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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 – Boxing Rock Brewery to Open Saturday, Railcar Brewing Location Plans Change, Propeller Opening Dartmouth Store, and more

Posted by acbbshawn on 2013-07-05
Posted in: Friday Wrap-Up. Tagged: Boxing Rock Brewing, Brewer's Bash, Fredericton Beer Run, Grimross Brewing, Picaroons Traditional Ales, Propeller Brewing, Railcar Brewing, Shiretown Beer. Leave a Comment

Happy Friday, everyone! How about some beer news for this week?

• Boxing Rock Brewery in Shelburne is opening Saturday! At their location at 78 Ohio Rd, they will have their Temptation Red Ale in 1 L and 1.89 L growlers, as well as some merchandise. The storefront will be open Monday-Saturday, and there will be a grand opening soon. They will also be at the Shelburne Farmer’s Market tomorrow. Welcome to the fast growing Atlantic Canada Beer scene!

• Railcar Brewing Company, set to open late this fall, will no longer be housed in Railcar 3 at the Shogomac Site in Florenceville-Bristol, NB, despite a previous proposal being accepted by the town. Owner/brewmaster Mitch Biggar has posted on Railcar’s Facebook page that he is currently weighing other location options for the brewery. We’ll be sure to post on this nano-brewery’s new location and plans as soon as we can!

• Propeller Brewing Co is opening their Dartmouth storefront at 617 Windmill tomorrow. They will have growlers and bottles for sale, and their 16th Anniversary celebration beer should be available at both stores. It is an unfiltered dry-hopped Pale Ale. Eventually, the main production will switch over to the larger 30hL brewhouse in Dartmouth, but like all good things, it’s not going to happen overnight! We hope to have more details for you soon.

• Looking to attend the Brewer’s Bash in Fredericton, hosted by Picaroons, next Saturday, July 13th? Well, tickets have been sold out for some time, but organizers are still looking for volunteers to help out with pouring samples, tending the entrance and exits, running beer and ice, and keeping the site tidy. There are two options: one 4-hour shift in the morning or afternoon, and one 5&1/2 hour shift in the evening. Volunteers would have access to the festival after their shift is completed; while evening volunteers would obviously miss most of the festival, there will be a “post-event bonus” of some sort. If you’re interested, send an email ASAP to kim@picaroons.ca.

• On July 1st, shortly after our post in last Friday’s Wrap-Up, Grimross Brewing began selling their Cheval D’Or at the Picaroons Brewtique in Fredericton. The 5 bbl batch (155 U.S. gallons) of this Saison was also brewed at this location, and is available in 750 mL swing-top growlers. Those living in Fredericton will be seeing this beer on tap at restaurants and bars in the near future, along with some other Belgian-style beers that owner/brewer Stephen Dixon has planned.

• For those of you that haven’t yet purchased your tickets for August’s Fredericton Beer Run, here’s another incentive for you: one of the prizes for this event will be a private tasting of some of Red Rover Brewing‘s ciders. This will be just one of the craft-beer/cider related prizes available, ranging from random draws to swag and other items for the top runners in each distance.

• Shiretown continues to expand the locations that their Blonde du Quai can be found. Check the ANBL site for exact details, but it can now be found regularly in some stores in Fredericton and Moncton, as well as Caraquet and Tracadie-Sheila, and on tap at good beer bars Marky’s Laundromat and the Saint John Ale House.

That’s it for this week. Be sure to enjoy the warm weather with some local and cold (but not too cold!) craft beer!

More Details on This Weekend’s Atlantic Beer Festival in Moncton

Posted by acbbchris on 2013-05-24
Posted in: Atlantic Canada Beer Festivals. Tagged: Acadie-Broue, Atlantic Beer Festival, Big Tide Brewing, Garrison Brewing, Mirella Amato, Moncton, Picaroons Traditional Ales, Propeller Brewing, Pump House Brewery, Shiretown Beer. Leave a Comment

atlbeerfest

The Atlantic Beer Festival is taking place at the Moncton Coliseum this Saturday. There are two sessions: 2:30-5pm, and 7:30-10pm. Tickets are available at the Coliseum Box Office, The Pump House Brewery or BarnYard BBQ, and online at tickets.moncton.ca. The evening session is sold out, however there are lots of tickets still available for the afternoon session. The Beer Fest is partnering with the SPCA and United Way.

Exact details on the beers and breweries are not published online (check the Times & Transcript on Thursday for a full list), but I give you some highlights from the organizers and brewers I’ve contacted.

– Fresh off a CBA medal earlier this month, Acadie-Broue will be there with their Gaboteuse Belgian IPA. However, it will only be at the Afternoon Session, that’s worth buying a ticket for the session alone!

– Shiretown from Charlo, NB will be there, pouring their Blonde du Quai, Big Brown Ale and a one off RodDog’s Amber Ale. Also only there for the afternoon session, I see a trend!

– Le Troue du Diable from Shawinagan, QC will be returning, with a pair of beers, that are always hits with the craft beer fans.

– Local (and almost local) breweries Pump House, Picaroons, Big Tide, Garrison and Propeller will also be there, with some special casks and one-off beers that will not be available anywhere else.

– There will be a Maine pavillion, showcasing a over dozen beer that are not available at the ANBL.

We will post the final beer list as soon as it’s available. We expect to see over 140 beers, 30% of which are new offerings not usually available in NB. Some will be launched at the Fest, so this will be your first chance to try them.

In addition to the beer, there will be food vendors (pretzels!), with a BBQ/Smoking station set up with pulled pork and sausages. There will be music by Carey Beck and the 60 LPs. Free shuttle buses leave from the Coliseum to various spots around the city (Downtown, Riverview, etc), so be sure to take advantage and don’t drink and drive!

There is a VIP option at each of the sessions: you will start at the Pump House Brewpub, and meet your guide for the session, Mirella Amato. She is the only Master Cicerone[TM] in Canada, and will be helping folks get the most out of the Beer Festival. After some appetizers and a limo ride to the Coliseum, Mirella will bring you in the VIP entrance and then spend some time tasting some of the great beer available. She will highlight a few of the best beers, do a guided tasting at several of the difference booths, and assist you in hunting down the best beers for your favourites styles. To sign up, contact the ANBL. The ticket price is $99, and that includes your Festival ticket.

We’ll be there, and hope you will too! Cheers!