beernesday

i have been meaning to do a post about craft cider for a couple of weeks now (ever since camra's ciderwise event, in fact) and now the georgia straight has beaten me to it! i was fortunate enough to be sent a sample of the bc tree fruits cider, broken ladder, at the beginning of the month - in a lovely wooden box, with accompanying branded glassware i have nothing but good things to say about the cider it's crisp, it's tart, it's incredibly drinkable and it's a local product so much win! i am also a big fan of cider riot's offerings and not just because i find the cidermaker himself very attractive! abe makes the ciders in the cidery he built at his house in portland and imports them to vancouver (via copper & theory) if you can find any of the "never give an inch" blackberry cider, buy it! the "everybody pogo" is a dry, hoppy cider and is available year round so it should be relatively easy to find in vancouver then ...

mirella amato's favourite mulled beer recipe best beer bars in vancouver not named alibi room trinity brewing returning festival medal they sent the wrong beer and the judges couldn't even tell - oooops! delta airlines has started serving craft beer c'mon westjet, how about you??? 3 sparkling wines to drink with brunch because bubbles!

due to a lack of space in the july/august edition of the bc craft beer news my lengthy article on the best craft beer patios in vancouver got truncated the whole article is available online but i'm also copying it here Summer time and the living is easy… not to mention best enjoyed on a patio! In a departure from my usual format and just in time for summer 2014, I bring you the very best patios in Vancouver for enjoying craft beer. The list starts with larger patios and beer menus and goes on down to smaller (but no less enjoyable) venues, with smaller beer menus. Only the heat and the hours available to you will limit your time on these patios, so there is no rating system in this round of reviews. Enjoy! Patio drinking tips: Look for session ales—those tasty lower alcohol beers that enable you to spend a long ‘session’ on a patio. Drink water! Go for a rinse cycle after every beer; your body will love you for it. Keep your drink out of the sunlight—no one likes a beer t...

not gonna lie to you, my head was hurtin' this mornin' the alibi 500 knocked the stuffin' outta me! photo credit: rodney gitzel here we are enjoying a glass of iain hill's oud bruin the nail in the coffin of my feeling good this morning! can i even remember what all i tried last night? nope, but i did write it all down on my 500th beer list, which i inconveniently left at home highlights include: four winds radler, lighthouse numbskull and brassneck / parallel 49 collaboration cereal killer i really wanted the new belgium lips of faith terroir, but it wasn't cold enough to serve yesterday i am debating whether my poor head can survive a return trip for it...

from camra vancouver: Hear ye hear ye! Alibi Room has announced the date for their 500 tap rotation celebration! Alibi 500th starts 2pm on March 9th. No tickets. First come, first sat. Rich Hope as always. Then Mon-Thurs 5pm-close. More details... 12oz Sleeves of ALL beers will be 500cents 9th-13th... They will be donating $500 per day to the food bank for the 5 days... Brassneck Brewing has brewed 4 collaboration beers w/ Gigantic Brewing Company , Four Winds Brewing Co. , Occidental Brewing Company , Parallel 49 Brewing Company specially for the event! Plus 8 casks filled with Portland's finest and a very special cask from Driftwood.

oh gcbf! oh the good times! oh the good beers! oh thank dog there were no cameras at certain after-parties! first of all, let me extole the virtues of flying from vancouver to victoria so quick, so easy, so fun! (caveat:  i would not want to be on that tiny plane if there was ANY turbulence though - that would be very, very, very frightening) i left from my office at 5:45 on friday evening and i was in victoria by 7:00 for the start of the copper & theory tap takeover at the guild so civilized! watching the pre-flight safety film on an ipad the guild was a fun venue although, as nigel from the alibi room ironically pointed out, it was a hard place to socialize properly as you had to be seated to be served - darned restaurant licenses! i had hoped to have some beer & cheddar soup or welsh rarebit, but alas they don't do either of them vegetarian instead i ate other people's curry & chips as for beer, i stuck with the gigantic ipa because gosh darn...

