beernesday

we've known it was coming but it's officially official that it is! Central City Brewers + Distillers has some exciting news! Central City is introducing a new Brewpub in the original Dix location at 871 Beatty Street. Central City is bringing an innovative casual brewpub experience offering unique BBQ and Burger culinary options, and lots of Central City and other BC Craft beers on-tap to downtown Vancouver.   Central City will launch at 871 Beatty Street, Vancouver this summer. Stay tuned for more updates in the coming weeks. Follow Central City at: Instagram  @CentralCityBrew , Twitter  @CentralCityBrew , Facebook  CentralCityBrewing www.centralcitybrewing.com

Because I just can’t say it enough times, lemme tell you what a great time it is to be a craft beer drinker in Vancouver.   Yes, I know I’m always saying that it’s a great time to be a craft beer lover, but it is true!   And it just keeps on getting better. The nay-sayers are predicting that this is a bubble that will eventually burst, and maybe they’re right. But for right now, and the foreseeable future, craft beer is booming, and we’re all the winners.   2015 is a mere four months old, and already we’ve had several new breweries open Province-wide; a couple of breweries have added craft cider to their line-ups; two out of town breweries are opening up brewing spaces in Vancouver; and one of Alberta’s large breweries has opened a Vancouver location – Big Rock Brewing opened an Urban Eatery on West 4 th (coincidently at the corner of Alberta) on April 10th.   Big Rock says that it’ll keep the Vancouver location local by brewing small batches on site f...

just a wee one today: central city takes over dix and sours shall flow!

oooh, if you know what you're looking for, you can find a pic of me on beer me bc's blog about oktoberfest at bomber brewing who doesn't love playing 'where's rebecca?' the straight asked three beer experts what to drink this fall rumour around town is that central city will be opening up a satellite venue in the former dix location this is very exciting news! monica frost won camra's volunteer of the year award congratulations!  well deserved! dogwood brewing has a kickstarter campaign - donate today and help bring organic beer to vancouver

well, i'm alive and still making it to work every day so vancouver craft beer week has not yet totally kicked my ass or any of my major organs! opening night on friday was a really great event they used the roundhouse to its utmost new breweries were on one side, with the lone cider stall lots of space in the middle for stage and oyster bar and mingling then all the old stand-bys on the other side it was packed, but not so full that it took too long to get a beer or from one side to the other and there were oysters! i made it to the yaletown for a pint after the event... which may or may not have been a good idea! saturday i attended the four winds open house out in the boonies no really, its out somewhere that required bridges and tunnels to get to but the beer was good, we were greeted with a casked fir tip ipa sample, growlers and bostons were already filled so no need to wait for yours, the brewery was open for a tour or just wandering around and checking out...

vcbw, quickly in a few facebook photos:   voodoo donut at portland craft opening driftwood's fat tug t-shirts (hehehehehe) ready to rock out at the hop head banger's ball in my fabulous driftwood son of the morning concert shirt hoppapalooza (before we got too blurry) at the hop head banger's ball at the dix reunion at stackhouse a couple of my fave beer geeks at the final tasting room

and just like that, vancouver craft beer week is over i think my liver is happy and possibly my neglected family but i'm going to miss it i know i'm lucky that we have such a vibrant craft beer community in vancouver and there are events every day of the week that i can go to but there's just something about a craft beer festival that amps it all up several notches (perhaps even to 11) highlights? must i pick just one? no, i cannot possibly do that highlight of ticketed events - has to be hoppapalooza again this year always a good time, nigel just keeps sourcing more fabulous brews for this event and capping the number of tickets sold meant many disappointed people, but for those of us lucky enough to get tickets, it was nice to move freely about the space and be served quickly oh the beers! i cannot say enough about the casks and kegs of ambrosia that we imbibed! 41 of them i tried, forty-one fingers crossed that my luck will hold out and i'll be on...

i may have finally recovered from the camra spring trip to howe sound brewing in squamish and mark james group 's high mountain brewhouse in whistler the trip was saturday... lord but those camra vancouver people know how to toss back the beer! for now, a few of the less incriminating photos: still sober aka just got on the bus monty, the bus that broke down sampler at howe sound the bar at howe sound brewery tour hanging with the fermentors the last ever cask of dix ipa taking some of the last cask to go - because we love tasha double fisting aka comparison between the ipas (note the grip is to warm them to equal temperature, not to make sure i don't drunkenly drop them!) a few of the ne-er do wells and there it was, the last cask of dix ipa gone forever the cask is dead - long live the cask!

had many a beer with the regular suspects at st. augustine's the other night. still love how many taps they have, and all the delightful craft beers to choose from but... and you knew there had to be a but!  the service there is not up to snuff.  yes, we were a larger group, and there were several other large groups there, but i still feel that if you have the capacity to seat all of us, you should have the staff available to serve all of us in a timely fashion.  jackie's food came before her beer for crying out loud! there was a run on sampler glasses later in the night and this adversely affected how quickly the beers were coming.  but even before the glass shortage there was slow service on the beer front.  shame, really. will i go back?  of course i will!  i love the choice, the sampler option and the food. i just want faster service, that's all! i went with two samplers to try all the beers i hadn't yet tasted, and then switched to pints...

went to dix last thursday for the cask night. happy happy joy joy, it was an ipa! quite enjoyable.  no tasting notes for this one though...  just that it was hoppy goodness and totally worth the trip to dix. as we didn't get there until almost 7:00, we only got one glass of the cask before it was finished.  luckily i really like their house ipa and had more glasses of that than were strictly necessary!  oh the hoppy goodness, how i love thee just a little too well sometimes. unfortunately there's not really anything on dix's menu for me to eat, so i'm not sure how many more visits to their cask night i might fit in before they close...  all the carnivores in my party were more than delighted by the food options so should i need to venture there again i shouldn't have any trouble convincing the posse to come with me.

okay, here's the scoop on the beers we enjoyed on the four beers and a funeral brewpub crawl, part of vancouver craft beer week, held on saturday.  as usual, i had lots of beers, so the notes start out legible and sensical and quickly degenerate.  here they are, sometimes verbatim, edited for sense and to protect any pride i might still have left! steamworks:  ginger beer - amazing, if i had more than two thumbs, they'd be up too.  an ale with lots of ginger flavour and carbonation.  makes the tongue tingle and the tummy warm.  great alternative to a lemon or lime lager for refreshment.  we all tried this beer, and were all mighty glad that we did. even though i swore i would only have one beer per stop in an effort to keep my wits about me, i broke that oath at the very first stop and had a second beer.  apparently it only takes 1 beer to make me forget all my good intentions.  bridget and i ordered ipas and amanda ordered the wheat beer...

tried so hard to upload camera phone photos during the crawl, but to no avail... then yesterday the excess excesses from the crawl hit me and i was unable to type... so my apologies that this post is so late in arriving... four beers and a funeral:  omg, i'm not sure there are words to describe the wonderousness of this event.  of course though, i'm going to use lots of them any way!  and post photos too! let me just begin however, by saying that the vancouver craft beer week crew did a fabulous job on this event in particular, and the whole week was so well run, well planned, and well imagined - i loved it!  and bought the shirt to prove it! first stop, steamworks.  amazing ginger beer, which is a limited edition, so hurry in and get yours before its gone. we were at this stop for an hour, so along with the delectable pub grub they served, we also had a second beer.  it was supposed to be ipa, but i think we got lager instead.  nothing to wri...