Beer in the news

[Jayme]

Nice! Good intel.

[CurtisD]

The press release says it will be available in NB, but I'll believe it when I see it.

[chalmers]

BNL beer is available at Garrison District Ale House.

[canuck]

The press release says it will be available in NB, but I'll believe it when I see it.

My thoughts exactly. While I hoping it will be available here, I'll believe it when I see it as well. If we are ever so lucky to have this brought to NB, I wonder if they'll bring in some of their other beers as well? I'd love to be able to get their Atomic IPA here.

[Jayme]

The press release says it will be available in NB, but I'll believe it when I see it.

My thoughts exactly. While I hoping it will be available here, I'll believe it when I see it as well. If we are ever so lucky to have this brought to NB, I wonder if they'll bring in some of their other beers as well? I'd love to be able to get their Atomic IPA here.

Read the post above yours - Chamlers just said it's at the Ale House in Fredericton! I doubt you'll see at at the NBLC though as the volume would probably be too small for them to bother/care. I could be wrong, but I believe the real limiting factor currently is Flying Monkeys are selling all that they can produce, so at the moment it wouldn't be realistic to get the beer in other provincial liquor stores until they can satisfy demand. Or maybe the folks running the provincial liquor stores in Atlantic Canada are useless. OR (and most likely) it's a bit of both

[canuck]

The press release says it will be available in NB, but I'll believe it when I see it.

My thoughts exactly. While I hoping it will be available here, I'll believe it when I see it as well. If we are ever so lucky to have this brought to NB, I wonder if they'll bring in some of their other beers as well? I'd love to be able to get their Atomic IPA here.

Read the post above yours - Chamlers just said it's at the Ale House in Fredericton! I doubt you'll see at at the NBLC though as the volume would probably be too small for them to bother/care. I could be wrong, but I believe the real limiting factor currently is Flying Monkeys are selling all that they can produce, so at the moment it wouldn't be realistic to get the beer in other provincial liquor stores until they can satisfy demand. Or maybe the folks running the provincial liquor stores in Atlantic Canada are useless. OR (and most likely) it's a bit of both

Thanks, I totally missed Chris' post. Knew it was too good to be true about the NBLC bringing this in. Fawk sake. You guys are fortunate to have Premier down your way.

[Jayme]

Right you are. I actually just checked out the Premier facebook page to see if it's in yet, and while it's not, I do see they have 3 sours from a different brewery! I'm looking forward to trying those out.

[mr x]

Hi,

I Work for CKDU radio in Halifax and I'm looking to do a radio piece on Halifax home brewers. If anyone is interested in chatting about what they do fire me an email at daniel.campbell@dal.ca

I'd really like to hear how/why you started and what you like about it! I just use a voice recorder and pre-make the pieces, so not too much pressure on you.

Thanks

Did anyone contact daniel?

[GAM]

Ya. He was over Sunday. I think he told me the interview was to air yesterday. He was going to pitch comming back to brew with me Saturday for another segment.

http://www.ckdu.ca/" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false; at 1730hr on Tuesday.

Sandy

[Jayme]

I told him I'd talk to him too, exchanged a few emails and never heard back in the end - probably because he already hooked up with Sandy.

[GAM]

He had talked to Ben Wedge and another brewer I didn't know.

If he comes over Saturday folks could drop by and criticize.

Sandy

[mr x]

Guinness crisps: the ultimate pub snack?

[/b]

http://www.guardian.co.uk/lifeandstyle/ ... -pub-snack" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

[Jayme]

Interesting. The Guinness cheese at Sobeys is not very good. Maybe these will be better?

[mr x]

B.C. moves to lower taxes on craft breweries to aid expansion efforts

[/b]
http://life.nationalpost.com/2012/11/27 ... n-efforts/" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

[CorneliusAlphonse]

Conversely:

Base prices, including minimum prices, on alcohol content to create incentives for lower strength products and discourage higher strength products.

[/b]

and

"In the case of Saskatchewan, the government made more money and the retailers made more money and I guess the poor consumers spent more money and drank less alcohol,"

[/b]
http://www.cbc.ca/news/health/story/201 ... icing.html" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

[pet lion]

http://www.theglobeandmail.com/life/foo ... le5741419/" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

Care for a nanobrew? Craft beer’s new pint-sized operators

After four months of experimentation and countless litres of beer wasted, Jason Stratton and his business partner Patrick Doré never anticipated just how popular their final brew would be.

Within two weeks of opening their miniature brewery in July, the creators of North Vancouver’s Bridge Brewing Company sold out of their specialty North Shore Pale Ale, which they offer directly to customers in refillable growler jugs. They have been struggling to keep up with demand ever since.

“We are constantly under pressure,” Stratton says, noting they are once again down to the last keg and a half of their signature golden, hoppy ale and will likely run out by this weekend.

