Love Good Beer

A beer tour of Victoria BC

Saturday, January 17th, 2009 | Beer, Breweries, Events, Pubs | 1 Comment

Last September, Erik and I went on a beer tour of Victoria with our fathers.  Sadly, it was the weekend after the Great Canadaian Beer Festival.  We were busy on GCBF weekend, but will definitely be attending next year.  Nonetheless, we still had a great time in Victoria.  We stayed in one of the guest houses at Spinnakers Gastro Brewpub.  I would definitely stay there again, but not with a group of dudes.  We found the guesthouses to be a bit on the romantic side.  Spinnakers has everything going for it.  In additon to a brewpub and guesthouses, Spinnakers also boasts on an onsite restaurant and bakery, plus scenic views of Victoria harbor from its oceanside plot.  We awoke every morning at Spinnakers to fresh baked goods dropped off for breakfast, which was a tasty treat indeed.

Us guys at Canoe Brewpub

Our itinerary consisted of first popping into the brewpub at Spinnakers for a late dinner on Friday night.  We found the food, atmosphere, and, above all, the beer to be quite satisfying.  Upon learning the 11PM closing time was fast approaching, we hastened to sample as many of their beers as possible before being cutoff.  Consequently drunk, we abandoned our plans for bed and decided to wander around Victoria until the wee hours of the morning.  We somehow ended up at Swans Brewpub across town, enjoying further libations.  Now, I can’t say I recall too much about the beer at either Spinnakers or Swans from that night, but I do recall it being rather tasty.

On Saturday, we woke up rather late and worse for wear.  We had a leisurely morning enjoying our baked goods from the Spinnakers bakery before setting off for the Canoe Brewpub.  I recall Canoe being the plushest and most modern of the establishments we visited.  I also recall the Braised Beef Short Rib & Blue Cheese Burger I ordered as being the greatest burger I have eaten in my entire life (surely the healthiest too).  The beer there was also tasty, but the rest of the days events seemed to have wiped my memory of particular details.  We then ventured to Vancouver Island Brewing for a tour.  The tour usually costs $5, but they waived our fee for enthusiastically showing up far too early.  Had we paid the fee, it would have been well worth it for the tour and the five glasses of each VI brew we were poured.  At this point in the early afternoon, we were roundly drunk, but ventured on to Hugos.

Hugos brewhouse was largely a disappointment.  The beer we ordered was all well and good, but there was something off about the place.  We felt as though we were sitting in a dark, empty nightclub, not the atmosphere one would expect of a brewpub on a Saturday.  I was not surprised to learn later that Hugo’s was largely known as a nightclub in its last days and was closed down weeks after our visit. We then ventured to the Stickey Wicket, tired and unenthusiastic.  The pub itself is very cool, convivial, busy, and featuring three floors (the top floor features an open air volleyball court).  We weren’t there long as we had hit the wall.  We ventured back to Spinnakers for a solid nap (the longest walk of my life, I swear).  After our nap, we returned to the Spinnakers brewpub for dinner where two of us couldn’t even contemplate ordering another beer.  The night ended shortly after an unrousing game of darts, when we retired rather early.

On Sunday, we awoke refreshed to more Spinnakers baked goods.  I had the delivery girl drop our basket off outside “because of the no pants and whatnot”.  Erik was none too pleased with my saying “whatnot”, wondering what the poor girl may have inferred.  We then gathered ourselves and headed to Swans once more, to give it a fair chance in an uninebriated state.  We enjoyed the beer there very much, although I again can’t recall any details.  We then ventured back to the mainland, laiden with bottles, after a two day trip where we consumed beer aplenty.

Us guys at Swans Brewpub

We had an awesome time in Victoria and it is a tour we’d definitely do again.  It was very cool to be able to do this with our fathers before they lose mobility.  Just kidding, our Dads are on the young side and much fitter than we are.  We learned a lot from this beer tour though, foremost that it is best to pace yourself to get the most out of the day.  It was also a shame we didn’t get to visit any of Victoria’s other microbreweries. Before we ventured on our trip, we had planned to visit both Philips and Lighthouse Brewing.  I called both breweries and asked if they did tours.  They did not, but both said they would accommodate us if we stopped by, which I though was pretty cool.  Sadly, our weekend trip did not coincide with the hours of operation of these two breweries.  I imagine that new Victoria brewery Driftwood operates similary.  I hope to visit all three the next time I’m in Victoria on a weekday.

My next trip to Victoria is already planned and we will be staying at Swans, a more suitable venue for a bachelor party, due to its lively atmosphere, than Spinnakers.  It is indeed my good friend Dave’s bachelor party.  This time the focus will be more on debauchery than beer.  That being said, I hope to visit Spinnakers and Canoe again, and we’ll possibly do a brewery tour.  This time I’m going to organize a golf game at nearby Gorge Vale on Saturday morning, to ensure we don’t hit the wall to early.

