Love Good Beer

Last gasp GCBF ticket options

Tuesday, September 8th, 2009 | Beer | No Comments

It is indeed the Great Canadian Beer Festival this weekend.  This will be my first GCBF and I had no idea how popular it was.  I lucked out in getting tickets by just happening to show up at the beer store to grab the last few available.  I had planned to buy tickets a few days later, but the fates tempted me out on the first day of sales.  Anyway, even though tickets are long sold out, there are still a few ways to get to GCBF:

• Volunteer
• Craigslist, here are a few of my searches
• Ask Nicely
• Win them, I saw a few contests last week, try to find them online.

If you miss out, we’ll post about how awesome it was next week so that you can feel really bad about missing it.  Maybe it’ll motivate you to get tickets nice and early next year?  Seriously though, it is going to be an awesome time.  The lineup looks wonderful and our stay at Swans includes a free tasting, and then we’ll have the excellent Canoe brewpub just down the road…

In preparation for GCBF (and to help recover from the Labour Day weekend) I am embarking on an epic four day beer fast.  Wish me luck.

Cheers,

Chris

Tags: bc, Beer Advocate, Canoe Brewpub, craigslist, GCBF, great canadian beer festival, swans brewpub, swans hotel, victoria, volunteer

Real Beer Can Go Bad

Wednesday, January 28th, 2009 | Beer, Breweries | 1 Comment

Last Monday I had my family over for a nontraditional, one day late Robbie Burns Supper. The evening went quite well, at least I think it did, and I was pleased with the food, except for one key element, the beer. I picked up a bottle of Jameson’s Scottish Ale from Spinnakers Gastro Brewpub last September with the intent of serving it at a Robbie Burns supper. Scotch Ale is not my favorite style of beer – I find it cloying and challenging to finish as a result. But I bought this ale anyways thinking it would be great when paired with a rich flavorful dessert – sticky toffee pudding to be precise.

I served a delicious Brown Ale from Canoe Brewpub as a match to a supper of cullen skink, braised beef cross rib and of course neeps and tatties. A sticky toffee pudding was going to be served alongside a strong scotch ale as a conclusion to the meal, but disaster prevented this from happening. The beer had gone bad. The ale that was supposed to be smooth and malty was now offensively sour. I picked myself up from this great disappointment and carried on the evening by serving an oatmeal stout instead. Crisis was averted and dessert was served, but with a lingering sense of disappointment that nearly spoiled the evening.

This is not my first experience with spoiled beer from Spinnakers, this is the third time this has happened to me. Obviously Spinnakers has a problem with their bottling line that should be corrected, but in the world of small craft brewing I deem this to be somewhat of an acceptable error. This is not to say that I look forward to opening a bottle only to find sour beer waiting for me, I don’t. Small brewers operate on a tight budget and do the best with what they have – this means consistency from bottle to bottle may occasionally vary. The main reason why I can overlook this mistake is because craft beer is real beer and real beer is not pasteurized. Pasteurization is a high heat bacterial kill step that most macro brewers use to ensure their beer has a long shelf life. The intense heat of pasteurization does not help to improve beer’s flavour, if anything it destroys the delicate flavour compounds found in a proper brew. A clean brewery and proper brewing practices are all that is necessary to ensure a quality beer is reaching consumers – at least most of the time.

Opening a bottle of spoiled beer is part of the real beer experience. Of course it should be a very rare occurrence, but it will happen. Before modern science many beer drinkers would have regularly found their pint glass filled with sour beer. Without stale beer England’s famous Porter may never have existed. I am certain that the great Robbie Burns came across stale beer from time to time and I am quite happy to have a shared experience with him. Every stale beer I come across will continue to remind me that I am drinking real beer and real beer can go bad.

Erik

Tags: Beer, Canoe Brewpub, Pasteurization, Porter, Robbie Burns, Sour Beer, Spinnakers Gastr Brewpub, Stale Beer