A Pair from Propeller

Yes, I know that  promised a series of Innis & Gunn review posts, and they’ll be coming soon eventually, and more as well. But I wanted to get this post up quickly while at least one of the beers is still in season.

The trigger for this was a package I got from Propeller Brewery in Halifax a couple of weeks ago with some bottles of this year’s batch of their Pumpkin Ale. It’s a beer that I liked a lot when I tried the 2006 version, so I was happy to give it another go, and even happier to find it just as good as I remembered it. In fact, based on this tasting notes from back in ‘06…

Hazy light gold with a massive rocky white head. Big pumpkin pie aroma – cinnamon, cloves, ginger, mutmeg, pumpkin – very nice! Body is quite aggressively carbonated at first, but mellows as it warms and flattens a bit. Flavour of a pleasant, well-made golden ale laced with pumpkin and spice, and a dry finish with an interesting lemon cookie note. Very refreshing brew that lacks the cloying character that taints some other pumpkin beers I’ve tried.

… it appears that it hasn’t changed much since then. Which is perfectly fine.

And since I was in a Propeller mood tonight, I reached further into the fridge for the bottle of Propeller Hefeweizen that my friends Jeremy and Karen passed on to me a couple of months ago. I really should’ve had it sooner, as it was already 4 or 5 months old by then, and hefes are always better fresh. But it was still in OK shape considering:

Cloudy golden with a medium white head that recedes to a thin film that sticks around through the whole glass. Lightly yeasty aroma with hints of lemon and pineapple. Good mouthfeel with a nice level of carbonation. Flavour is a bit muted, but what’s there is pleasant, with nice tropical and citrus fruit notes, some crispness from the wheat, and a mildly spicy and yeasty finish. Based on the label, it looks like this was bottled back in April, so drinking it six months later I’m obviously not getting it at it’s prime. It’s still a decent hefe, though.

I briefly considered making it a Halifax trio and cracking the Garrison Hop Yard I’ve got chilling in there, but it’s getting late. So I decided to hold off, and will perhaps bring it out along with a bottle of the Ol’ Fog Burner Barley Wine that I’ll be reviewing later this week for the next issue of TAPS.

Innus & Gunn Original

I have too much beer.

Well, OK, that’s not entirely accurate. I only have about 100 bottles on hand right now, which is a small drop in a large bucket compared to a few people I know who have beer cellars that are large enough to be worth more than the GDP of a small country.

The problem, though, is that between the ol’ day job and a deluge of dinners, tastings and other things I’ve been attending recently, I’m rarely drinking any beer at home. And when I do get the chance to do so, it’s usually when I’m taking advantage of having a bit of down time to watch TV or a movie, and I don’t want to drink anything that I need to think about or take notes on.

As a result, I’m faced with a backlog of brews that I’ve received or picked up to write about. And in the case of the stuff I’ve been sent, I’m starting to feel guilty about letting the bottles sit and wait to be consumed and reviewed.

This is especially true of the assorted Innis & Gunn beers that their Canadian rep Nicol Rennie passed on to me a couple (or more accurately, a few) weeks ago. Nic was kind enough to give me a couple of bottles of their Triple-Matured version which recently hit the shelves in Ontario, as well as their upcoming holiday gift pack which has bottles of I&G Original, IPA, and Rum Cask editions along with a lovely glass. So having them sit undrunk for so long is making me feel like a bit of a schmuck.

Chill Out

A few weeks back, I did a write-up for Taste T.O. on Moosehead Light Lime and Red Baron Lime, a pair of beers that hit the shelves in Ontario in the dying days of summer, attempting to ride to coattails of the incomprehensibly popular Bed Light Lime. You can click through to read the whole thing if you’d like, but the condensed version is that neither of them is especially good when judged purely as a beer, but the Red Baron was at least a drinkable and somewhat refreshing beverage.

Soon afterwards, I got an email from Adam Moffat, a rep from Molson who I’ve met a couple of times, with an offer to send me a sample of Miller Chill. While not available in Ontario, Molson has recently introduced it into the Alberta market, and Adam was curious to know what I might think of it, even given my general dislike for the lime beer gimmick. I took him up on the offer, making it clear that he shouldn’t expect a glowing review, and he followed through with a delivery a couple of days later.

