Brew Scout gives the skinny on the new changes to Ontario’s beer regulations
Originally Published in NOW Magazine
Originally Published in Now Magazine, April 17, 2015
Beer Store’s Brew Monopoly Goes Belly Up?
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Creating a Mayan Inspired Beer
Doug’s latest crazy but delicious sounding idea for a homebrew!
Tikal – Gran Jaguar Pyramid
After returning from a recent trip to Guatemala I was completely inspired to brew a very new and unique beer. It wasn’t the local cerveza that inspired me, because while the Gallo (Spanish for rooster) is excellent for quenching your thirst when you are hot and sweaty, it’s not exactly flavourful. Although they did have great red and dark lager variations but they were difficult to find outside of the capital city. So instead I found my inspiration from the culture and people themselves.
Gallo Cerveza
Guatemala has a rich history and cultural roots that originate with the ancient Mayans. The Mayans of the Petén region in the north believed in using what the rain forest provided them for food, clothing and shelter. Before massive deforestation began to strip the land of many of it’s arboreal treasures, the areas around Tikal were filled with massive…
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Drinking Beer at the Source: West Coast American IPAs
Schoolhouse Craft Beer’s Doug Appeldoorn tastes some of the best IPAs in the world at their source
Enjoying an IPA with a view under the Bay Bridge in San Francisco.
While doing a road trip along the Pacific Coast Highway in both Oregon and California I realized that you need to go to the source to truly understand what makes a great American IPA (India Pale Ale). I thought I knew what an American IPA was supposed to taste like; after all I’d had many versions both here in Ontario and from different places all over the world. I’d even had IPAs from breweries on the West Coast itself like Stone and Sierra Nevada, but bought them closer to home.
Stone IPA
So what does this mean? Going to the place where a style of beer first originated will allow you truly understand how it was intended to taste. For example you want to know how a great Pilsner should taste? You should try the original Pilsner Urquell in…
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The Canadian Dream
Spearhead Brewing Co. have the tagline “Beer Without Boundaries”, and they pushed the envelope with their initial offerings, a pineapple pale ale, a brown ale with Moroccan spices, and a Belgian style stout. They have excellent branding, and are adept at marketing themselves well at festivals (they won brewery of the year at Session Toronto three years in a row). With Sam Roberts Band Session Ale, they rein in the boundaries just a touch. It’s a hybrid English/American pale ale, so nothing too weird or crazy. What is does for them is raise their profile significantly, Sam Roberts being a pretty big name to partner up with. It’s a clever move, as it potentially brings people that don’t normally buy craft beer into the fold.
Sam Roberts pours a deep burnished copper, slightly hazy with a thick creamy beige crown that persists. Aromas are biscuity malt, caramel and earthy English hops. On the palate it begins malty. It’s got that nice chewy texture, caramel and biscuit tones that I love about many English pale ales. From there it really dries out nicely and finishes with a pleasant lingering resiny bitterness. It’s light enough at 4.5% ABV that you could totally drain a 6-pack. In fact I’m calling it right now: Sam Roberts is my new “rock up with a 6-pack” party beer.
Sam Roberts would pair well with a broad range of foods, and you simply couldn’t go wrong with burgers, pizza, or any classic pub fare. It has enough bitterness and carbonation to cleanse the palate of cheese and oily fat, and the malt backbone gives it a heartiness that goes well with pub food. A nice sharp aged cheddar would also be a willing bedfellow.
Sam Roberts is available at the LCBO at $13.95 for a six-pack, as well as at numerous bars around the city. The Session is on!
