beernesday

if i didn't have a fabulous softball tournie right here in good ole vancouver this weekend i'd be wishing mighty hard that i was in washington d.c. instead! all 'ale the women in beer!

i'm going to san francisco in june! yay! i love s.f.! gots to get me some anchor steam, some 21st amendment and what else? not opening in time for my visit this year, but a place i'd like to check out next time i'm in town is the monk's kettle's new enterprise (they had me at 24 taps) anywhere else i need to check out?

from my friend, the king: “God, I’d give anything for a drink. I’d give my god-damned soul for just a glass of beer.” – Jack Torrance, The Shining

one of the joys of craft beer is that it encourages folks to drink locally produced beer so if you're on that bandwagon how about jumping on the eating local bandwagon too? and make it organic too, where possible look, even doctors agree! avoid over-processing, fructose and gmos support your local (organic) farmer! and, from my lovely naturopath, a handy guide to which fruits and veggies are most important to purchase organic, and which ones you can get away with purchasing regularly - to help stretch your grocery dollars: Shoppers Guide To Pesticides Sometimes we cannot afford to purchase all of our fruit and veggies organic. Here is a list of must-buy organic (highest in pesticides) and may-buy organic (lowest in pesticides) Worst (buy organic) 1. Celery 2. Peaches 3. Strawberry 4.Apples 5.Blueberry 6.Nectarine 7. Bell Peppers 8. Spinach 9. Kale 10. Cherries 11. Potatoes 12. Grapes   Best (low in pesticides) 1. Onions 2. Avocado 3. Sweet Corn

cask tonight at st. augustine's is: St. Augustine's Manichean Monday May 30 @ 6:00pm This Monday St Augustine's will tap a dry-hopped cask of Russell Brewing Company IP'Eh. No word yet on the hop varietal. and i'll be there to try it - yay!

disloyalty cards for beer? could it work in vancouver? boy, would i love to see that! hit st. augustine's on monday, the railway on tuesday, cascade room wednesday, yaletown on thursday, london pub on friday, the alibi room on saturday and the whip on sunday and you've filled up half a card already! that's an incentive plan i can follow! or is it a disincentive plan...

oooh, beer recipes!  yes please! check out the homebrew chef - shake and bake with ipa ! sure its a chicken recipe and this lacto-ovo pescetarian doesn't do chicken, but still - i can shake and bake some nice tofu you know!  or a fish...

the huffington post weighs in on why beer is getting more expensive

the cask of oak-aged wee angry scotch at the railway on tuesday night was a whole lot of delicious! malty and dark roasty and smooth deep mystery in a pint glass!  i much prefer the oaked to the whiskeyed i think this might be my favourite wee angry scotch cask to date! it was a bit too dark for my lager loving friends so they went for the red racer lager it was a darned fine way to begin an evening of beering it up!

howe sound brewing and earl's restaurants have teamed up so now you can get devil's elbow at earl's i don't normally eat at earl's, but i'll be more likely to go now if i can get me a delicious ipa there!

"fifty ways to love your lagers knock that lager back, jack open a new can, stan you don't need to be coy, roy listen to lundy hop on the beer bus, gus you will need to discuss much tasting's the key, lee" paul simon, as revised by sheila of firefly as i said, i am not the biggest lager lover but i was game to have lundy at firefly show me 50 ways to love my lagers!  lundy, loving her lager  i was pretty happy to see some favourites on the line up for tasting on tuesday night like the lighthouse overboard imperial pilsner, rogue's dead guy and dirtoir black lager! we began light, with the samuel adams noble pils which totally smelled like a lager but it tasted alright - crisp and clean, some resin and bitterness, but no aftertaste then we went overboard with the lighthouse imperial pilsner twice the hops, twice the malts, twice the flavour and colour i'm a fan! still smells like a lager, but its smooth and fuller-bodied and delici

oh the disappointment! i heard back from five vancouver beer bloggers who are interested in doing a field trip to dead frog which is lovely and wonderful but i haven't had a response from dead frog i emailed the ceo last week and then their general info email yesterday nothing zip zilch nada i'm getting the feeling that they just aren't that into me which is sad, because sam the brewmaster really seemed pleased with himself for coming up with the idea i will not give up yet but i gotta tell ya, it ain't looking good

instead of the rest of my review of the vcbw women in beer event, i give you someone else's! the skinny from granville online on breaking through the pint glass ceiling

trust anheuser busch to have taken a lovely mexican idea and, well, taken it i have been known to extol the virtues of a true mexican michelada as it is the beer version of the caesar and probably most refreshing in hot weather but i find the concept of ruining perfectly good beer with clamato not something i am likely to do shans is heading to sasquatch this weekend and is overwhelmingly excited to be stopping at american walmart on her way to stock up on the bud chelada i cringe but hope for her sake it is all that she has dreamed of, and then some (i mean maybe the clamato will make the budweiser actually palatable...)

