whistler brewing company

i had the distinct pleasure of being in whistler this past weekend

omg - glorious weather!

i am not a fabulous skiier or snowboarder

so i didn't want to blow the $90 for a lift ticket 2 weeks before i depart for the sun and sand of mexico

and risk injury to more than my pride

so instead, it was a groupon kinda weekend away in winter wonderland

first stop:

whistler brewing company for a brewery tour!

we began with a couple of samplers

(and yes, for those following along, i did break my no booze in january policy for this!)

powder mountain lager - a very light, sessionable lager that i found pretty insipid

export lager - european style, reminiscent of a pilsner, but creamier - for a lager i found it alright

 

then, to begin our tour with,
altitude honey lager - definitely a sweeter lager, drinkable and quite alright for a lager

i love when i get to taste all the different malts

and take big deep wafts of the hops!

whistler brewing company is 21 years old
(guess its legal to drink in the states now...)
it was privately owned and operated out of whistler originally
then big rock bought it and moved operations to kamloops

a consultant bought the company and moved part of it back to whistler in time for the olympics
and ensures that whistler water is sent to kamloops for the rest of the brewing up there
whistler brews are in four states, japan, australia and all the provinces between here and onterrible
in fact, they're the only bc owned and operated brewery with beer in onterrible

the brewery we toured opened december 2009
all the beer provided to whistler is brewed in whistler
the kamloops brewery brews for export

they currently have four fermenters and 2 bright tanks
they'll be expanding to 8 fermenters later this month

apparently the whistler market was the hardest to crack
mostly because the brewery had been there and then left
so there was no trust or local pride in the product
but now that the brewery is back in town, its catching on
and you can get it in every pub

they don't do any large scale bottling out of this location
but they do bottle some of the product to sell in the store to tourists

sample glasses are empty... saddening

pretending to refill the sample glasses... gladdening

being served more samplers while on tour... tha bomb!

next sample
classic pale ale - yay, finally an ale!  its alright, quite drinkable


i love posing by beautiful copper kettles

 former granville island brewer is now the whistler brewing brewmaster
spent grain is used by pemberton farmers to feed their cattle, who apparently rave about it (the cows to the farmers who in turn tell that to the brewery)

the ales take 2-3 days to ferment
the lagers 5-7 days

the ales take 2-3 weeks from boil to keg
the lagers 5-6 weeks

they are all triple filtered, a process which takes approximately 7 hours

next sample was one of the seasonal taps

they didn't give it a name, as its kind of an experimental brew

its just the ipa

not a west coast ipa, just a modestly hopped little number

tasted like a citrusy pilsner to me

bridget found it quite caramelly

none of us were fans

moving on

black tusk ale - this brew is dark, but not heavy

we found it nicely malted and quite delicious

of their whole line-up, this is only one i'd be tempted to purchase

and we ended our tasting with the other seasonal tap

winter dunkel (7.5% - everything else was 5%)

the nose is all terry's chocolate orange

i mean so much so that you'd think for sure it was a terry's chocolate orange in liquid form

but there's not so much of that in the actual flavour

the chocolate malt is very heavy, and the orange a bit too much

it is from locally sourced chocolate though, so i can see it being a hit with foodies

me, i wouldn't have it again

all in all, the tour was fun

and worth buying a groupon for

(we also bought snowmobiling groupons and used those on sunday - yay bargain weekend!!)