Nice day for a Black Blessing
Black Blessing Chocolate Stout is the latest seasonal offering from Liberty Village Brewing Company (LVBC), who are currently contract brewing out of Cool in Etobicoke. LVBC is a testament to the entrepreneurial spirit, as all the partners in the start-up work full time jobs while juggling events, putting on tastings, and getting their beers on the rotating and even some full time taps at the city’s better beer bars. It seems that they have a good range of skill sets among the partners which helps. They also have some cojones. Their first offering was a pale ale called 504, not a particularly adventurous choice by today’s hop loving standards. However their sophomore effort was a Gose (pronounced gose-uh), a German style that has only recently been revived and which is essentially a salty wheat beer. It was a big risk bringing this beer out as anything other than a one-off, but it has been well received and as such paid off for them, giving them some credibility within the beer community.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cojones
Black Blessing pours jet black and completely opaque, with a huge frothy dark tan head which settles to a thin collar. Aromas of coffee, bitter chocolate and licorice, malts well balanced with English hops. On the palate it’s very smooth and you’d never guess the ABV at a hefty 7.4%. Flavours follow the nose, with coffee and chocolate notes dominating, subtle dark fruits supporting and a clean finish culminating in a pleasing bitterness as a result of both the hops and roasted malts. Black Blessing would make a fine accompaniment to many foods, but with bittersweet chocolate and coffee flavours prominent and the high alcohol and hop presence, I would suggest using it as a foil for sweet rich desserts such as Red Velvet cake….Decadent!
For locations which carry Black Blessing and the other LVBC beers, check out their website at http://libertyvillagebeer.com/
An Irish Revolution with a difference
Some 8 years ago, I boarded a plane from Dublin to Pearson Airport to start a life in Canada with my new wife. What I left behind was an economy and nation on the verge of a precipice that it subsequently fell off. And a non-existent craft beer industry. Not just a craft beer issue either, the absence of imported brands (aside from bland lagers from the world’s biggest breweries) was in retrospect staggering for a country which has carved out such a reputation for it’s love of “the drink”. It was only when I started to learn more about beer that I realized it’s a myth that we are great drinkers, and in fact we are just great drunks! I’m happy to say that the times they are a changin’. Continue reading
Has Pigskin Pilsner got game?
You may or may not have noticed the latest Lake of Bays offering, Pigskin Pilsner, in your local LCBO. It’s quite distinct looking, being in a growler format (a growler is a 1.89L beer bottle, roughly equivalent to about 4 tallboys). It is the first in a series of beers in partnership with the CFL Alumni Association. This follows on the heels of a similar (fairly) successful campaign between Lake of Bays and the NHL Alumni Association. Now being born and raised in Dublin, I’m neither a hockey or a CFL fan. But I do know that hockey is universally loved by Canadians, CFL I’m not so sure….it remains to be seen whether this partnership will help to sell a ton of beer. On the other hand, I’ve been told that CFL fans are some of the most ardent in the sports world, so perhaps it will be a big hit with a very loyal group of beer swilling patrons.
I am here to discuss the merits of the beer and not how many units it will sell, although I suppose it’s hard to separate the two.
Pigskin Pilsner is a German style pilsner, a good choice for a CFL starter beer, as the demographic would be largely light lager drinkers. The classic German pilsner if true to style could be a gateway beer for many would be craft enthusiasts, hey it has start somewhere!
Pigskin pours a brilliant golden colour, with a thick frothy white head. Aromas of fresh cut grass and cereal notes dominate, with a grainy maltiness supporting, maybe a little corny DMS. Flavours are typically pilsner like, very clean and crisp, toasted white bread and some spicy hop flavour. Carbonation is brisk, body is medium light, and there’s a pleasantly quick and drying finish. Overall it fits the style nicely and is a well made German pils.
Pigskin would pair well with many of the foods that are synonymous with the watching of CFL, such as hot wings, cheese laden nachos and chili, having the zippy carbonation to cut through cheese and oil, and also enough spicy hop flavour to accentuate the heat. So there!
It retails at $15.95 for the growler, and this is where I would probably put it back on the shelf. It is a pretty good pilsner, but for the same price I could pick up a classic German pilsner such as Radeberger or Bitburger at half the price. I guess the “cool factor” of the growler format should count for something, and admittedly I’d be impressed if one of my non-craft pals was to show up at a party with a Pigskin. Sure, I’ll watch some CFL. I guess….
