beernesday

From On the Coast on Tuesday: Just when you think you’ve got a handle on craft beer, another brewery opens up, another style becomes popular or a new trend pops up.  Mariner Brewing is poised to open on the Barnet Highway in Coquitlam in August.  I understand it will have a 50 person tasting room and a steam-powered brewery.  So watch social media for the opening announcement! One potential new trend is hop powder.  I’m not hearing a lot about it in Vancouver yet, but there are some breweries in the US who are experimenting with it, including Georgetown Brewing in Seattle. Hop powder is pretty much what it sounds like – it is a powdered form of hops.  The powder is an essential oil-rich concentrate made by extracting resin glands from the hops at very cold temperatures in a nitrogen atmosphere to preserve the quality of the oils.  The resulting powder contains twice the percentage of alpha acids – which is what bitters beer - as the origi...

from the cbc website , from my beer column yesterday: Get the raw story on raw ale, the newest trend in craft brewing Plus, check out Rebecca Whyman's picks for great summer beers CBC News   Posted: Jul 18, 2017 5:52 PM PT  Last Updated: Jul 18, 2017 6:14 PM PT Category 12 is a B.C. brewery that makes a beer using raw ale techniques. (Category 12 Brewing/Facebook) 5 shares Facebook Twitter Reddit Google Share Email Related Stories OTC Beer and Wine Beware of 'crafty' marketing, beer columnist says Are new B.C. craft breweries struggling to distinguish themselves? The newest trend in B.C. craft beer is old school — very old school. Raw ale is a type of beer made when the wort — the sugary liquid extracted from malted grains — is not boiled. "Most traditional farmhouse ales are raw and probably prehistoric beer was all raw ale,"  On The Coast  beer colu...

eeesh, it's nice to be on the cbc website , but remind me never to read the comments! i keep forgetting how mean people can be... NEW Hoppy beers for 2015 that you won't want to miss Fresh hops add a different flavour to beers, says On The Coast beer columnist Rebecca Whyman By On The Coast,  CBC News   Posted: Sep 29, 2015 4:51 PM PT  Last Updated: Sep 29, 2015 4:51 PM PT Bottles of Bomber Brewing’s East Van Smash. On The Coast beer columnist Rebecca Whyman says this beer, made with B.C. hops, is one to try this fall. (bomberbrewing/Instagram) Facebook Twitter Reddit Google Share Email Related Stories B.C. beer festival highlights coming up for fall 2015 3 unfiltered, dry-hopped beers to try this summer For beer drinkers, it's the most wonderful time of the year according to  On The Coast  beer columnist Rebecca Whyman.  Whyman says t...

my notes from yesterday's beer column on cbc radio one's on the coast with stephen quinn wherein he told everyone that i skip and prance around town this time of year (which may or may not be an accurate portrayal) and we drank fresh-hopped beer, and extolled its virtues: I tend to think most times of the year are the best times of the year for beer, but there is one time of year that trumps the others – and we’re in that season right now – Fresh hop season!! Hops are harvested once a year, and must be preserved in order to brew with them all year round.  They’re either frozen whole or ground up into pellets... But at harvest season you can use them fresh, which you will also hear referred as wet or green. When you use the hops wet instead of dry, you have to use them right away.  They are very delicate little flowers and the oils degrade quickly.  They must either be dried right after picking, or immediately thrown into a brew.  We're talking within 24 hou...

With the change in the weather comes a change in seasonal beer styles.   Oktoberfest beers and fresh-hopped beers are two of my favourites that often get overshadowed by the arrival of pumpkin beers to the market. Fresh-hopped beers have just started to hit stores and these are beers with a very limited shelf life.   You have to get them fast and drink them soon.   Fresh-hopping, also known as wet-hopping refers to using freshly picked hops while brewing rather than dried or pelleted hops. We are very lucky in the Lower Mainland to be located in a hop-friendly growing environment.   This means that our brewers can obtain fresh hops when they ripen and use those immediately to brew beer.   Driftwood Brewing in Victoria drives out to the Sartori ranch Cultus Lake to help harvest the hops and then drives them back to Victoria that same day to be put right into the brew.   Storm Brewing and Persephone Brewing use hops they grow themselves whi...

my notes from yesterday evening's beer column on weird beers on cbc radio one's on the coast during which the poor sick stephen quinn suffered a coughing attack and could barely participate oh the joys of live radio! Did you see the new helium beers debuting from SamAdams and Stone Brewing ?   Who would have thought you could put helium in beer, let alone that two breweries would race each other to the post to be the first to produce it. Oh right, it’s April Fools' Day.   There is no helium beer. But there are crazy and creative beers out there that are no joke!   Let’s take a quick tour of the zanier side of craft beer. The craft beer community has embraced all sorts of brewing innovations, like brewing ales with lager yeast, adding different ingredients such as botanicals in the place of hops to experiment with different flavours, the hop wars and the highest alcohol content contest. There are also interesting flavours brewers around the Lower Mainlan...

my notes from last evening's beer column with stephen quinn on the coast: It's the most wonderful time of the year for hop-heads! It's hop harvest time, and to beer geeks that can mean only one thing: fresh-hopped beers.  Fresh-hopping, also referred to as wet-hopping, is the process of using fresh hops to bitter the beer. Hops are ready for harvest at the end of August or the beginning of September in this part of the world. Growers know they are ready when the cone is plump and the lupulin is at a maximum. If you look at a hop flower, the lupulin is the yellow stuff between the green bits. This is where the oils come from that impart the bitterness and flavour to beer. Despite looking hardy, hops are actually quite delicate. They don't survive long after being cut. To preserve the oils and resins they need to be dried right away. . Most of the hops harvested are dried right after picking and then frozen, or ground into pellets. These are then sold to b...