Love Good Beer

Coming Soon: Rickard’s Dark

Saturday, November 14th, 2009 | Beer | 6 Comments

Erik and I received an email from a PR firm who wanted our address so they could send us a sample of a soon to be launched beer.  I was a bit worried it was someone I’d offended coming to punch me in the face, so I gave them my work address.  Lucky for me, a package arrived on Friday instead of a fist.  I opened the package to find an elaborate wood box labeled Rickard‘s Dark.  The box contained two bottles of Rickard’s Dark, two beer glasses, two coasters, and a blindfold.  I found the inclusion of a blindfold a bit odd, but I suppose it is for doing a blind tasting?  Or maybe for post tasting kinky fun times?  Either or, I doubt I’ll be using it.

Opening the package to find the Rickard's Dark box

Contents of the Rickard's Dark Box

I haven’t tasted the beer yet.  Erik is coming over on Monday and I figured I’d wait for him.  Rickard’s Dark is supposedly a 4.8% ABV English style porter with added Quebec maple syrup.  I do love me some porter, but I’m not so sure I’ll like Rickard’s Dark.  I used to drink Rickard’s beer in my younger days because I found it to be a breath of fresh air when compared to Molson Canadian.  I’ve since expanded my beer horizons well beyond Molson’s own Rickard’s brand and no longer care for their Red and Honey Brown like I once did.  That being said, I hope that Rickard’s Dark is wonderful and that it might get some non craft beer drinkers into porter and onto other wonderful porters like Black Butte from Deschutes.  Expect to see Rickard’s Dark on the shelves in Rickard’s Taster packs within a few weeks.

Cheers,

Chris

Tags: black butte porter, deschutes, english style porter, Maple Syrup, molson, rickard's dark

Montreal

Wednesday, September 9th, 2009 | Beer | No Comments

I’m back from my trip to Quebec and I feel more Canadian the ever. My wife and I spent the past week drinking local Quebecois beer, gorging ourselves on the delicious Canadian food group known as poutine -they put pretty much anything imaginable in their poutine – eating cheese, pouring maple syrup over just about everything that is eaten before 12:00 noon, and walking over the ground where some of Canada’s most defining moment took place.

The first half of our trip was spent in Montreal, and the remainder of our time in historic Quebec City. As I previously commented, Quebec is an amazing beer destination, and I have quite a bit to post about. This first post will focus on Montreal, the second, which should follow shorty, will focus on Quebec City.

Montreal

The people of Quebec are incredibly proud of locally produced products, which makes for a great beer culture. Most restaurants we visited in Quebec featured a number of local craft beers. Unlike in Vancouver, good beer is available just about anywhere. Although the style of beers available in Montreal is quite diverse, most breweries tend to brew with a yeasty Belgian flair.

While in Montreal we visited a number of brewpubs – Brutopia, Dieu Du Ciel and Les 3 Brasseurs. For anyone planning a trip out Montreal in the near future, avoid Brutopia, they claim to be Montreal’s premium brewpub, but their beer is terrible – the other two pubs served great beer.

After landing in Montreal and a confusing hour spent on public transit on our way to our hotel, we sat down for our first meal in Montreal at Les 3 Brasseurs. This establishment belongs to a chain of brewpubs headquartered in France, and they offer four beers on tap (Wit, Blonde, Amber and Brown) and a maple syrup bottle conditioned Belgian style ale. We started out with a taster of all four ales – all were delicious, but the brown ale was my hands down favorite. To end the evening we tried the bottle conditioned ale, which was great, but nothing overly impressive. I just don’t think that maple syrup and beer work all that well together, many people I’m sure will disagree.

The best brewpub in Montreal, and possibly even Canada, is Dieu Du Ciel. They offer 18 beers on tap and a limited menu of bar snacks. We were only able to try 6 of the 18, but all were impressive. Dieu Du Ciel’s beer is clearly brewed with passion, care and creativity – three critical element necessary to create great beer, and food for that matter. The styles available range from German kolsch to a rich espresso imperial stout. The only beer that I thought they could improve was the India Cream Ale – I just don’t think brewers east of the rockies can match the fantastic hop flavors that west coast brewers have perfected.

Brewery Creek in Vancouver carries a number of Dieu Du Ciel’s beers, I recommend trying all of them at least twice.

Cheers

Erik

Tags: brewery creek, brutopia, Canada, dieu du ciel, Les 3 Brasserie, Maple Syrup, Poutine, quebec