i'm back from my amazing week in tofino quickly: i spent an awful lot of time at tofino brewing filling my growlers with hoppin' cretin ipa and reign in blonde and tuff session (and then drinking them) on the way home we stopped overnight in victoria we stayed at swans , drank at garrick's head pub (10 new taps!!) where i had lighthouse 15th anniversary amber ale, elysian men's room red and driftwood fat tug next morning we got growler fills at lighthouse (switchback) and driftwood  (fat tug) (such incredibly friendly staff at both places), stopped in at spinnakers for a pint, and came home in time for me to not be on cbc radio on tuesday due to a mix-up it just didn't happen i apologize if you tuned in and were disappointed i was most disappointed not to talk extreme beers silver-lining, i have my topic all ready for september 3rd tuesday evening i attended camra vancouver's hops 101 class at steamworks and got to try the brand spanking n...

so much beer so little time to devote to blogging about it woe is me! alibi room - wednesday: - wrath of khan cask - as usual, tariq's brew is ambrosia!  this one is being touted as his "swan song" because it was the last cask he made at big ridge.  but fear not, its not really the end of an era - tariq is still with the mark james group, he's just at yaletown now instead of big ridge - deschutes fresh squeezed ipa - mosaic and citra?  together?  you know this beer is a good one i need to get some bottles of it!  badly! - gigantic ipa - i love ben love! - four winds ipa - i love it when a new brewery makes such great beer right off the gun yaletown - thursday: - espresso stout cask - i wasn't feeling stouty, so i just had a sample - damned fine cask - raspberry wheat ale - summer in a glass! those black raspberries impart a tonne of flavour without too much sweetness.  i'm not a fruity wheaty beer kind of person, but this one i simply ad...

a little 24 hour love for portland craft after enjoying the heck out of all the sours on the alibi room's 400th beer list, this is a timely set of food and beer pairings for me:  craftbeer.com on the wild side of pairing deschutes gives you some repurposing ideas for expired beer (which happens to beer lovers you know) growler from crate & barrel

in case you missed the show last night here are my notes from my beer column on cbc radio 1's on the coast with stephen quinn: On February 8th the Provincial Government announced revisions to the liquor laws of British Columbia.  The nine changes all sound like solid decisions that will boost the economy and keep liquor producers, vendors and consumers happy.  Two of these changes to the laws are of particular interest to the craft beer community and are causing springs in steps and big smiles on beer lovers' faces.   Past liquor laws in this province, often maligned as archaic, did not generally allow for breweries to have on-site tasting rooms, nor did they allow breweries owned by the same parties as restaurants or pubs to have their beers carried in those restaurants or pubs.  This latter rule was referred to as the tied-house rule.  At first blush it may sound backwards to not allow a pub owned by the same people as a brewery to be allowed to ca...

its one of those tuesdays! i'll be talking about the new provincial liquor laws with stephen quinn today at 5:50 p.m. on cbc radio one's on the coast i'll also be telling you which beers at the alibi room 400th tickled my fancy last night and which ones i'm looking forward to trying tonight!

its only the first week of craft beer week and maybe its because i'm getting over my man-cold but i feel like its been all beer all the time for me so far! monday i skipped the craziness of st. augustine's sartori cask night for the calm of monday night football at a friend's house, with me supplying the beers which included an ipa homebrewed by matt, rod and ryan's that was needing to be drunk before it lost all its hoppy goodness, a true northwest ipa that went down far too well! tuesday i went to two cask nights the railway club had a lovely r&b ipa cask very satisfyingly delicious rogue broadway had their very first cask night, also with an r&b cask blueberry cranberry esb, which their front office person, lundy dale, who is also the president of camra bc, helped to brew and was thrilled to unveil at the start of bc craft beer month wednesday was my usual beernesday club night at st. augustine's omg, the cheese stromboli currently on their...

bc craft beer month is in full swing! the belle of the ball so far is driftwood's sartori harvest ale, a fresh-hopped ipa sold out of stores the same day it arrived in them it is the star of several cask nights around vancouver and one beer-pairing dinner st. augustine's had a cask of the elusive sartori that sold out in 24 minutes that was monday tuesday there was a cask at the cascade room thursday there was a cask at the alibi room neither of those casks beat the 24 minute record, but neither lasted very long either missed out on the sartori both in the bottle and on cask? well, you've got three more opportunities that i am aware of to get yourself some: if you're a camra member and you have a ticket for the now sold out harvest fest / bc beer awards at chapel arts on saturday the 13th, you can have some of the members only cask that will be available there the whip has a cask of sartori on sunday the 14th tapping at 4, i expect this one will be gon...

