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All posts for the month August, 2013

Friday Wrap-Up – Contest for 2 Tickets to PEI Beer Festival, New Beers from Grimross, Shiretown, Picaroons and Rogues Roost and much more

Posted by acbbshawn on 2013-08-23
Posted in: Friday Wrap-Up. Tagged: Antigonish Townhouse, BarNone Brewing, Big Spruce Brewing, Celtic Knot Brewing, Fredericton Craft Beer Festival, Grimross Brewing, Hart & Thistle, Meander River Farm and Brewery, PEI BeerFest, PEI Brewing, Picaroons Traditional Ales, Rogues Roost Brewpub, Shiretown Beer. Leave a Comment

Happy Friday, beer buddies! Time for another Friday Wrap-Up…

• The PEI Beer Festival is only two weeks away (Sept. 6th and 7th)! We’re partnering with the PEI Brewing Co. to put on a contest for 2 VIP tickets to the festival, through Twitter. All you have to do is take a picture of one of the 75 beers that will be poured at the festival (check the list here) and post it on Twitter, with the hashtag #PEIBeerFest. The winning photo will be selected by the PEI Brewing Co., and we will announce the winner Monday through our Twitter account. Good luck, everyone! Also check back for a full post with all of the details on the Fest early next week.

• Earlier this week, Grimross Brewing released their fourth beer in downtown Fredericton. “Bayard Belgian Blond” comes in at 7% ABV, and has a lot of fruitiness and spiciness to complement its Belgian character. Brewed using the same hops as the recent “Ben’s Bitter Pale Ale”, it’s also fermented with the same yeast strain, but comes across as a sweeter, less bitter beer that is “approachable, with lots of flavor”, according to brewer Stephen Dixon. It’s currently available in 750 mL growlers at the Picaroons Brewtique.

• Meanwhile, Shiretown is also releasing a new beer… the “Black Currant Bitter Wheat” is brewed with their “base wheat recipe” and local black currants, according to brewer Derek Leslie. With an ABV of 5%, it will be available only at the brewery for growler fills, for a very limited time. The launch will be next Thursday, so hurry over if you’re in the area!

• More new beer! Halifax brewpub Rogues Roost has a pair of new beers available on tap: a light and refreshing Blueberry Wheat (their first ever of this style), and a 6% Baltic Porter, with notes of smoke and chocolate. Both are also available in growlers to go, but enjoying the beer on their street-level patio on one of our few-remaining summer days is a good idea too.

• In support of the Atlantic Salmon Conservation Foundation, Picaroons will be re-releasing their “Upstream Ale” for a limited time. Described as a “crisp and clean golden ale”, it has a sessionable ABV of 4.5%, and should be available in ANBL stores by early September. Twenty-five cents from every bottle purchased will go towards the ASCF.

• Greg Nash, has released another new beer in town. Hop Candy II, on tap now at the Hart & Thistle, is a 6.5% IPA, hopped at 3.6lbs/bbl with Centennial, Cascade and Falconer’s Flight. As with most hop-forward beers, the younger the beer the better, as the flavour and aroma can drop off significantly over time.

• What a busy week for new beer releases! And with hop harvest arriving soon in the Atlantic Region, we’ll be seeing some special beers coming through the pipeline soon. If you are in the Cabot Trail area today, drop by Big Spruce as they pick hops from their field and brew up a ~6% Harvest IPA. They are using the wet hops (picked minutes before use, only having to travel feet from field to brewery) continuously in the mash tun, kettle and a hopback. It should be a fun day out!

• Originally available only at Marky’s Laundromat, Celtic Knot Brewing beers will now be available at another location in Moncton. As of this week, The Tide & Boar Gastropub will begin pouring a rotating selection of Celtic Knot beers (based on availability), including their Hopicide IPA and “Not Joe Average” Pale Ale, as well as future releases such as the Loki Black IPA, Robert the Spruce, and Dark Passage Oatmeal Stout.

• Yesterday, Barnone Brewing had something special for those dropping in for their weekly Thursday growler fill from 6-8 pm – an opportunity to touch and smell their glorious hops! Barnone has been growing hops all season which are just about ready to be harvested for use in brewing, so they graciously allowed customers to experience up-front what fresh hops look, smell, and feel like.

• After we spotted a teaser picture of some excavation work posted on their Facebook page, we contacted Meander River Farm for an update on their upcoming brewery. Alan Bailey was kind enough to get us up to speed with their current situation: after four months of waiting on the NS Dept. of Environment, they will be able to operate as a farm-based microbrewery. Hooray! They will be brewing on a 3 barrel system, focusing on American-style Ales, using hops and other products from their 186 acre property (including honey and lavender, which, along with their hops, have all been used in Garrison beers). They plan to be selling beer by December, and we will certainly be keeping you up-to-date with all of the news! One exciting plan of theirs is to offer CSB (community-supported brewery) shares, similar to the CSA shares popular in the province. This allows for a more personal connection between the consumer and farmer/brewer.

