Cheers,

Chris

Cheers,

Chris

Friday, August 14^th 6:00 – 9:00 PM

Brewmaster’s Dinner at the Granville Room in Vancouver.

This is a four course dinner with Brooklyn beer paired to each course. Garrett will talk about the food and beer during each course. We plan to have copies of his book “ The Brewmaster’s Table” available for purchase. He will personally sign each book. If you want to come and enjoy the evening with Garrett Oliver and some of your friends please contact me. There are only 75 tickets. The price is $75 which includes Dinner and gratuity. This is a set menu. Come and listen to one of the giants in the beer industry.

Saturday, August 15^th 2:00 – 5:00 PM

Brooklyn Brewing Presents: East Coast Beers, West Coast Style

BCLDB Signature Store 39^th and Cambie

Join Garrett Oliver, Brewmaster of Brooklyn Brewing Co., producer of fine craft ales and lagers, in a tasting of his beers paired creatively with Belgian cuisine by Chambar Restaurant. The first few participants will receive a free, signed copy of Oliver’s acclaimed cookbook, The Brewmaster’s Table (while quantities last)!

I’m told that you have to contact the Granville Room directly to get tickets.  I hope I can make it out that night and I hope to see you there.

Cheers,

Chris

Whistler Brewhouse

What to do now?  Well, we already booked ourselves in Whistler, so we are going anyway.  A weekend in Whistler isn’t the worst thing in the world to suffer through, so don’t feel too sorry for us.  I called the Whistler Brewhouse today and was please to find them very apologetic.  We’ll be redeeming our tickets for fresh beer, which I hope they won’t be out of by the time we make it up there!  Their Wolf Creek Bitter and Grizzly Brown Ale are killer, plus they usually have a solid seasonal or two.  We might also amuse ourselves by checking out some of the trails, lakes, and nightlife.  And a stop at Howe Sound Brewing on the way back down might provide a fitting end to our weekend.  I guess we’ll be all right.

Cheers,

Chris

Erik and I conversing

Me and my sweet Brockton IPA bottle opener/keychain

Cheers,

Chris

When we arrived at the busy Taproom, we were asked whether we were with the press or from the liquor board.  We were press!  I suppose I should be less excited about that, but I had never been referred to as press before.  If press are commonly treated as well as we were last night, I wouldn’t mind being with the press more often.  We were given three pints of IPA, an excellent spread of food provided by a nearby culinary school, and a complimentary cab ride home.  Also, Almira of Jive Communications, who invited us, recognized Erik right away (not hard, he is a behemoth of a man and extremely good looking) and gave us a thorough welcome.

We were also lucky to meet Vern Lambourne, the brewer at Granville Island.  Vern perfects Granville Island’s recipes before sending them up North to Kelowna for production.  More importantly, Vern brews all of Granville Island’s seasonal beers on Granville Island.  I especially enjoyed his Porter and eagerly await next week’s release of GI Bitter.  Last month’s Ginger beer, although not to my tastes, was very popular and sold out fast.  Vern let us into the brewery for a quick peek and a picture, and also invited us back for a tour another day.  It is always awesome to meet brewers, not only because they make the delicious beverage we enjoy, but because they are always such nice, humble guys.  Cheers Vern, thanks for showing us around.

We also ran into the honorable Rick Green, who is always a pleasure to chat with.  Rick is the king of BC beer and always has the inside scoop.  He introduced us to Crystal Henrickson of Yelp, who is their sole Vancouver employee.  She is trying to build a Yelp Community in Vancouver and I hope she succeeds.  Yelp is a great site when it is well populated with reviews.  I’ve found it really helpful when visiting US cities, but Vancouver is still catching up on volume.  Crystal convinced me to go beyond consuming other people’s reviews and make some of my own.  I’ve now signed up and rated a few of my favorite places.

The launch of Brockton IPA was surely an experience, one which I enjoyed.  If any other breweries, or even restaurants, would like to wine and dine us press at future launch parties, we’d be more than happy to oblige.

The crowded Taproom

Erik with a Brockton IPA

Me with a Brockton IPA

Vern in his brewery with his latest creation

Cheers,

Chris

Dix cask nights are regularly advertised in the CAMRA Vancouver weekly newsletter, always tempting me.  I was surprised to see just how many CAMRA members actually show up on a weekly basis, fifty or so by my estimation.  We had a great time talking about beer with Rick and had the pleasure to meet other CAMRA members, including local brewers, illustrious beer store owners, and friendly beer enthusiasts.  I hope I can make my attendance at Dix Cask Thursdays a more frequent occurrence.  Good fresh beer and good times.