In my typical fashion, I stuck a bottle in the fridge and then promptly forgot about it until this evening when I found it stashed in the back. With the temperature outside hovering down near the freezing point, it’s certainly not ideal weather for what’s supposed to be a summer quaffer, but I’ve never been one to worry about that sort of thing. So let’s get this done…

It pours a pale gold with a small white head that disappears remarkably quickly. The aroma is initially not so pleasant, offering that stale malt and wet corn husk smell that I get from many mass produced lagers, but that slowly clears and is replaced with notes of candyish lime. The body is thin and crisp, as expected from a light lager, and the flavour holds very little that can be described as “beer-like” – it’s more reminiscent of Sprite with a very, very faint wisp of malt.

Bottom line: Like the three aforementioned products, this is not a brew for serious beer drinkers. It’s for people who want to throw back a few lightly flavoured and slightly sweet alcoholic beverages on a patio, or at a party, or in other situations where people drink a lot without really thinking about what they’re drinking. Regardless of how much it may offend my pretentious beer geek sensibilities, there obviously is – and always will be – a large market for such beers, and for better or worse, Miller Chill serves that market well.

A Taste of Niagara’s Best

As I’ve mentioned previously, the wife and I don’t get out of the city very often, so we were glad to have the chance to take a quick day trip down to Niagara Falls earlier this month with a couple of friends (and fellow beer geeks) to check out the recently opened Niagara’s Best Brewery & Pub.

Folks familiar with the very mainstream and somewhat unexciting Blonde Ale and Logger Lager brewed by Niagara’s Best at their previous brewery-only location in St. Catharines might wonder why we would drive for a couple of hours to visit the new place, and if that’s all they had on offer, we surely wouldn’t have bothered. But brewer Ian Watson has taken full advantage of the increased flexibility offered by a brewpub operation and has developed a line-up of nine regular brews plus a rotating “Brewer’s Special” tap, so there was much more incentive to make the journey.

Five Reasons Why Toronto’s Festival Of Beer Didn’t Totally Suck This Year

LEFT: One of the few reasons that Toronto's Festival of Beer doesn't completely suck - RIGHT: Two of the many, many reasons that it mostly does suck

Several years ago, I accepted that I’m not in the target market for Toronto’s Festival of Beer. Despite assurances in the program that the event caters to the “beer enthusiast” with “an astute palate”, it really is a ridiculously overpriced celebration of swill that is oriented more and more towards fratboys and douchebags every year. From the stupid “hats” made out of six-pack boxes being handed out by Steam Whistle (seriously, folks – penises and boobies? Are you all in Grade 5 or something?), to the booth girls who are hired based on their breast cleavage rather than their beer knowledge, to the massive and obnoxious “Brand Experience Areas” offering such fine beverages as Budweiser and Tecate, the Festival manages to represent pretty much everything that is offensive and embarrassing about the mainstream beer market.

That said, I still take up the offer of a media pass every year and go check it out, and I always manage to find at least a couple of things that save my visit from being a complete waste of time. Here, then, are my five reasons why this year’s Festival wasn’t a total write-off…

Urpiner Ležiak Svetlý

Due to the unique (or in less politically correct terms, fucked up) nature of alcohol legislation in Ontario, there are several different ways for beer to enter the marketplace. There are two retail chains – the government-owned LCBO, and the Molson & Labatt owned Beer Store – but getting on the shelves of the former requires approval by the powers-that-be, while listings at the latter are quite expensive.

Because of the time, money and/or red tape involved in getting beers into the province’s retail market, much of the beer imported into Ontario, especially from smaller breweries, is sold straight to bars, restaurants and individuals by import agents via the LCBO’s Private Order and Consignment programs. The result of this is a larger selection of beers being available than store stock suggests, but beer hunters often have to be intrepid to track them down, especially the lesser known beers that are brought in for specific ethnic communities, and that end up at bars and restaurants that aren’t necessarily known for having varied beer selections.

It helps, of course, when the importers do some outreach to try and spread the word about their goods. An example of this is an email I received a few weeks ago from James Tubaro of Oxford Imports, an agency that usually deals with wine, but that recently started carrying Urpiner Ležiak Svetlý, a pilsner from Slovakia’s Banskobystricky Brewery. He dropped off a few bottles for me soon after, and while drinking the final one tonight, I thought I should share some thoughts on it.

My main thought is that it’s a pretty nice beer, comparable to many of the European pilsners that are easily available at the LCBO. It has a beautiful golden colour and a snow white head, and an aroma that’s a touch too sweet for the style, but with a nice bready character and a herbal hop edge. The flavour is very pleasant – fresh bread, some toasted grain, a hint of honey, and very nice, lingering herbal hops in the finish. Again, it’s a bit on the sweet side for a pils, but still a nice little brew.

