OT: Beer Thread
- Thread starter nobody important
- Start date
SnepstStach
Registered User
My top beer list would be divided in two. and you should use websites like beeradvocate.com to search and read up on these beer if you really want to be blown away.
Top beer I've had:
De Dolle Oerbier reserva (2008 or 2009)
De Dolle Stille Nacht reserva 2010
De Struise Black Damnation V 2011
Russian River Consecration
Cantillon Carignan
Cantillon FouFoune 2015
Cascade Vlad the Imp Aler
Westbrook Mexican birthday
Hill Farmstead Brother Soigne
more pop up as i drink, but those quickly come to mind.
Top Easy to Find Beer
Lagunitas Little Sumpin Sumpin
Jolly Pumpkin Bier du Mars
Rochforte 10
Oskar Blues TenFiddy
Top beer I've had:
De Dolle Oerbier reserva (2008 or 2009)
De Dolle Stille Nacht reserva 2010
De Struise Black Damnation V 2011
Russian River Consecration
Cantillon Carignan
Cantillon FouFoune 2015
Cascade Vlad the Imp Aler
Westbrook Mexican birthday
Hill Farmstead Brother Soigne
more pop up as i drink, but those quickly come to mind.
Top Easy to Find Beer
Lagunitas Little Sumpin Sumpin
Jolly Pumpkin Bier du Mars
Rochforte 10
Oskar Blues TenFiddy
My top 5 is probably..
1. Mt. Begbie Tall Timber Ale - My absolute favourite from a brewery out in Revelstoke, BC. Very malty caramel brown ale. I buy it whenever I can find it. We get it the odd time out in Sask but usually have to pick it up in Alberta or in BC when I'm there.
2. Swan's Berry Ale - Brewed at the Swan's Hotel in Victoria on Pandora Ave. Stop in and try some of the many brews if you get a chance, you can usually catch some music there as well. Very vibrant atmosphere. Just a hop skip and a jump away from the Upper Harbour. It has the best Raspberry taste in a beer I've come across so far. Very rich and full I highly recommend if you like Raspberry Ale.
3. Driftwood Entangled Hopfenweisse - Another Victoria, BC brewery. Driftwood makes some amazing beers. Check it out if you are ever in the area to catch some amazing seasonal beers. This one is a very fruity hoppy brew. Highly recommend if you like fruity beers. Probably the best smelling beer my nostrils have ever been in the presence of.
4. Four Winds Saison - A bit of a drier wheaty taste but with a hint of fruity undertone. Reminds me of a Saskatchewan harvest. Starts sweet but leaves quite the sour taste in your mouth that you can't quite figure out how it got there. So you sip it again and again just to figure it out.
5. Granville Island Lions Winter Ale - Honestly if you are getting together with family at Christmas this is the beer to have on hand. Tastes and smells like minty chocolate. Maybe it's the nostalgia it brings out in me, maybe it's something else but this beer is on my holiday shopping list every single year. It just wouldn't be Christmas without it.
1. Mt. Begbie Tall Timber Ale - My absolute favourite from a brewery out in Revelstoke, BC. Very malty caramel brown ale. I buy it whenever I can find it. We get it the odd time out in Sask but usually have to pick it up in Alberta or in BC when I'm there.
2. Swan's Berry Ale - Brewed at the Swan's Hotel in Victoria on Pandora Ave. Stop in and try some of the many brews if you get a chance, you can usually catch some music there as well. Very vibrant atmosphere. Just a hop skip and a jump away from the Upper Harbour. It has the best Raspberry taste in a beer I've come across so far. Very rich and full I highly recommend if you like Raspberry Ale.
3. Driftwood Entangled Hopfenweisse - Another Victoria, BC brewery. Driftwood makes some amazing beers. Check it out if you are ever in the area to catch some amazing seasonal beers. This one is a very fruity hoppy brew. Highly recommend if you like fruity beers. Probably the best smelling beer my nostrils have ever been in the presence of.
4. Four Winds Saison - A bit of a drier wheaty taste but with a hint of fruity undertone. Reminds me of a Saskatchewan harvest. Starts sweet but leaves quite the sour taste in your mouth that you can't quite figure out how it got there. So you sip it again and again just to figure it out.