this week's yelp is all about the beer in vancouver! Yelp's Pint Runneth Over This Weekly Yelp brought to you by Velopalooza "Howe" does a beer sampling "Sound"? Vancouverites aren't exactly shy about their suds. But alas, a good micro can be hard to find at your average Cold Beer and Wine Store. So your Weekly Yelp is here to hop you up on the freshest spots to find a frosted barley pop worth drinking. You betta beer-lieve it! “With over 40 craft beers on tap,” St. Augustine’s is a “must for anyone who likes craft beer,” promises Brad T. He considers himself quite the cicerone and recs "pairing their Flintstones-sized ribs with a pale ale and the oysters with a wheat beer." Kat S gives The Whip and its collection of all the "great microbrews our province has to offer” a crack. The "specialty cask openings on Sunday afternoons" also sound like the perfect cure for what ales us! Andy Y prefers to fill up his beer belly w

busy beer night for me tonight! first stop:  the railway for cask night - tonight is russell's wee angry scotch second stop:  50 ways to love your lager at firefly - i don't generally love a lager so i hope to develop some appreciation of lagers beyond pilsners!

st. augustine's has a new logo !

we only got rained on on saturday! i actually managed to sunburn my nose! the motley crew: the wall of fame:

and another installment in the "it happened a while ago" vcbw posts... women in beer the thursday of vancouver craft beer week held at republic first of all, they asked me to speak right there you know i'm gonna gush just a little bit about this event secondly, there were so many amazing women there you know i'm gonna gush just a little bit more! rebecca of crannog hammers the hand truck porter cask because i was speaking, i got to go in early you know, to help stuff the swag bags aaaaand schmooze with the brewers and lisa morrison! it was great being in there early i got to see all the casks get sprung and talk to everyone before they got swamped by the loving hoardes claire of big river brewing helps with the howe sound cask the beer goddess also helped out with the howe sound cask at 6:00 the doors opened and the lovely supporters of women in beer arrived we had all expected that it would be set up differently more places to sit, a proper pl

only two weeks late, its my review of the vcbw dead famous pub crawl! lord love a busy beer drinker! so, the theme of the pub crawl was dead famous as in dress up as a famous dead person (and the sponsor was the dead famous ad agency, who made us all lovely buttons of dead famous people) the first stop on the crawl was cinema, a donnelly group pub on granville street there we had our choice of a pint of driftwood's white bark or their farmhand ale woe be to me the non-wheat or belgian beer drinker in the crowd... i went with the white bark the food at this stop was cute little sliders with fries and chipotle aioli for me they put roasted veggies on a bun, and it was delicious!! (and hey, were the platters those ones from dragon's den that are all eco and stuff??) cute food is fun!! then we wandered our asses through the sunny streets of vancouver to the yaletown brew pub where we made everyone in costume pose (posers!) at the yaletown i started with the pil

yikes -  very behind on my timely posts... the cask last week at the railway was leann's candy dish and it was delish! tasted like a patio and that wasn't just me saying so, i heard it echoed around! i dunno what i was thinking, but somehow "candy dish' equaled peppermint or uber sweet in my mind but it wasn't not at all it was fruity, and tart-sweet it tasted like summer like what you'd want to be drinking on a hot and sweaty patio reminiscent of a fuzzy peach candy, but less sweet the next cask is lundy's collaboration grapefruit ipa thanks r&b for actually letting lundy help make it! the whip was initially offering the vcbw cascadian dark ale cask on sunday afternoon so i had me a pint while the grapefruit ipa chilled to the right temperature the vcbw cascadian dark ale while maltier than i like a cda, it was most drinkable the grapefruit ipa in the fridge then i made the grave mistake of needing food and not just any

i got tapped to do the office beer run this week apparently word is out that i like beer, like a lot the 80 year old consultant suggested that i try some of those local smaller breweries - he's heard that they are producing some nice beers give me the firm credit card and i'll be happy to support those local smaller breweries! (heck i'll do it on my own dime too, but shhhh, don't tell the office that!) and what, you might ask, did i buy? well... i went to the government store on bute at alberni which, while it is a "signature" store still doesn't have that great a selection for a beer geek like me but frankly, the selection is more than good enough to bring something a little different to the happy office folks granville island raspberry wheat ale (6) steamwhistle pilsner (6) phillips hop circle (6) phillips mixer pack (12) - blue buck, phoenix lager, slipstream cream and coffee stout cannery mixer pack (6) - ipa, naramata brown and anarchy

i love that the weather forecast for the may long weekend is for sun its about time! bring on the fishing bring on the fire pit bring on the beer in cans! i'm going with a different group this year and will hopefully be bringing craft beer to the fore the established may long gongers are bud and pilsner drinkers i believe and make a "wall of shame" from all the empty cans each year this year i plan to make it a "wall of fame" with the help of my craft beer loving posse of bridget, tasha, stacy, ananda and justin craft beer all the way! (not to mention bailleys in our coffee and fireball nightcaps)

more vcbw pics by willie kushner:

there are more hops in a dead frog nothing goes down like a cold dead frog such great catchphrases! emails are sent blogs have been commented on the first steps towards putting together a vancouver beer blogger's field trip to dead frog in aldergrove have been taken i'm excited to make this happen!! i hope the rest of the bloggers feel the same way even if they don't... (for whatever unfathomable to me reason) it was a great excuse for me to see just how many local beer bloggers there are out there and begin to fantasize about possible meet-ups and outreach and all around community building and i wonder after checking out all of their blogs if they know each other already because most of them link to each other i need to get in on that! i have links to several of them, but will be putting some time into linking to the rest gotta support my local beer geeks!

some nice shots i managed to get at vancouver craft beer week: james dean, countess bathory and john belushi me and cole and our beers katy of vanbrewers, the beer blogger, and claire of big river brewing   janis joplin and jimi hendrix marilyn monroe bridget and tasha ryan and me bridget, katy, me and michelle chris graham jason, chris and matt bridget and stacy danny martin, chris and me