Tubaro tells me that he’s submitted the beer to the LCBO for retail consideration, so perhaps it will some day join Golden Pheasant on the shelves to make a grand total of two Slovakian beers easily available to Ontario drinkers. For now, though, he’s got it in a number of bars and restaurants around Toronto. So be alert, beer hunters.

(PS: For those who are curious, the “12%” on the label isn’t the alcohol percentage. It represents 12° on the Plato scale, a measurement that I don’t completely understand, but which seems to be commonly used by Eastern European breweries. As far as ABV does, it’s a perfectly reasonable 5%.)

Repurposed Content: The Busy Blogger’s Best Friend

Since being prominently mentioned on two of the world’s most popular beer blogs has drawn in literally hundreds of visits in the last couple of days, I was thinking it might be a good idea to get some new stuff posted to try and impress my new readers. But as usual, I’m too busy to sit down and write something new that would actually be worth reading (although that reminds me that I really should get the second part of my Montreal/Mondial trip report written before it’s completely irrelevant).

However – I do have a stockpile of material written for the last few issues of TAPS Magazine that I figured I could “reprint” – or to use some entertainment industry lingo, “repurpose” – in order to keep things from getting too stale.

Here, then, are my contributions to “Tasting Notes”, a beer review feature that started running in the mag as of the Fall 2008 issue. In a format that was shamelessly nicked from All About Beer, each beer is reviewed by two different writers, although we only do two beers each rather than the four covered in AAB’s “Beer Talk“, and the focus is exclusively on Canadian beers. My counterpart for these reviews has been Stephen Beaumont, and it’s been interesting to see which beers we agree on and which we don’t.

How Much Is Too Much?

Earlier this evening, I visited beerbistro, and I purchased and drank the beer in the photograph that accompanies this post. It was Cantillon Zwanze 2008, a limited edition lambic from the renowned Belgian brewery that was made with rhubarb.

Like every other Cantillon beer I’ve had, it was excellent, full of tart and funky goodness, with an interesting hint of rhubarb in the finish. A perfect beer to enjoy on a warm early summer evening.

Oh, and it cost me $25 (+ tax and tip) for a 375 ml bottle, which I believe is the most I’ve ever spent on a single serving of beer.

I’m sure there are a lot of people – including many craft beer drinkers – who will think me crazy for dropping so much on a single beer. Hell, for the money I spent on the Zwanze, I could’ve had three pints of something or other at beerbistro, or even more at someplace a little more down market.

So, why did I buy it? Well, a friend mentioned on a private chat forum today that he’d tried it, and since I love Cantillon beers and really like rhubarb, I decided to treat myself and splurge a little. (The fact that I came into a bit of extra money this week kinda helped me make my decision as well…)

And, was it worth it? Tonight, yes, it was. I thoroughly enjoyed the 45 minutes or so I spent drinking the beer, and given it’s scarcity, I felt the price was justified. Beerbistro is probably the only place in Canada, and perhaps in all of North America, to have Zwanze in stock. When I think what a wine of similar quality and rarity would cost in a restaurant, $25 almost seems like a bargain.

I’m curious to know what other people think, though. Is $25 (or more) ever a justifiable price for a bottle of beer, no matter how rare it might be? Does the “just imagine what a comparable wine would cost!” argument hold any weight, or is it a just a way for suckers to justify things to themselves when they drop too much money on a beer? And like the subject line above says, how much is too much when to comes to the price of beer?

Any thoughts?

(PS: While I was sorely tempted, I didn’t steal the glass. While I’m not a regular at beerbistro, I’m there often enough and know enough of the staff that it would’ve made my next visit a bit awkward. Plus, stealing is bad, ‘mkay? But man, that’s a cool glass, isn’t it?)

Montreal: Mondial de la Bière 2009

As my 5 or 6 regular readers will know, I’m not exactly known for brevity or timeliness when it comes to posts on this blog. A perfect example of this is my report on my trip to NYC a couple of years ago, a bloated series of six meandering posts, the last of which wasn’t posted until a month after I got home. So for this report on my trip to Montreal for Mondial de la Bière, I promised myself that I’d be both punctual and somewhat brief.

Well, it’s a bit over a week since I got home, so I’m not doing so great on the “punctual” part. So let’s see how I can do on the “somewhat brief” part…

Riding the Rails

I’m sitting on a train about an hour outside of Montreal on my way to Mondial, clumsily typing away on my new iPhone using the WordPress app. I know I’m about the 57 millionth person to do this sort of thing, but it’s still really fucking cool.

I don’t know if I’ll be doing much live blogging while I’m at the festival, but as I mentioned in a previous post, I’ll probably be doing some Twittering (@beerbeatsbites). For those who are doing the same, use hash tag #mondial2009