5. Granville Island Lions Winter Ale - Honestly if you are getting together with family at Christmas this is the beer to have on hand. Tastes and smells like minty chocolate. Maybe it's the nostalgia it brings out in me, maybe it's something else but this beer is on my holiday shopping list every single year. It just wouldn't be Christmas without it.
if you're mentioning Driftwood, then it begins and ends with Singularity
I've actually never had it but I've heard many good things from many people. They never seem to have any when I'm in the area.
i have a few bottles in my cellar. it's inspired me to make a clone (in the past). it's a very nice beer.
Wolf357
Registered User
- Jul 16, 2011
- 1,194
- 484
I grew up in rural Manitoba and turned 18 in 1992..it's hard to believe but in the 80's at a beer vender there was literally 5 choices of beer...you had your brand and you were proud of it... It's all you ever drank...your dad may be a OV guy... Your uncle a Blue guy...that was what they drank...every single time.
Up until around 1990 the only beer you could get at a rural hotel/vender were:
Labbat light
Labbat Blue
Molson Canadian
OV
Club
Extra Oldstock
Up until around 1990 the only beer you could get at a rural hotel/vender were:
Labbat light
Labbat Blue
Molson Canadian
OV
Club
Extra Oldstock
i had a 2013 Abbaye De Saint Bon-Chien at dinner tonight. hot damn.
https://www.beeradvocate.com/beer/profile/2958/30955/
https://www.beeradvocate.com/beer/profile/2958/30955/
Damn! World Class! I have to get out and try some of these you've listed so far.
I picked up a Black Bridge Brewery sampler tonight. All this beer talk around here got me wanting to try some local Saskatchewan stuff. Just started in on the Rye Ale.
Can you recommend me any good Saskatchewan brews I should keep an eye out for? Local LB has limited selection on imports and out of province stuff but they have a huge selection of local.
i can't. i know nothing about saskatchewan. just Paddock, i think. sorry. maybe others can help?
by the way, for you homebrew kids out there. just opened my frambois faux-lambic. 18 months of fermenting, then 3 months on 8 lbs of fresh raspberries, then almost a year bottle conditioning. opened a test bottle 2 months ago and it was garbage. opened one tonight and it's 1 notch below cantillon. no word of a lie.
Ah, Extra Oldstock - that was my weapon of choice back then for parties. Nobody but me would drink it, so it was safe in the fridge.
Clearly the same vintage we are. Rotated through many of the big three Brewers products through high school so that it couldn't easily be stolen.
Just back from Thunder Bay and enjoyed a number of Sleeping Giant brewery products.
Love reading thru this thread. Beer geeks for the win.
I am a long time craft beer fan dating back to my university days in Victoria in the 80's. Drinking at Spinnakers and Swans brew pubs and working in a restaurant that carried beers from all over the world.
Since then I have taken to searching for new and interesting beers where ever I go.
Quite enjoyed a BRAVE LIVER SCOTCH ALE from Mt Begbie brewery (Revelstoke) tonight while watching the Bomber game.
Also dabble in home Brewing. Nothing elaborate like some have posted here. Do enjoy playing with adjuncts though. Adding cherries to a Belgian Ale, dry hopping while bottling, adding pine needles ...
Will refer back to this thread to look for recommendations.
I am a long time craft beer fan dating back to my university days in Victoria in the 80's. Drinking at Spinnakers and Swans brew pubs and working in a restaurant that carried beers from all over the world.
Since then I have taken to searching for new and interesting beers where ever I go.
Quite enjoyed a BRAVE LIVER SCOTCH ALE from Mt Begbie brewery (Revelstoke) tonight while watching the Bomber game.
Also dabble in home Brewing. Nothing elaborate like some have posted here. Do enjoy playing with adjuncts though. Adding cherries to a Belgian Ale, dry hopping while bottling, adding pine needles ...
Will refer back to this thread to look for recommendations.
if you're mentioning Driftwood, then it begins and ends with Singularity
i like their IPA's. twenty pounder is hnnnnnnng
Mt. Begbie is one of my favourite breweries. If you haven't I strongly suggest taking the tour if you're ever in the area.
Nope. They would always have Standard Lager in stock. It's been my go to beer since 1991. Nice balanced beer and the bartender always served it ice cold - any given bottle would have been in the fridge for at least a week since I was the only one drinking it.
