YellowBelly Brewery

All posts tagged YellowBelly Brewery

It’s the weekend folks, and we’re totally being teased with a bit of summer. While we’re not in the Big Smoke with the dome open watching the Jays, we have had some 15ºC temperatures and sunny days that pair perfectly with April patio days. We’ve got news below from all four of our Atlantic provinces and some Canada-wide news too. Take a read, share with a friend and don’t be a stranger on our Twitter and Instagram!

Starting our week on PEI, Lone Oak has a small-batch cider release to kick off the fun. Starting from freshly- pressed Cortland and Mac juice from Red Shore Orchards, the Lone Oak team added a hybrid of Saison yeast and Brettanomyces, and allowed the little beasties to do their thing! Taking the low, slow, and hands-off route, the yeasts chewed away until very little residual sugar was left, resulting in a dry, lightly funky, and flavourful cider that has been bottled still (no carb). No burps or bloating, nice! Due to its small scale, the 6.0% ABV Farmhouse Cider is only available from Lone Oak’s Borden-Carleton Brewery and Milky Way Brewpub locations.

Over in Paradise, Banished Brewing has just celebrated the opening of their taproom (open Wed-Sun), and have followed it up with the release of a collaboration with downtown St. John’s Portage Restaurant. Melding minds with Portage’s Ross Larkin and Celeste Mah, they have developed a supremely food-pairable Czech Pilsner, Portage Světlý Ležák 12°. When designing their brewhouse, the folks at Banished wanted to be able to brew a wide variety of beer styles using the proper techniques, which paid off in spades for the Pils, as they were able to use the traditional decoction techniques believed to bring out the complexity of the Pilsen Malt from Czechia. Of course, they also sourced Saaz grown in Czechia, and fermented cool with Isar Lager from Escarpment Labs. Pale in colour, full of character, and ready to take with you on your canoeing adventures this summer! Thanks to the folks at Bines and Vines, to celebrate the launch the Czech Ambassador to Canada, Bořek Lizec, visited the brewery and celebrated the strong ties between Canada and Czechia. Portage is available on side-pull now at both the restaurant and brewery, as well as good beer bars and retailers (cans) around the city.

We’ve got a very cool release coming straight out of George Street! Yellowbelly Brewery has a new release named after the famed pub in downtown St. John’s (which they are part owners of). O’Reilly’s is a Lagered Ale dry-hopped with Cashmere that brings big notes of citrus, melon and peach. Packaged in 500ml bottles with an O’Reilly’s themed label, this very drinkable 4.7% ABV beer is available now in wide release at certain NLC Stores (cans) and at the source (pints and fills).

Up the road to Mount Pearl we find Landwash Brewery, who have teamed up with Andersons Butcher located on Water Street St. John’s. Butcher’s Brew is a 5.0% Vienna Lager, which is a style known for a hint of malt, but still being crisp and clean. Great with a cold cut sandwich or backyard BBQ, we figure! Landwash’s take on the style started out in last summer’s BBQ Mixed Pack, and has graduated to stand on its own. Grab it at the brewery this weekend.

Also new from Landwash is Field Day, their first foray into a Wheat-forward beer. Inspired by the Belgian Witbier style, this unfiltered wheat beer was fermented with an appropriate yeast to give a hint of phenolic spiciness, enhanced by the coriander, as well as orange and grapefruit peel added to the brew. The resulting beer is bright and refreshing, and at 4.8%, a nice complement to your day exploring the fields near you! Available at the brewery and their regular retail partners shortly.

Moving to Moncton (something you may actually hear people say!), Tire Shack Brewing has a brand new beer to pair up with the warming weather. Dry-Hopped Sour is exactly what you’d expect, but trying to bring those IPA flavours to a tart and sour beer. Soured with a Lactobacillus strain, and subsequently dry-hopped with Simcoe and Mosaic, expect the sour and tart flavours of fuzzy peaches, blueberries and a subtle aroma of bubble-gum. It’s an easy drinking sour with an ABV of 7.1% and is available now in cans and on tap. Also, this weekend at the brewery, there’s a 2pm to 8pm pop-up kitchen from Euston Park both Saturday and Sunday for a beautiful weekend! Ed note: this paragraph was left out of the original version of this post. Sorry!

