a lot of pilsner, pale ale, hefeweizen and PBR (What? You have to take something to all-night barbecues) it feels a little strange to be drinking an ale this dark.With its deep amber colour, Bootlegger feels like a properly fall beer in most respects, save its carbonation. Beer this fizzy seems like a summer concern. I’ve been having a bad week for pouring beer to begin with, but I’ve not built up a head like this on a pint in a while.

As far as taste goes, it’s fairly sweet with a bit of acidity to keep it from being fully weighed down. I wouldn’t say I found either the hops or malt of it particularly pronounced, though they’re both present and distinct.

And… that’s about it. Yup. Review over. Go home.

There’s not a thing bad about Bootlegger, but I can’t get worked up one way or another.

Were I a Kelowna-ite looking to support the local craft brew scene, I’d probably order this one with food sometimes. But, as a Kamloopsian I don’t know if I see much call to pick this one up on the regular — and no, that call has nothing to do with the supposed rivalry between the Tournament Capital and the Little Apple.

Bootlegger is the wheat bread of beer. It may be a good every day pick, but it’s not going to compete with a showcase full of macarons and cream puffs.

(That’s not entirely metaphorical, actually. Drinking it felt an awful lot like eating a slice of darker bread. Again, a perfectly pleasant job, but who writes home about the bread basket?)

Ultimately, it’s a strong enough showing that I’m happy to investigate Prohibition Brewing Co.’s other offerings, but I don’t know that I’ll be back to this well any time soon.

Creative Anachronism

by

0

photo

Uncommon sky, meet common kitchen counter.

The Specs: Whistler Brewing Co. Big Sky Uncommon Lager
5 per cent ABV, 650mL, seasonal

 

We’ve got more than 90 breweries in B.C. these days, and yet here I am back at the Whistler Brewing trough.

What can I say? Big Sky has a dandy story. Quoth the bottle copy:

“Back in the 1890s, before refrigeration and modern brewing techniques, lagers were hot fermented in the warm western climate — much like an ale is today. What was common then is uncommon today.”

Whistler promises as “hop forward clean finish” and I have to say, they’ve delivered. This is the most literal interpretation of hop-forward, clean finish you could hope to find.

On taking a sip of Big Sky you’re immediately hit with all of the beer’s flavour. And where the back of the sip, your end notes, your aftertaste, should be there’s… nada. Instead, you have the strange experience of the hop taste just sort of evaporating out of your mouth, even as you still feel like you’re drinking. It’s like Jesus in reverse — beer into water, with maybe a hint of metal.

It’s pretty entertaining. The slower your sip, the more pronounced the experience is. It took me entirely too long to get through a glass of this stuff because I was trying to see how far I could push the sensation. And you don’t have to worry about feeling weighed down when you’re through your first pint. Big Sky is its own palate cleanser.

But, I feel like the punch of beer flavour at the front doesn’t allow for complexity. The toasty and hoppy flavours end up trampling all over each other, stifling their best characteristics. I found myself wishing Big Sky could cool its jets, give me more time to get a handle on its flavours before everything swept away.

Faults aside, if you can still track down a bottle (this was one of Whistler’s summer releases, though I found a good batch of it at one of my local stores) I’d give it a go. Makes a heck of a party trick if you’re the right kind of dork.

Beeriarchy

by

0

Yeah, it's even kinda pink.

Yeah, it’s even kinda pink.

The Specs: Tin Whistle Brewing (Penticton, B.C.) Strawberry Blonde Ale
5 per cent ABV, 650mL, seasonal (I think. It’s hard to tell with this company)

This is the story of a good beer that made me think bad things.

I was about halfway through my first glass of Strawberry Blonde Ale when it first popped into my head: “This is a girl beer.”

This beer — this nice, very drinkable beer — was making me sexist.

It’s odd, because I’ve reviewed many a fruit beer on this site and this has never occurred to me before. Raspberry beers in particular are mainstream for all genders.

Yet there’s something about this light, somewhat sweet, not too bitter strawberry beer that makes me vaguely embarrassed about recommending.

Maybe it’s strawberries themselves. Your usual beer berries are assertive, tart. Raspberries and blackberries. Strawberries are more commonly found in creamy pink liqueurs and wine spritzers.

And there’s no denying that this is a strawberry beer. As with my last Tin Whistle selection, Peach Cream Ale, this is a beer that tastes exactly of its eponymous fruit. The strawberry here is so potent I would have sworn I could feel seeds grinding between my teeth as I sipped.