FYI this review is so late you probably won’t see Pigskin Pilsner until next year.
Homebrewing Made Easy
Great information for anyone wanting to try their hand at homebrewing from Schoolhouse Craft Beer
Make your own beer at home
Ever wanted to make beer at home but thought maybe it was too complicated and involve specialized equipment? That is no longer the case these days. It’s actually very easy to make beer at home and it’s pretty inexpensive to start with. I say “to start with” because once you get the hang of it with a starter kit, you’ll be wanting to upgrade to bigger and better equipment before you know it.
The first steps of becoming a home brewer used to involve a progression starting with an all-in-one kit (boil & add yeast), moving up to extract brewing (boil, add hops and yeast), and finally graduating to all grain brewing (doing everything from scratch). Now you can skip the first two steps and buy a Brooklyn Brew Shop Kit, which is available online or at most local brew supply stores like Toronto Homebrewing. The starter kits…
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A Stitch in time for Halloween
Lake of Bays Brewing’s latest NHL Alumni beer is soon to be on/may already have hit LCBO shelves. As usual, it is celebrating one of the many great hockey goaltenders of yesteryear (Gerry Cheevers). Where I come from we call them goalkeepers, and save the “tender” suffix for the pub where it belongs.
Stitches Oktoberfest Lager pours a brilliantly clear deep copper and even has some ruby highlights, it’s a quite beautiful looking beer. The nose is intense for an Oktoberfest, with some atypical booziness, but there are the usual malty aromas one would expect. There’s some sweetness, a little dark fruit and a subtle herbal hop aroma. On the palate it’s a malt bazooka, with molasses and dark rye bread leading the charge, and some raisins and light sherry notes providing some support. It’s medium to full bodied, I would go as far as to say it’s chewy. The finish is clean, with a warm boozy aftertaste that lingers.
Is Stitches a good beer? Yes, it’s gorgeous. It would pair nicely with hearty fall meals, I’m thinking something gamey like rabbit and bean stew. I had it with bread pudding and ice cream, and it certainly wasn’t out of place, its sweet malt notes complementing the bready dessert.
Is Stitches a good example of an Oktoberfest beer? Likely not, this beer displays many of the attributes of a Doppelbock (the 8% ABV, the dark fruit notes and the dark ruby colour) and even the label mentions that it’s caramel notes are “true to style”, which is bollocks, caramel is one of the only things that the BJCP states is NOT appropriate in Octoberfest beers.
Is Stitches worth $11.95? That depends on what your T4 says! It’s a very nice beer, and is suitable for sharing and even cellaring at 8%. That said, I’d probably balk upon seeing the price tag. I can pick up a Trappist Belgian Quad for just over $7 at the LCBO (La Trappe), and that mortgage isn’t going to pay itself….
It’s Thanksgiving! Time for Beer!
Wondering what to pair with your bird this weekend? Look no further…
Thanksgiving and beer, so good together
This weekend Canadians will come together to celebrate the harvest and many of them will be having a traditional Thanksgiving meal, consisting of roasted turkey, root vegetables, stuffing, perhaps some squash and quite possibly some sort of pie. So what are the best beers to pair with this feast? Food roasted in the oven undergoes caramelization, just like the darker malts used to create amber and brown-coloured beers. The complementary flavours of darker malty beer and oven-roasted food, offer a range of ideal choices, here are just a few of my suggestions:
Unibroue Trois Pistoles
My favourite beer to feature at meal like this is generally something Belgian. Many of them are highly carbonated which will help to cut through the rich and fatty foods, giving you a greater enjoyment of both. Your best bet is a Dubbel, because the dark fruits, sweetness and higher alcohol will pair nicely with the roasted turkey…
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HopGobblin' 