• And more great news for beer lovers in Nova Scotia: as mentioned in our profile in June, the Antigonish Townhouse is ready to serve up their in-house-made beer! They’ve been working hard on perfecting the recipe and techniques, and even harder on getting all of the licensing and legal stuff in place. Within the next week or so, they will be serving it exclusively at the pub. A cask-conditioned English Bitter brewed with 2-Row, Crystal and a touch of Black and Flaked malt, the beer clocks in at 4.5%. The 42 IBU beer uses Challenger for bittering, and great English hops East Kent Goldings and Fuggles for flavour and aroma (including Fuggles for dry-hopping). The only thing this beer is missing is a name, which is where you come in! Send them a message on Twitter or Facebook with your suggestion for a name, and you could win a prize! It probably helps to be able to taste it first, but I have faith you folks can come up with some great names. We’ll let you know the moment the beer hits the hand pump!

• It’s still months away until the second annual Fredericton Craft Beer Festival (March 8th, 2014), but a new website has just been launched for the event. Keep an eye on the site (and this blog) for details on the festival, and follow them on Twitter and Facebook to keep up-to-date on breweries, beers, ticket availability, and more. They might be making some changes to the fest format, so weigh in to let them know what you think!

Lots of beer news this week… hopefully the trend continues! Have a great weekend!

Friday Wrap-Up – PEI Brewing Co. Expands Distribution to Alberta, New Beers from Celtic Knot and Hell Bay, Seaport Beerfest Thoughts, and more

Posted by acbbshawn on 2013-08-16
Posted in: Friday Wrap-Up. Tagged: Big Spruce Brewing, Celtic Knot Brewing, Granite Brewery, Hell Bay Brewing, PEI BeerFest, PEI Brewing. 1 comment

Howdy, everyone… here’s a bit of Atlantic craft beer news for your weekend…

• It’s been a long time in the making, but it looks like the PEI Brewing Company is starting to expand to Western Canada. Last week, their Gahan beers (Sir John A’s Honey Wheat, Iron Bridge Brown, Island Red, and 1772 IPA) and Beach Chair Lager officially became available in Alberta. The brewery partnered with Thirsty Cellar Imports, a sales agency in Calgary, to make the beers available in 39 Sobeys Liquor stores throughout the province, as well as some select private beer/liquor stores. For a full list of locations where the beer is available in Alberta, check out the links here.

• While a separate post on the upcoming PEI Beer Festival is coming soon, keep your eyes on our Twitter account for a contest in the near future that will give away two VIP tickets to the festival. We can’t give full details now, but it will involve two things: photos, and… beer!

• While waiting for his Black IPA, “Loki”, to be released at Marky’s Laundromat in Moncton, Bruce Barton of Celtic Knot Brewing has brewed another pilot batch of a new beer that will hopefully be available in the near future. We don’t have many details on the “Dark Passage Oatmeal Stout” yet, but keep it in mind if you’re in the Moncton area and are keen on some new Celtic Knot beer! And remember to ask for Celtic Knot at your local watering hole, as customer demand is what keeps Celtic Knot going.

• The India Brown Ale from Hell Bay Brewing Company that we had mentioned in a previous post is finally available! Described by the brewery as “sweet and malty upfront, lending way to hints of rum and molasses, and finishing slightly dry”, it comes in at 6.8% ABV. Available in growlers at the brewery, it won’t be around for long, so hurry in if you’re in the area. Brewer Mark Baillie is making good use of his expanded brewhouse!

• We had a great time at the Halifax Seaport Beerfest last weekend. The indoor venue had plenty of room (and restrooms), and there were hundreds of stellar beers available. Very strong showing from new NS breweries Uncle Leo’s, Boxing Rock, Big Spruce, and Bridge Brewing, as well as “old” favourites Hell Bay, Rockbottom Brewpub, Rogue’s Roost, Sea Level and Garrison. Great to chat with all of you brewers onsite! Other standouts were Malédiction Stout from Saint-Bock (served with a mini marshmallow), Maine Is. Trail Ale from Rising Tide and Sour in the Rye from The Bruery (still available at Premier Wines).  The Ladies Beer League had a strong showing for their VIP tasting, giving the women a primer on beer styles and it even got them early for the fest.

• With the different regulations and practices of growler filling in Nova Scotia (brewpubs cannot fill growlers during operating hours, some breweries will only sell pre-filled growlers, etc), buying a growler of beer can mean spending a lot of money on glassware, thus reducing the economics and increasing the clutter in your cupboards. Big Spruce in Nyanza and Granite Brewery in Halifax are partnering to make life a little simpler: you can now bring in an empty 1.89L growler from either brewery, to either brewery, and the growler fee is waived. This is handy for folks who travel between Halifax and Cape Breton, but don’t want to worry about having several different growlers with them. We’re really hoping for an NS (or Atlantic Province) Craft Beer Growler, but cooperation between breweries like this is excellent!

Looks like some nice weather coming for this weekend… get out there and enjoy it, along with some of your favorite craft brews!