Staying near Moncton (which you don’t hear a lot of people say), Dieppe’s CAVOK Brewing has a brand new big release that’s been aged to perfection. E-CLIPSE is a bourbon barrel-aged stout that spent its time in a Buffalo Trace barrel for 6 months. Featuring complex flavours with a smooth bourbon flavour of vanilla and a bit of molasses, this is 10.8% and packaged in 750ml bottles. Bottles are limited (145 or fewer!) and it’s also available on tap at the brewery right now!

The fine folks at Good Robot are continuing to up the intensity with this week’s new release, Tropical Storm Category 5. The 2nd release in the Tropical Storm series, this is an IPA that aims to tone down the bitterness from typical IPA’s and up the fruity flavours. Using a hop bill of Falconers Flight, Sabro and Vic Secret, these hops bring notes of grapefruit, tangerine, pineapple, and coconut. Expect a hazy, tasty 5% approachable IPA available online, and at both Good Robot locations. 

Also new in Robot news, Uncle Giggles has a new entry on its family tree. Great Uncle Giggles is a new pale ale release that both maintains and changes the recipe from the original Uncle Giggles. Since moving brewery locations to Elmsdale, the Robots have started using a piece of equipment called a Hop Egg that can handle yeast pitching, mixing, adjunct blending, dosing and other cellar additions, but which also works great for dry-hopping, as it eliminates the need to open the tanks for additions. Aiming to keep the clean, orange citrus and crisp flavours, they’re leveraging the hop egg for this new beer. This is the only recipe Good Robot has that uses hop oil and they’re trying to get this beer staying fresher for longer. It comes in at 5.1% and it’s available online and at both Robie Street and Elmsdale locations. 

Over in Spryfield, Serpent is releasing a Belgian inspired take on a NEIPA with Space Cadet. The Belgian influence comes via a Witbier yeast, leading to lots of fruity esters. A generous dosing of Ahtanum, Amarillo, and Mandarina Bavaria hops adds some additional citrusy notes. This one comes in at 6% ABV with a moderate bitterness of 45 IBUs. Cans are available this weekend at the brewery. And if beers aren’t your thing, they’ll also be releasing their first seltzers in cans and on tap this weekend.

There’s a few beery events coming up in the next month and a bit to tell you about, including one of the beeriest events in the Canadian Beer Calendar:

Another reminder that Halifax is hosting the Canadian Brewing Awards Conference June 1 – 3, and there is still time to take part! Tickets are available to purchase now, and they are still putting out the call for volunteers to help keep everything moving smoothly. There are lots of opportunities for those looking to take part, all day and evening Friday and Saturday, June 2 and 3, at the Halifax Convention Centre. Registration of attendees, prepping swag bags, set-up of rooms, bar service, preparing trophies, and much more! We probably don’t need to tell you that there are lots of beery perks to this gig! If you are interested and available, contact Megan to sign up!

A little sooner than that is a Brewer’s Dinner at Seaport Social, located in the Westin Hotel at the South end of Hollis Street. On April 30th, Jeremy Taylor of 2 Crows will be leading a tasting menu of dishes prepared by Chef Jason Townes and his team. Five courses will be served, with beers to complement and/or contrast and the stories behind them all. As this is a special event, reservations ahead of time are required. Please call 902-240-7608 to grab a seat at the table!

The week before that, you should be at the Stillwell Freehouse for a Trio of Powerhouses, as Toronto’s Godspeed Brewery and CODA Ramen take over the taps and kitchen on Agricola Street April 23. Look for well-crafted European-inspired lagers and flavourful broths and dishes, all in a relaxing atmosphere. Reservations will be required, look to Stilly’s IG feed for details when they go live, later today.