Cheers,

Chris

Tags: bc, Beer, beer tour, brewery, Brewpub, canoe, driftwood, gorge vale, hugo's, lighthouse, philips, spinnakers, swans, vancouver island, victoria

Hops in 2009

Friday, January 2nd, 2009 | Beer | No Comments

A photo of early BC hop pickers; courtesy of the Chilliwack Museum

Happy New Year! 2009 brings exciting news to the world of BC Craft Brewing. Hops have once again been planted in the Fraser Valley and a small harvest is expected this year.

With the recent hops shortage, brewers have struggled to find a reliable supply of hops and have had to deal with dramatic price increases. If proven successful and commercially viable, it is expected that BC’s dormant hop industry will be revived, providing local brewers a new source for hops. BC was once a major hop producing region, not surprising seeing that Washington State, just south of BC, is currently one of the largest hop growing regions in the world. Sadly, due to declining demand BC’s last hop harvest was in 1997, but 2009 is a year of change. The Chilliwack Museum has a put together a great site about the history of BC’s hop industry that is worth taking a look at.

BC has some amazing brewers creating fantastic beer. Speaking from the perspective of a home brewer, new ingredients helps to inspire brewing creativity – harvest ale, brewed with fresh hops instead of dried hops, is the first beer that comes to mind in this situation. I think this new supply of local hops will bring a new passion to the many craft brewers in BC. I look forward to tasting the news beers that BC brewers create.

Chilliwack’s hop yards provided seasonal work for my grandparents when they first moved to British Columbia, so I feel a small sense of connection to this industry and am very excited to see that hops are once again being grown in BC. For more news on this story check out the BC Beer Blog – a great source for BC beer news.

Erik

Tags: bc, BC Beer Blog, Beer, Brewing, Chilliwack Museum, Harvest Ale, hops

Why we started a blog about loving beer

Thursday, December 11th, 2008 | Beer | No Comments

Chris, Erik and Dads at Swans in Victoria

Earlier this year in September Erik and I took a beer trip to Victoria, BC with our Dads.  We visited breweries and brewpubs and drank a lot of good beer.  It was one of the coolest things I have ever done, not because of the itinerary, but because I got to bond with my father, father-in-law, and brother-in-law and make some great memories (good stories coming in another post).  I love the taste of beer, but what I love most about beer is how it can bring people together.  The times that I drink beer, after soccer games with the team, Friday at five with coworkers, and on weekends with friends and family, are generally the most enjoyable times of my life.  Such is my passion for beer.

We started this blog because we love beer and we want to learn more about it.  I have Erik to thank for kicking my interest in beer up a notch.  Erik brews his own beer and is very dedicated to his craft.  Spending an entire weekend carefully monitoring a boiling mash and then suffering through the rigorous cleaning of his brewing equipment is his idea of fun.  I am already tired thinking about it; I think I need a beer.  I on the other hand, being the inquisitive engineering type, love learning about how beer is made, that and drinking it.

I love drinking the beer Erik makes. I once asked him why his beer tastes so much better than the typical liquor store varietals.  Turns out he uses high quality ingredients and puts a lot of care into it, which seemed quite obviously like a good way to go about brewing to me.  He told me that Anheuser-Busch brews Budweiser using a percentage of rice, which, if you know anything about beer, is blasphemy.  Quality beer is supposed to only contain water, barley, hops and yeast.  Rice is used because it is cheaper than barley, ferments more quickly, and imparts very little flavor, which basically translates to cheap, flavorless beer.  You may not have noticed, but Budweiser has started advertising that it is now brewed with six-row barley, letting it be known that they no longer use rice.  The funny thing here is that six-row barley is the less preferred (cheaper, less suited for beer making) kind of barley that craft brewers try to avoid (two-row barley is where it’s at).  King of beers my ass.  Hearing of this opened my eyes to the disparity that exists in beer and got me much more interested in drinking good beer.

I always knew that I loved drinking beer with my friends, but now I find myself really excited about beer in general, excited enough to start a blog.  My goal in starting this blog is to learn more about beer, find better beer to drink, and hopefully help the people who care to read this blog drink better beer too.  We plan to blog about:

• beer we drink
• places to drink beer
• making your own beer
• beer events
• beer recipes
• breweries we visit
• anything else beer related that pops up

If anyone has any suggestions for us, we’d love to hear about them.  Please comment on any of our posts or email us.  Also, don’t drink and drive; it totally sucks.  Also, please feel free to send us free beer.

Cheers,

Chris

Tags: barley, bc, Beer, budweiser, craft, good beer, good times, love, rice, victoria