beernesday

i'm off to hopscotch! wish my liver well...

new and exciting beers at legacy liquor store in vancouver: American Brewing American Blonde Ale - $7.55 This Blonde Ale is a golden straw color. It has delicate hop notes and a citrusy aroma; a crisp and dry palate with a touch of sweetness and low bitterness. Higher carbonation adds to the overall experience, light in body and very refreshing, a real thirst quenching beer. There is enough full-bodied flavor to satisfy those who want a well balanced blonde ale. This blonde is a real beauty! American Brewing Caboose Oatmeal Stout - $7.55 This Oatmeal Stout is dark brown to almost black in color with a rich cream colored head. It has a pleasant, full-bodied, smooth profile with an aromatic blend of coffee, oats, and roasted malts. Savor the long, rich finish that tempts you with just a subtle hint of dark chocolate. This oatmeal stout is something great to behold, enjoy! Diamond Knot Brewing Co. India Pale Ale - $8.15 Their flagship beer, the one for which they are ...

for a little stout day inspiration, i give you international (but heavy on mexico) stouts: some reading about florida's favourite stouts and metro's lead-up article to next week's hopscotch festival

look ma! i made it to three of the #yvrbeertweetup pics on facebook from the hopscotch cask night at smileys's pub on tuesday

this is the hopscotch event that i won tickets to at the #yvrbeertweetup on tuesday night: VanSteenberge Belguim Brews With Jef Versele! Gulden Draak, one of the most successful beers in North America recently got a new sibling – Gulden Draak 9000 Quadruple and Jef Versele from Brouwerij VanSteenberge will be here for its Canadian debut. Join him as he guides you on a tour to taste and compare VanSteenberge’s offerings. Be the first to try Gulden Draak 9000! Jef is a 6th generation brewer at the van steenberge brewery. He creates all the new products for the brewery and oversees all the brews. Grandson of mister jozef Van Steenberge, he has been working at the VanSteenberge brewery since he was 22! What a treat to have him here for the festival. The Hopscotch Festival will purchase $5 gift cards (to Legacy Liquor Store) for each person who attends a master class. Gift card is for use on products tasted within master class and must be used within 30 minutes of m...

instead of going home after my cbc gig last night like i should have done and been a responsible human i went to smiley's pub and had me some wonderful cask ale like an interesting and beer-engaged human #yvrbeertweetup was having a hopscotch festival precursor there were five casks on offer, all with whisk(e)y in them that is a recipe for an intoxicating evening! two casks were pumpkin ales, two were stouts the fifth was an ipa i know we're all very shocked here, but i went with the ipa! lighthouse provided a marmalade imperial whiskey ipa using quince and citrus and i can't remember what all else fruits and a whole 26er of whiskey, that 9% fruity ipa went down far too easily delicious! i coulda drunk that all night but fortunately for my head this morning, it ran out pretty quickly! they're doing the whole thing over again tonight with different casks at the bimini in kits i have my regular beernesday group tonight so i won't be making it ou...

i really enjoy hopscotch  (the event, not the chalk game, although i do like that too) but i will not be attending this year not because i have anything else on my calendar or because i can't afford it nope, i won't be attending because the tasting hall is being held at the rocky mountaineer station where it has been held in the past the difference this year is that rocky mountaineer has locked-out its workers i will NOT cross a picket line to attend an event if you feel similarly, drop hopscotch a line won't you? beg them to change venues! and support the workers who have been locked out for over 100 days now

for what kim werker has to say about hopscotch (and the forty creek whiskey) click here

one last post about hopscotch 2010! i was lucky enough to be given a ticket to attend an invite only seminar on "history of deschutes and what the future holds" which involved getting several tasters of jubilale and hop trip while listening to the very entertaining lance mitchell, marketing manager for deschutes some of the high points: the jubilale was intended to run out between christmas and new year's but its so popular that it will be sold out by around december 6th so if you want some for christmas, you'd best be picking it up now! deschutes was founded in 1988 in bend, oregon by gary fish, who wanted to serve local foods and local beers to the locals it wasn't an easy road getting to where they are today 21 years ago all the beer got contaminated and they had to pour all of it out on christmas day and start over their new brew system is german it is 28 feet wide the road to bend is only 30 feet wide, so they got a police escort deschutes...

just the beer geek photos of all the great beers!