Friday Wrap-Up – Garrison Brewing To Hold 5th-Annual Oktoberfest, Grimross Brewing Releases New Beer, PEI Beer Festival Scheduled For September, and more

Posted by acbbshawn on 2013-08-09
Posted in: Friday Wrap-Up. Tagged: Bridge Brewing, Garrison Brewing, Grimross Brewing, Hart & Thistle, Oktoberfest, PEI BeerFest, RockBottom Brewpub, Sea Level Brewing, Uncle Leo's Brewery. Leave a Comment

Good morning, fellow craft beer lovers!

• This September 21st, Garrison Brewing Co., in collaboration with the German Canadian Association, will be holding their 5th annual Halifax Oktoberfest. There will be lots of German food, live music, and Garrison beer and Stutz cider available. The celebrations will be spread out over the day in two sessions: a free, market-wide afternoon session, and a 19+ evening session beginning at 7:00 pm. Tickets for the evening event will be $12 ($11 for students/military), and can be purchased at the Garrison retail store, or the day-of at the location at Pavilion 20 downtown. We’ll have a more-thorough post on this soon!

• The number of beers available from Grimross Brewing in Fredericton continues to grow. Joining the Cheval D’Or and Destrier Farmhouse Stout is Ben’s Bitter Pale Ale, a Belgian Pale Ale with slightly more bittering hops, according to owner/brewer Stephen Dixon. With healthy doses of Cascade hops for bittering and flavor, and Saaz hops for aroma, Ben’s Bitter will come across as quite floral, with earthy and citrus-fruit tones, and a lasting bitterness in the finish. Currently available in refillable growlers at the Picaroons Brewtique, and hopefully on tap in the area soon.

• With the Seaport Beer Festival happening this weekend in Halifax, it’s time to start planning for the next beer fest… the Prince Edward Island Beer Festival will occur the first full weekend in September, Friday the 6th and Saturday the 7th. Last year, there were two beer festivals in PEI within a month of one another; the province decided in the spring to allow only one festival this year. Details are a bit slim right now, but we’ll do a post on the event as soon as we learn more. We can report that there will be over 75 different beers available, from breweries such as Amsterdam, Garrison, McAuslan, Hop City, and Erdinger. There are several tasting sessions planned; ticket prices range from $20-$120, depending on the session. You can follow the event on Twitter and Facebook for up-to-date notifications.

• Not satisfied with only growler fills of Bridge Brewing beer? Looking to get more than pint pours at Halifax bars? Well, you’re in luck… they are now offering 19.5 L party kegs for sale, for all beers that are available at the time. There is a $100 refundable keg deposit, and pricing will be $105 for the Gus or Summer Ale, $110 for the Farmhouse, and $120 for the Strong Dark (taxes not included). Call ahead to order yours!

• Greg Nash is tapping a few special beers at Rockbottom Brewpub in Halifax today, starting at 4:00 p.m. Accompanying a few of their regular-release beers will be “X”, an Imperial Brown Ale aged 18 months on cedar wood (11% ABV); “Vintage Wreckoning”, a Russian Imperial Stout on nitro, fortified with Macallan single malt whiskey (11% ABV); the regular “Wreckoning” RIS (10.5% ABV); the popular “Oaked-Aged Double Hoppelganger” DIPA (10% ABV); and “Barrel-Aged Desecration”, an Imperial Red Ale (11% ABV). Some nice sessionable (!) beers for your weekend! Get down to the Rockbottom ASAP – these beers will only be on tap until Sunday close.

• And, in case that’s not enough big beers for you, the Hart & Thistle will be putting on Nashfest again, with several OTHER Greg Nash beers for you to enjoy! These include “Columbus DIPA”, single-hopped with Columbus (9.1% ABV); “Commissar”, a Russian Imperial Stout, this time fortified with Bulleit bourbon (11% ABV); “Hop Mess Monster v3.0”, another DIPA single-hopped with Columbus (10% ABV); “Old 87”, an American IPA with lots of Columbus and Falconer’s Flight hops (7% ABV); and “Kneecapper”, an India Red Ale, or “Red IPA” with plenty of… yep, hops (6.1% ABV). It all starts at 4:00 p.m. today, and ends at close on Sunday.

• Uncle Leo’s Brewery may have just opened not too long ago in Pictou, NS, but their beers have already made it to Halifax! Both their Red Ale and IPA became available in 650 mL bombers at Premier Wine & Spirits earlier this week. Premier doesn’t expect them to last long, so get in while you can.

• Looks like Barnone Brewing in PEI has started filling growlers. You can drop by the brewery in Rose Valley every Thursday between 6:00 and 8:00 pm; both their Pale Ale and Summer Sessions will be available for fills.

• Sea Level Brewing has extended the hours of their retail store, where you can stock up on their canned beer, as well as 1-L refillable growlers. Their official hours are now Monday-Friday 10 am-6 pm, Saturday 10 am-5 pm, and Sunday 12 pm-5 pm.

That’s it for this week… have a safe and beery weekend!