But, Strawberry Blonde is also fairly smartly balanced. Where other berry beers can get weighed down by their sugar, blonde ale is light in the mouth, with a finish of beery bitterness that I was not expecting.

It strikes me as a good gateway beer. The brew you could hand the friend who drank a lot of Boone’s Farm or Arbour Mist in their misspent youth, but never developed a thing for beer.

Maybe that’s the problem. I think of craft brew as a lot of things — but craft beer for people who don’t love beer? Sounds almost sacrilegious.

Obviously, that’s a bullshit attitude. A craft beer can be inventive and well-brewed and still appeal to those who aren’t living a 24/7 malt-and-hop lifestyle. Otherwise, all we end up with are trends like that one a few years back, when every IPA had to be so hoppy you couldn’t force half of them down without a glass of water as a chaser.

So give Strawberry Blonde a shot. Hell, if you really want to double down on the girly, serve it with a salad heavy on green vegetables, which seem to pair well. Both are delicious.

Girls have good taste.

Poppin’

by

0

Hoyner Pilsner

With apologies to Community, “Pop pop!”

The Specs: Hoyne Brewing Co. (Victoria, B.C.) Hoyner Pilsner
5.5 per cent ABV, 650mL, regular series

This pilsner’s got a pedigree.

At least, it has a good advertising campaign — its own little flag on the shelf, proclaiming “best in class Okanagan Fest of Ale 2014!”

Being kitty-corner to the Okanagan here in Kamloops, I figured if it’s good enough for my fellow regional beer snobs, it’s probably good enough for me.

If the way I’m backing into this review hasn’t tipped you off already, I’m not sure that turned out to be true.

It’s not that Hoyner Pilsner is bad. Certainly, it’s not in the same league as my last review, which I still think about with baffled head shakes.

In a lot of ways Hoyner’s a great pilsner.

It’s nice and light on the tongue, with just enough of an acid feel to keep it bright. It’s a beautiful colour, foamy enough that it still had a few millimetres of head by the time I was nearing the bottom of the glass, and the sort of beer that pairs spectacularly with a sweet potato veggie burger (I got hungry with about 1/4 of the bottle left).

I think I’d like it a lot, if it didn’t taste so damn much like Corn Pops.

I checked into this, and I’m not the only person to identify a “cereal” taste to Hoyner, but here at Bad Rider we like to dig deep, which is why I spent much of my drinking session trying to come up with the best possible breakfast analog.

Bright, corny, slightly sweeter than you really want it to be — buy me a mini cereal box and transport me back to Grade 5. Corn Pops.

If you like your beer a bit sweet, this might really do it for you. But in my case, there are only a few scenarios where sugary beer is a winner. I found myself wishing for a bit of bitterness on the back end, something to break up the corn flavour.

As I mentioned earlier, the veggie burger did a bang-up job of diluting the cereal taste, and I suspect carnivores would enjoy it with burgers or some sort of sandwich.

So, if you’re looking for something with some industry cred to serve at your final barbecues of the year, Hoyner’s worth a try. But for straight drinking I’ve got other pilsners closer to my heart.

Shallow Drinker Failure

by

0

electricunicorn

Even the magic of the Christmas mug couldn’t save this guy.

The Specs: Phillips Brewing Co. (Victoria, B.C.) Electric Unicorn White IPA
6.5 per cent ABV, 650 mL, seasonal

It’s a rare, rare day when a truly undrinkable beer passes my lips. You know, the kind of beer where the only proper response is a dismayed face and resolve to get through at least one damn glass of the stuff. For research.

That the first truly bad beer on this blog is coming from Phillips is a shock to me. Phillips’ Blue Buck is one of my go-to craft beers. While I don’t love everything in their lineup equally, nothing has ever led me to believe they’d be capable of… of…

Let me put it this way:

The entire time I was grimacing my way through a glass of Electric Unicorn White IPA, all I could think was, ‘what’s the weird fruity note I can taste alongside all that grass?’

I’m not sure exactly how an electric unicorn differs from the regular type — laser beam eyes, if the bottle label is to be believed — but this IPA tastes exactly like what I’d want to feed to a horse with a horn on its head and undefined magic lightening powers.