A couple last quick mentions to inform your beer buying for the weekend!

It’s not just the weather that’s been feeling the siren call of summer, a couple of HRM-area breweries are already bringing back their summer après softball crushers.  Propeller’s Lime Lite is back, baby, and so, too, is Toller Lime from Spindrift. Both are crisp, clean, and refreshing with a touch of extra thirst quenching citrus. The former can be found at all Prop shops and online for Canada-wide delivery. The latter is available, of course, at Spindrift’s locations in Burnside and Antigonish for pints to stay and fills or cans to go. Both are available at Harvest Wines, Rockhead, and West Side, with Toller Lime also expected to be at Bishop’s Cellar. Maybe grab some of each and A/B them, or at least figure out which one will be your go-to for summer electrolyte replenishment!

Fredericton’s Half Cut Brewing has something freshly canned for your weekend pleasure. Fanny Pack is an India Session Ale, coming in at a light ‘n lovely 4.5% ABV with plenty of hop character. Only available at the brewery for now, it sounds like an ideal beer for hopheads on a sunny weekend in April.

Bootleg Brew Co in Corner Brook has a new tiny beer available in cans, and on draught soon, at their retail shop. The 2.8% ABV Near Near – Boot Lite is sometimes exactly what you’re looking for in a beer: cold, wet, and close to water.

Happy New Year! How many times did you say that this week, going back to work and exchanging pleasantries with friends and families? As we all get back to post-Holiday life, take some time to rest and recover from the vacation time! Kick those feet up, grab something local, enter our contest and check out some quick hits about Atlantic breweries below.

Spryfield’s finest kicks off the news this week with Serpent Brewing releasing Winter Wit. This is a tweak on their White Mountain Witbier, but brings Chamomile to the party, joining witbier yeast and wheat malt. There are some classic witbier flavours with orange, coriander and a bit of banana. This is only available at the brewery on tap for pints and growlers. It’s 5.5% and available now. 

Staying in Halifax and in the theme of only being on-tap, Propeller Brewing has Peach and Yuzu Fruited Ale releasing today. This is a pilot brew, so it is quite limited in availability. This 5.0% Pale has some obvious additions of peach and yuzu, bringing a nice citrus and stonefruit combo in a refreshing beer. It’s available at all 3 Prop Shops for pints and growlers today. And as always (even if we forget to mention it), they will be pouring a special Cask from the bartop of their Gottingen Street taproom this evening, allowing the brewers to flex their creative muscles, doing something a little different than usual. Tapped at 6 PM every Friday, this is available for in-house enjoyment only, until sell-out. Tonight’s cask is their Passion Fruit Sour, with additions of vanilla and lactose, for that full on milkshake character.

Hopping on the 102 and headed toward The Hub of Nova Scotia, lands us at Truro Brewing Company and a returning release. Willow Street Wheat is back on tap at the brewery and this is a light, refreshing, approachable ale at 4.8%. It features Amarillo hops and is on tap now and is a core beer that is usually in cans as well. 

Yellowbelly Brewery has a winter seasonal release available at the brewery and at many NLC stores. Winter Solstice is a New England IPA that features the ABV to keep you warm this winter and the flavour to refresh you, all at the same time! This is 7% and available in 473ml cans.  

Staying in Newfoundland, Landwash has a four-banger of sours out now. Joining their original Newfoundland sea-salted sour, Brackish, two more Brackish varieties and another sour join the lineup. First up, Ruby Line is a fruited sour, featuring Raspberry and Lime, clocking in at 4.5% The first Brackish variant is Brackish with Tangerine, featuring the original beer conditioned on tangerines. The second is Brackish with Pineapple, going through the same fruited conditioning stage, but with Pineapple. All 3 of the Brackish line comes in at the same 4.8% ABV, but very different flavours. You can get a trio of the Brack Pack (clever), or grab them all in a four-pack or singles, everywhere you normally find Landwash.  