oh alibi room! why do you have so many more beers than i can drink in a night? i began with a cask last night central city's red racer dry-hopped with simcoe and it was fantastic could have been a little more carbonated but otherwise a stellar ipa! next up i decided to double my hops pleasure with the lost coast limited release double trouble ipa and holy hops batman, was it ever a citrusy bitter little number delicious! why i didn't just have small pours of the above two, i don't know but there were still too many beers i wanted to try on the menu that i had to go with a frat bat! from left to right: conrad's marris otter cascade hopped session ale tofino hop cretin ipa tariq's wrath of khan ipa red truck cherry lemonade cask loved the first three, did not at all care for the cherry lemonade at 3.8% i can see drinking the session ale on a summer patio for hours! and the other two?  gosh darnit, i love me an ipa colour me happy...

from camra vancouver: Our Kits Cask Carouse in April was so awesome, we've decided to do it again, Gastown-style. Join us on a four-stop cask crawl around Gastown on August 25th! We'll be visiting The Alibi Room, The Lamplighter, Steamworks and Bitter Tasting Room. Each stop will feature a unique cask-conditioned ale, as well as paired appetizers and a special guest speaker. Your ticket price includes a sleeve and appy at each stop (with additional sleeves available for purchase). Tickets on sale August 1st - join the Facebook event page to keep in the loop!

this week's yelp is all about beer in vancouver: Beer-ly beloved, we are gathered here to honour the union of parched lips and everyone's favourite patio pleaser. Be it pilsner or stout, lager or ale , this Weekly vows to bond Vancouverites with ice-cold suds . Offering 300 brews on rotation and a "dizzyingly diverse beer menu," Alibi Room holds Jordan Y 's heart. "There's something for every taste; it's the place to bring that friend who professes to hate beer just so you can blow his/her mind." Meanwhile, Malloreigh M proclaims, " St Augustine's has a selection of microbrews on tap that's unrivaled ." Their pint-priced, four-beer taster "allows customers to quell a bit of that overwhelmed feeling that comes from reading a double-sided, tightly-packed beer menu." We're foaming at the options! L James V prefers to tap into Six Acres for his fix: "The beer is vast, varied, unique, and sometimes very rar...

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...

lots of beer-related news today! the vancouver sun's 100 anniversary beer nigel springthorpe, the wine guy's beer guy women = sustainability in the brewing industry british columbia's best microbreweries

i am thoroughly exhausted and cranky! stayed up last night to buy tickets to hoppapalooza (the went on sale at midnight and were guaranteed to sell out before the morning) only to have the vcbw ticketing site crash repeatedly i kept trying for half an hour and then gave in and went to sleep lucky for me one of my friends kindly stayed awake and kept on trucking until she got me my ticket yay friends! boo! on the ticketing people though and vcbw for releasing tix at midnight in the first place that was just mean and now i'm tired and cranky and wondering if any of it was worth it bah! humbug! and wah, wah, wah, first world problems

i didn't realize that there were themed nights for the three 300 beer list celebration nights at the alibi room its true! monday night was "sour, belgian and european style, cider & experimental" tuesday night was "stouts, porters & wee heavys" tonight will be "hop forward ales, barley wines and winter ales" fortunately for me, when i attended last night's festivities, there was still some of the central city chipotle ipa left in the cask.  so i had me some! and it was delicious! not as peppery as the rogue chipotle ale, but just as smokey, and in my humble beer opinion, ipa is the perfect conduit for chipotle smelled amazing!  tasted great! of tuesday's casks i managed to taste tariq's imperial stout and vern's imperial stout 300 i had vern's early on when i still had taste buds tasted like a session beer, but lord, its an imperial - beware i couldn't really taste the cocoa nibs and curacao orange peel it...