What I originally thought might be a grapefruit aftertaste turned solidly pineapple juice after a couple sips. The grassy note, meanwhile, resolved itself into a taste I remember from rolling around in the hayloft of my grandparents’ barn.

Pineapple and hay.

If this sounds better to you than it has to anyone I’ve described it to so far, congrats! Apparently you’re the target audience for this beer.

You and the unicorns.

It probably serves me right for picking a beer simply because its label looked like something that one guy on every university campus who’s still really into Grateful Dead would use decorate his dorm room.

I never have had much time for The Dead.

I should have taken it for the warning it was.

Shallow drinker success story

by

0

52 Foot Stout

LOOK AT THIS ADORABLE BOTTLE.

The Specs: Barkerville Brewing Co. (Quesnel, B.C.) 52 Foot Stout
7 per cent ABV, 650mL, regular series

I don’t think anyone, anywhere, ever has been as happy to sell me something as the clerk at the liquor store was when I stepped up to the counter with my tallboy of 52 Foot Stout.

According to the clerk, Barkerville’s beers are pretty much impossible for this small private store to keep in stock, and the stout is the best-seller. She assured me I was going to adore it.

With that much hype in the mix, I naturally put off drinking the beer for almost a week out of concern.

But rest assured, reader, this beer is awesome enough that, in contrast to a recent review of Phoebe’s, my notes started out with “oh my god. OH MY GOD. Oh my God!”

You know that moment when you find a beer that hits all your preferred characteristics for its style?

Though 52 Foot Stout has an odd ingredient on its list — in this case “boreal amber birch syrup,” to quote the bottle copy — it’s not a particularly quirky beer.

From my experiences with birch beer, root beer’s love/hate cousin, I’d expected something sweet and even syrupy.

Instead, 52 Foot doesn’t offer so much as a hint of sweetness. The birch beer seems to contribute to a toasty woodsmoke and nature finish that would have been entirely lost in a sugary brew.

With a stout, heaviness comes with the territory, but that campfire-on-a-dark-night note keeps 52 Foot drinkable and never oppressive the way the dregs of a lesser dark beer can get.

And, ok, this is shallow, but we have to talk about Barkerville’s packaging choices, because they’re charming as hell, from the cartoon lantern and the old-timey, hand-lettered fonts on the front to what looks like a moonshine jug printed on the back side of the bottleneck. The brewery’s schtick is solidly  gold rush-era, and they’ve hit a great balance with their bottles.

Assuming the liquor stores around here manage to keep the brewery’s other varieties in stock long enough for me to get through my bottle backlog, it’s safe to say this won’t be the last time you see Barkerville on Bad Rider.

And future stouts are going to have a hell of a lot to live up to.

The final throwdown

by

1

blackberry porter

The dark horse of the fruit beer series — in terms of colour, if nothing else.

The Specs: Cannery Brewing (Penticton, B.C.) Blackberry Porter
6 per cent ABV; 650mL;  regular series

The problem with reviewing a really good beer is sometimes all you want to do is yell about the one facet you love.

So what’s the thing I love so much about this blackberry porter?

“It’s purple.”

Well, no, not literally purple, as you can see in the photo. But there’s no other word for me that better describes the taste.

That should be a bad thing. Purple traditionally means cough syrup and grape Tylenol and Grower’s Orchard Berry (which I rag on unduly, considering I want to make Phoebe do a taste test of the stuff one of these days…)

But here purple gets to make up for past sins. This is a beer with a deep, rich purple finish that’s all berry.

Like a raspberry beer, the blackberry is quite tart, but I’d say the berry flavour here is more robust than what I’ve experienced with most craft berry beers — in keeping with blackberries themselves, which I’ve always thought of as more of a punch-you-in-the-mouth fruit than their red contemporaries.

The berry note here is jammy and round, the way fruit flavour might present in a really good red wine. Purple.

It’s a beer that benefits from a slow, considered sipping over conversation, in part because the jam notes will stay distinct even if your palette’s like mine and not that great after the first five tastes.

Unlike most of the beers in the fruit beer throwdown, this one doesn’t need a hot summer day and a patio for maximum enjoyment, either. I can see this being very nice at the end of a long day in late October or November, when you’re looking for a gentle reminder of summers past.

[For those of you wondering, that’s right, the fruit beer reviews are at an end. For the next while I’m going to pick things based on my usual metrics of ‘something shallow about packaging’ and ‘ooh, what’s that?’]