In the beer-adjacent category, Atlantic Business Magazine published the first annual Best Places to Work in Atlantic Canada. Featuring some bigger and smaller companies, one brewery stands out on the list. Upstreet Brewing is the only company on PEI of the 20 companies named and we’d like to raise a glass to our friends! Check out the full list of recipients here

Looking to brew? Fredericton’s Maybee Brewing is hiring a new Brewer to work alongside their head brewer. Take a look at the job details at the link here and apply in person at the brewery or send your resume and cover letter to info@maybeebrew.com 

You may have noticed in the news this week that a familiar spot in Halifax has some new plans. Good Robot will be opening up another location across from the Halifax Commons at North Park and Cornwallis. This space may be familiar to you craft beer fans, but the Robots are looking for input from the community as a whole, so check out the article here from The Coast to read more about it and what the space should become. 

And speaking of Good Robot, this is a friendly reminder about our contest that closes in 12 days! If you want a tour of their Elmsdale Brewery on Saturday, January 21, keep on reading. To enter,  post a picture/story/reel on social media of a favourite local beer/cider/mead you’ve enjoyed in 2022 or 2023, and be sure to tag us in it and use the hashtag #ElmsdaleTour. And if you’re not the social media kind, no problem, just fire us an email, send us a text, or release a carrier pigeon to let us know you’re interested! (We’d like to post/re-post to show what our readers are drinking, hope that’s OK) We’ll be drawing a whole buncha names Jan 18 at 6 PM, so your chances are good to take part! Looking forward to meeting you there!

Hey folks, welcome to your late (or is it early?) “Friday” Wrap-up for COVID-19 Quarantine Day Eleventy-seven. Time has lost all meaning for us, how about you? The good news is that our region’s breweries and cideries are continuing on in the only way they know how, marking time by brewday and fermentation schedules. You can, in turn, mark your time in beers consumed; in moderation, of course! In order to help you with that, read on for information about what is hitting curbside contactless pickup areas or even your front doorstep this week. Plus, we’ve done a total update across the entire region on our delivery/curbside pickup options for breweries and cideries. We think we’ve hit every producer out there who has changed their practices since last time! So spread a little love to them, if you’re able, and we’d appreciate a quick nudge via email or social media (Ig and Tw preferred) if anything is out of date.

As you might expect, Niche Brewing, in Hanwell, NB, isn’t able to send their kegged offerings anywhere right now, but they’re happy to announce that their latest bottled offering, Bridget is on its way through the ANBL system. A barrel-aged Saison avec Rhubarbe, it’s a tribute to the strong and amazing women in all of our lives. With a recipe developed by Rob Coombs before Niche was even a gleam in his or Shawn Meek’s eye, it was first made with rhubarb from his grandmother Bridget’s garden in Labrador City. Fermented with Niche’s house blend of Saccharomyces and Brettanomyces, it was then conditioned on rhubarb purée (including some of Bridget’s!) before being aged in Chardonnay barrels and then packaged. Coming in at 7% ABV, it’s funky and tart, with some clear rhubarb character coming through. Update: The gang at Niche have let us know it is live the newly-minted DrinkNB.ca website, delivering to the Fredericton and Saint John regions weekly. Also now out at ANBL locations in Fredericton (York Street), and any second now in Dieppe.

Our friends at North Brewing have been keeping busy, and not just on the beer end. They’re releasing a cider this week, Core Values. Featuring an equal blend of both McIntosh and Idared apple juice (pressed by Greenwich’s Stirling Farm) which was brought up to the initial fermentation temperature for 36 hours on “an expressive Chardonnay yeast strain”, the cider was then cooled for a slow, weeks-long fermentation. Once it was close to terminal gravity, they raised the temperature again, to take care of any leftover sugars, before it was cold-crashed and conditioned. Weighing in at 5.8% ABV, the final product is “clean, bright, slightly tart and fully dry”, with aromas of fresh apples and sliced melon, and light tannins on the palate. With sparkling carbonation, this sulfite-free cider has been canned and can be ordered on North’s website. 