Plus Standard Lager beat Budweiser in some court case over how the logos looked alike back in the 1920's. David beats Goliath again!
For extra credit: can anyone tell me what a "Manitoba Handshake" is? Without Googling it???
m.
No love for Lake of The Woods Brewing? I love all their beers, especially the Firehouse Ale and Happy Camper.
My summers wouldn't be the same without having a few growlers of LOW Brew on the dock.
My summers wouldn't be the same without having a few growlers of LOW Brew on the dock.
nobody important
the pessimist returns
Well, better late to the party than never, I guess.
I started with no-boil kits (Brew House, etc) and that's not a bad way to enter the hobby just to make sure you have your sanitation protocols in place before going to a lot of expense and bother. Beer requires better sanitation than wine to keep unwanted bacterial infections at bay. Metabisulfite solutions just don't cut it. My preference is for Five Star PBW for cleaning and Star San for sanitizing. I make up a 5 gallon batch of Star San solution with RO water and it keeps for months in a sealed bucket. Best part is, it's no-rinse and requires only 30 seconds of contact time to be effective, according to the Five Star technical guy.
After the kits, I skipped the extract stage and jumped to all-grain. It just seemed like an unnecessary intermediate step.
I looked up some BIAB stuff, and maybe I just got unlucky in my Google searches, but there was just a bit too much attitude in the articles I read. Crap along the lines of, we are just so clever for making beer this way, and all you guys wasting your money on traditional mash/sparge setups are just a bunch of dumb poopy-heads. Sure, whatever.
Personally, I don't want cloudy runoff, I don't want to lose 20% in mash efficiency and I especially don't want to have to lift up and hold a heavy, steaming hot bag of grains to let the wort runoff. I went for a good quality, heavy aluminum stock pot for my mash tun because I wanted the ability to apply heat for doing temp raises. It has a Schmidling Easy Masher for the grain screen. Works great, typically get clear runoff with a gallon of recirculation.
http://schmidling.com/empp.htm
They also make a very good mill. I got a Canadian made Valley Mill but they went out of business long ago. I really should motorize it. The Armstrong method of cranking gets old real fast given my feeble arm strength.
If you're doing 20 liter batches, chances are good your range/cooktop won't have the oomph to do a full wort boil. To get good hot break formation, you need a very vigorous, rolling boil not just a little bubbling. You can always split up your wort into a couple of pots, but turkey fryers are a good one pot solution if outside boils are an option for you. Just make sure it is sized correctly to accommodate your pre-boil volume with lots of head space. Wort will foam up and over very easily.
http://www.canadiantire.ca/en/pdp/master-chef-aluminum-turkey-fryer-36-qt-0853230p.html#srp
I got tired of outdoor boiling real fast. It's too damn cold in winter, it's too damn hot and buggy in summer. And in the fall, you had better enjoy the company of wasps. I was lucky in that I snagged an electric boiler during the brief time that Paddock Wood (they used to be a homebrew shop) was selling them. Then everyone involved got real nervous that these didn't have CSA approval, and they ran the risk of lawsuits should someone electrocute themselves, so away they went. Love it, couldn't brew without it. Don't know what I'll do if an element burns out. This far exceeds my meager handyman skills to fix or replace.
You will need a good wort chiller. The faster the chill, the better the cold break and the shorter your brew day, which in all likelihood is going to be 6-8 hours from start to finish, assuming you approach this as a relaxing day with your hobby and aren't determined to speed through this in record time. You can go immersion (simpler) or counterflow (faster), you can buy or you can make. Lots of resources online for DIY types. I made an immersion chiller and it suits me fine.
Finally, you should consider temperature control. It's good for ales, essential for lagers. A freezer on a temperature controller works great, till the freezer dies. Running freezers at less than freezing temps causes corrosion and shortens their life span. I've already gone through a couple, although they were cheap used ones. Should get another so I can get back into lager brewing. I have a Ranco controller.
https://www.amazon.ca/RANCO-ETC-111000-Digital-Temperature-Control/dp/B0015NV5BE
Anyway, I probably hit the TL: DR point a while back so I'll stop now. Hope this hasn't scared anyone off. All grain brewing is a bit of a commitment. There's a lot to take in at first, but after a few brews it becomes second nature. It really isn't that complicated. The hardest part is coming up with an equipment setup that is going to work for your particular situation.
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