Cheers,

Chris

The Alibi Room has 19 taps of fresh, relatively local draught beer, plus many more bottled options, as well as the odd cask, all of which are in constant rotation.  For a beer drinker, this is heaven.  Not only do they have the best beer selection in BC, but there is always something new.  In fact, the owner makes special trips to the island to pick up casks and kegs himself

I had a very hard time choosing what four beers to put into my “frat bat”.  I ended up going for the Swans Cask ESB, Longwood “Batch 1000″ Doppelbock, Dix Texan Brown, and Steamworks Roggenweizen.  I also sampled the Swans Extra IPA and ordered a pint of the Swans Cask ESB later on.  I think we all enjoyed the Cask ale the most, but I was also particularly impressed with the Longwood Doppelbock.  I didn’t care too much for the Roggenweizen (too spicy) or the Texan Brown, but neither are preferred styles of mine.

Peter and Dave with empty plates/glasses at the Alibi Room

We also had some very tasty, reasonably priced food.  After splitting some chicken wings and a cheese plate, we ordered two each of their roast beef sandwich special and their bison dip, which were both quite good.  I planned to take some pictures of our glorious spread of beer and food, but I completely forgot until we’d pretty much finished everything to the last crumb/drop.  Still, I have a picture of our empty plates and glasses, testament to the good times we shared with great food and beer at the Alibi Room.  I hope we end up making this a regular after work occurrence!

Cheers.

Chris

I am always curious to hear what Erik, and other beer enthusiasts, purchase from these fine purveyors of beer, so I thought it might be of interest to post my recent purchases.  I came back from Firefly with:

• Mill Street Coffee Porter
• Rogue Chipotle Ale
• Rogue Smoke Ale
• Swans Pumpkin Ale

My return trip via Brewery Creek was also fruitful:

• Mill Street Belgian Wit
• 2x Philips The Hammer Imperial Stout
• Granville Island Porter

I always come back with more than I “need”, but never have a hard time finding people to share beer with.  There is usually some rhyme or reason behind my purchases.  I purchased the GI Porter and the Philips Stout because they are new BC seasonal releases, the Rogues on the recommendation of a co-worker I was with at the time, the Mill Street to continue my investigation, and the Pumpkin Ale because there was a big ‘new’ sign under it.  I am that fickle.

A side note, I bought an extra Philips the Hammer for The Cellar. Patience not being a gift of mine, it pains me whenever I stash a beer in my ultra high tech cardboard box garage cellar.  See you in a year beer.

Cheers,

Chris

• Belgian Trippell – brewed December 06, 9.0% alc/vol
• Smoked Porter – brewed October 07, 8.5% alc/vol
• Thor’s Hammer Barley Wine – brewed October 07, 10.5% alc/vol
• Imperial IPA – brewed June 08, 8.5% alc/vol
• Red Racer Winter Ale brewed September 08, 7.5% alc/vol

We decided to head to Central City last Saturday evening for 7PM, thinking any earlier would not suit drinking such strong beers on a chore laden Saturday.  We thought this was a perfectly acceptable idea seeing as the Facebook event listed the start and end times at noon and 11PM respectively.  It was to our tremendous dismay when our waitress had no clue what we were talking about when we asked for the special menu.  We missed it!  The festivities came and went in the afternoon.  I was even more disappointed to hear from the honourable Rick Green that the party was held in the brewery itself and that all of the food and beer was free to CAMRA members.  I’m still a bit depressed writing this up.

Us looking sad (but still kind of happy) at Central City

In any case, no trip to Central City is a waste when Empire IPA is readily available.  I also think the food there is rather better than your typical pub fare.  That being said, there’s nothing like having your ID scanned and your mugshot taken like you’re a criminal when entering a brewpub.  I find the restaurant to be somehow disjointed from the brewing operation.  The last few times I’ve visited Central City, our waitresses have seemed to think that displaying half of each boob makes up for impoliteness and poor attentiveness, but then to some that’s a boon.  I even got the “oooh, have you had it before” when I ordered their Imperial IPA, which I ordered with authority mind you.  It seems to me that they are not taking much pride in their beer.  Maybe it’s just me though, am I visiting Central City at the wrong times?

Cheers,

Chris