North is also celebrating the return of a favourite beer brewed to celebrate their move to 899 Portland Street last year. Originally named We Do Helium, in honour of the former tenant Cost-U-Less and their always-available balloon supply, the summer sipper is now B.Y.O.B. The 3.5% ABV beer’s recipe has not changed, still a super-light beer made with flaked corn and lemon & lime zest, perfect for bringing to all of those BBBQs* and backyard parties that WE SHOULD NOT BE HAVING RIGHT NOW (#staytheblazeshome). But for those days that you want a couple of beer, but not feel them the next morning, we suggest a B.Y.O.B. In addition to their own shop, it will be on the shelves of the NSLC in the coming weeks. And after a brief hiatus, fresh Malternate Reality New England IPA is back on their virtual shelves, joining the latest batch of Dartmouth Dark, their Coffee-Infused Dark Lager. Everything mentioned is available for contactless pickup and delivery, check out their online store to score some of your own.

Speaking of North Brewing, they met up with the cool cats at Tatamagouche Brewing, then went Northeast to Big Spruce in Nyanza last month, to brew up this year’s Cerberus American IPA. This three-headed ode to Organic hops is once again released during NS Craft Beer Month (RIP), usually a time meant for celebrating the province’s breweries spirit of togetherness. That doesn’t mean we can’t enjoy the fruit of their labour, will all three breweries offering this beer for sale and delivery in their online stores. At 7.5% ABV, this is a big bold blast of hops, thanks to additions of Simcoe, Amarillo, and El Dorado throughout the process. Think pithy and resinous, with plenty on the nose and tongue. Big Spruce delivery options, North’s way to beer nirvana, and Tata’s Takeaway and To Your Door options (where you can also grab bottles of their just-back-this-week Bourbon Barrel Aged Russian Imperial Stout).

Back to cider, but this time hopping to Georges Brook-Milton in Newfoundland, where Newfoundland Cider Company calls home. Available for pickup through online pre-ordering, are four new ciders this week. First up is their Pet Nat Sour. Starting from locally harvested “feral” apples, the blend was fermented with naturally yeasts, and aged in former Glenora barrels for three months. It was then transferred to bottles where it continued to ferment and condition, and has carbonated naturally (Pet Nat = Pétillant Nature = Naturally Bubbly = yum). The end result is a bright apple character, turning tart and sour, with a bubbly refreshing palate cleanser. 750 ml bottles will ready to pick up at the shop tomorrow, along with ten other ciders, including their “Flights to Go”, three new options in smaller bottles allowing you to get a taste of a wider selection of their ciders. These are Barrel Aged Sour Cherry, Rose Perry, and Spring Mead. And for those not in the Clarenville area, find NLCC at the NLC, which you can order online and request to your local outlet.

Kentville’s Maritime Express has been working on a special cider for a very long time, and it’s finally available for sale. Maple Bourbon Cider features an addition of pure maple syrup (from Hutchinson Acres), and was fermented (and aged for close to 14 months) in a Kentucky Bourbon barrel that was previously used to age maple syrup (you can buy some of that through Wabanaki Maple). Described by the cidery as “remarkably smooth and complex, with notes of maple, caramel and oak”, you can also expect some Bourbon and spiced apple on the palate. Only 300 bottles are available, so check out their online store to grab a couple (we suspect it is an excellent candidate for aging). 

Those of you in Antigonish are likely taking full advantage of the twice-weekly (Fridays and Saturdays) delivery options offered by your local brewery, Half Cocked Brewing. And this week, they’ve got a new, hazy IPA that you should probably consider tacking onto your order. Named Bleu Nuit (if they think those of us over the age of 35-40 aren’t getting that reference, they’re sadly mistaken), we won’t have a lot of details on the… well, details of the beer, but we can report that it was fermented with a Kveik strain, and the brewery describes it as having “lots of fruit and citrus, and a touch of bitterness”. They’ve got their flagship brews available, as well; contact them at halfcockedbrewing@gmail.com to place your order.