that's right, i'm not done talking about hopscotch yet! how about we talk about whiskey and food today?  and then throw in a little beer chat at the end, because this is afterall a beer blog! hopscotch is known for being a great festival to try new brands of scotch, whiskey and other spirits especially the expensive ones that perhaps you can't afford to try other places i stayed away from most of the hard liquors because i'd been pounding back the beer and just didn't want to prove once again that the old adage "beer before liquor, never siquor" is totally true but.... these guys we met and beer geeked out with totally insisted that we try an ontario whiskey moderately priced and soooo smooth so like the good little sheep that we are, we hustled right on over to the forty creek stall and tried us a couple of their copper pot distilled double barrel aged whiskey the double barrel reserve with deep vanilla notes, toasted aromas of pecan and walnu...

the wonderful, the darned good, the pretty good and the also-rans of hopscotch, according to moi firstly, the beers i've had before and love, so i had them again! efes dark efes pilsner rogue yellow snow red truck limited steam moylans double ipa steamwhistle pilsner the wonderful: odell brewing ipa - 7% with simcoe and amarillo hops, out of colorado - this one has won awards, and i can see why! caldera ipa - 6.1% with cascade hops, out of oregon great divide double ipa - 85 ibs out of denver, colorado stone's ruination ipa - 7.7%, 120 ibus - the stuff of legends i tell ya, legends! stone's self-righteous ale - 8.7% - malty hoppy and makes you believe you could session it... but at 8.7% i think you'd hate yourself later if you did! smuttynose ipa - their single ipa - delightful and deliciously hoppy smuttynose big a ipa - their double ipa - just as delightful and even more hoppy... i might actually like the single better though... ballast amber ale - p...

i won't list all the beers that were on hand at hopscotch for that you can visit the website! but i will say that i skipped most of the local breweries in favour of the imports that aren't readily available here and of course i skipped all the belgians because i am bigoted against them!! so what did i have? eel river acai berry wheat alaskan smoked porter ballast point calico amber ale caldera ipa moylans double ipa odell brewing ipa deschutes jubelale jolly pumpkin la parcela lagunitas brown shugga' fx matt brewing's saranac ipa shipyard fuggles ipa shipyard xxxx ipa smuttynose big a ipa smuttynose ipa stone ruination ipa stone sublimely self-righteous ale rogue yellow snow ipa red truck limited steam kronenbourg blanc red racer winter ale efes dark efes pilsner mill street tankhouse ale tree raspberry porter victory prima pilsner yukon ice fog ipa r&b spirit chaser coffee porter good lord that's a mighty long list! good thing...

oh the fun that i had at hopscotch on saturday night!! i had originally been a little bit worried that there wouldn't be much beer on offer at a scotch, whiskey and beer festival, and that going on the last night might mean they'd have run out of the "good stuff" but it was great! tons of breweries well represented, but local and from afar and people were giving us freebies all night long! we met lots of beer reps and beer lovers, found a bunch of beers we love, got beer openers from steamwhistle, stickers from rogue, and another coaster from deshutes

"Microbrewing in B.C. has never been easy, but the makers of craft beer are enjoying a growing thirst for their product.  And not just beer nerds are sampling craft and cask beers at places like the Alibi Room.  Most of the events at the first Vancouver Craft Beer Week this spring sold old, as did last year's Hopscotch whisky, scotch and beer festival in Vancouver.  Fifty-five hundred people attended Nando's Canada Cup of Beer at the University of B.C. over two days in July where, organizers say, half the vendors were microbreweries.  And craft beer enthusiasts reportedly snapped up tickets to last weekend's Great Canadian Beer Festival in Victoria in 10 minutes." Cheryl Rossi Vancouver Courier September 17, 2010

got my hopscotch tix but oy, what an ordeal! and not for the night i wanted, that was sold out by the time i got the website to work for me but all is good, i am going and i will be drinking this is the desired result!

i'm currently trying to buy my hopscotch tickets but alas, it is not working out for me the email link to buy tickets isn't working and when i called the 1-800 number, the line was so bad that i couldn't hear the guy on the other end after waiting 15 minutes on hold and then he disconnected me this can't be a sign from the universe that i shouldn't go to hopscotch can it? nah - the universe can't be that cruel! update:  finally got the link to work on the website, only to have it boot me off before confirming my purchase! called them back and the line was finally good, but no one available to take my call i must REALLY want to go to this event to still be pursuing tickets!