We keep coming back to cider-related products… did we miss a memo? Anyway, Spindrift has teamed up with Lake City Cider to brew a snakebite, which is typically an equal mix of Lager and cider. In this case, Blackcurrant Snakebite Rosé is a blend of Lager from Spindrift, and cider and fruit wine from Lake City. With some balanced acidity, sweetness, and fruit character, you can order cans right now through Spindrift’s online store; it’ll be available through Lake City in the near future as well. 

Back to Newfoundland with Quidi Vidi, who have brought back a collaboration originally released in 2018, that was created with local chefs. Bog & Barrens Imperial Bakeapple Gose (2019 vintage) is the same recipe as the 2018 vintage; however, due to the variance each year in the bakeapple harvest, you’ll likely notice some differences in this batch, if you were lucky enough to try it the first time. It comes in at ~7% ABV, and once again will only be available in a very limited supply. Look for bottles at the QV retail shop this weekend; it should be at select NLC stores next week.

You’ve probably all heard “Stay the blazes home” in one form or another over the last couple of weeks, so it’s probably safe to say you’re expecting one or six beers to be named after the latest social physical-distancing phrase. The first one out of the gate (we think) is from Garrison Brewing: Stay the Blazes Home is a 4.5% ABV unfiltered Blonde Ale that has a “crisp and dry finish”. Sorry, that’s all we’ve got! We can pass along that $2 from every 473 mL can sold will be donated to Feed Nova Scotia. It’s available, starting today, for home delivery only via phone and online sales

Actually, we’re not 100% sure who “wins” here, but YellowBelly has also released Stay Where You’re At “Islander Pale Ale”, which we believe is very similar to their Come From Away. Beyond that, we know nothing! But hey, it’s available in bottles at the brewpub now, and NLC next week, so we got that going for us, too.

In a “sold out before we had a chance to tell you about it, sorry!” mention, Port Rexton Brewing announced a new beer Tuesday, that was already pre-sold within 24 hours. But since we love to tease you, we’ll still share the details with y’all. 😐 Teaming up with their pals at St. John’s Toslow breakfast/lunch/evening chill hangout, they’ve put together Sea Buckthorn Sour. Starting from a lightly sour base beer, the addition of the Sea Buckthorn berry puree bumps up the tart character, thanks to its high malic acid content, while adding great notes of peach, pear, and pineapple to the brew. Sporting a killer label thanks to local artist Pepa Chan, the plan was originally for a big launch party at Toslow, but they’ll be holding something equally fun in the future. While the beer may already be all spoken for, you can still get some goodies from Toslow in the form of their usual morning pastries, wide variety of sandwiches and other handhelds, and merch, either via online pre-ordering, or by phone and email when checking their IG stories for availability. And peep the Port Rexton online shop to request your curbside pickup from their St. John’s Retail Shop, Thurs – Sat, 12 – 7 PM.

Let’s end the week’s news on a high note, this time in Cole Harbour, or more specifically, Colby Village. Hardisty Brew opened their doors just a couple of weeks ago with their Block Party SMaSH (still some available) and Smoked Porter (sold out for the time being), and are set to release their newest one this weekend. The New England IPA weighs in at 5.7% ABV, and at 20 IBU, is fairly low bitterness, but with plenty of hops in the mix. Skipping those early buttering additions, but with loads of Mosaic added late in the mix for flavour and aroma, and further enhanced with a healthy dry-hopping. Citrus and tropical and hazy, as is the style. The newest beer is out Saturday, but deliveries of Block Party will be happening Thursday, Friday, and Saturday in the Colby Village area, with the best way to order via email (info@hardistybrew.ca) with your request. And great news for those angling for more, the addition of another unitank will allow production to increase and have more of the good stuff available.

 

*The extra B is for BYOBB.**
**That extra B is a typo. 😉