Due to their minuscule output of roughly 400 litres per batch or less, the struggle to meet demand is a common challenge for so-called “nanobreweries” like Bridge Brewing Company, which represent an increasingly popular niche in beer production.

Microbreweries, the small-scale alternative to conventional big-name beer brands, have become exceedingly trendy in recent years. In the United States, according to the Brewers Association, the total number of microbreweries has jumped to 922 from 615 in 2010. In Ontario alone, a 2010-2011 annual report by the Liquor Control Board of Ontario recorded a 52.7-per-cent surge in sales of craft beer from the previous year. But lately, serious beer drinkers have been getting acquainted with their even smaller, pint-sized cousins.

Operating at a small fraction of the scale of microbreweries, nanobrewers are taking home brewing beyond their kitchens and garages and into the commercial realm, creating and selling only a few kegs at a time. And thanks to a growing thirst for exciting, one-of-a-kind, locally brewed concoctions, nanobreweries are sprouting up across the country.

“People just know that it’s a labour of love and people are just willing to support the small guys now,” says David Bowkett, founder of the soon-to-open Powell Street Craft Brewery, in east Vancouver. He expects that his first run of pale ale, porter and IPA, all painstakingly brewed in 350-litre batches, will be ready for sale by mid-December.

Like many nano operators, Bowkett started out as a home brewer, making a few litres at a time as a hobby. And to some extent, brewing continues to be an interest of pure pleasure for him; Bowkett has kept his day job as architectural technologist, brewing batches on weekends. (Similarly at Bridge Brewing, Stratton, who is an accountant, continues to work as a controller for a Vancouver company, while Doré works as an executive concept chef.)

Most nanobreweries barely break even for the first couple of years, Bowkett says, explaining he didn’t launch his venture merely to make money. Yet even if it is no get-rich-quick scheme, nanobrewing can make good business sense. For one thing, launching a nanobrewery is much cheaper, and therefore far less risky than starting up a microbrewery that typically generates hundreds of thousands of hectolitres of beer per year.

In Antigonish, N.S., for instance, where Terry Piercey is setting up a nanobrewery upstairs from his bar, the Townhouse Brewpub & Eatery, his entire system cost roughly $6,000. By comparison, Piercey says, the cheapest micro-brewing system he could find would have set him back more than $120,000.

His set-up is admittedly tiny. It consists of a couple of 50-litre kegs converted into kettles that are heated with propane. But he anticipates it will be able to produce about 40 litres of beer per batch, once he gets it running in the new year – enough to put a regular house beer on tap, in addition to the other brands he currently serves.

As a pub operator, Piercey believes that making his own beer will help set his establishment apart, as in England, where many pubs cultivate a loyal following with house brands. Besides, he says: “We have a full kitchen and we make lots of food, so it’s like, why not just add a little brewery and make the beer as well?”

Another major advantage is the ability to experiment, without wasting huge volumes if a recipe proves unsuccessful.

At the Toronto bar Get Well, brewer Brad Clifford creates a new beer almost every week from the in-house brewery, ranging from stouts to IPAs. He has created a “saison,” a Belgian-style beer that has a spicy, peppery flavour, for instance, and just this week, he’s experimenting making an IPA with rye.

“We just love beer and wanted to make good beer because there’s not a ton out there,” says Get Well’s co-owner Jeff Barber. With a nanobrewery, he says, “we can be … a little more free and creative with what we’re doing.”

In a small back room, surrounded by simmering kettles and metal tanks, Clifford is like a gleeful chemist, adjusting the temperature of his mash and measuring its sugar content.

One of his finished products, an American pale ale he calls “Pinball Wizard,” has a complex tropical fruit aroma, a hint of citrus and a malty body. It’s utterly delicious – it’s not hard to understand why Clifford has lost his taste for large-scale commercial brews. “I’m a beer snob, pretty much,” he says.

For the nanobrewers interviewed for this story, obtaining approval to sell their products was not an enormous hurdle; all said the process of applying for a license was not prohibitively onerous. But the operations require plenty of work. It takes just as much effort – if not more – to create 50 litres of beer as it would take to brew 500 litres.

Bowkett, who plans on selling his beer at local bars, private liquor stores and directly from his Vancouver brewery, bottles his brew with a small machine that only seals two bottles at a time.

“It’s a long day to do a full batch of beer,” he says. “The whole process is very labour intensive. There’s nothing automatic about it really.”

[mr x]

Rare Westvleteren 12 beer coming to LCBO

[/b]
http://www.thestar.com/living/food/arti ... -s-brewing" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

[bluenose]

This is the first time people can buy this beer beyond the gates of the Westvleteren Abbey in Belgium, and we are fortunate to have been able to bring it to LCBO customers.

isn't that the stuff you guys bought almost a year ago?

[BobbyOK]

This is the first time people can buy this beer beyond the gates of the Westvleteren Abbey in Belgium, and we are fortunate to have been able to bring it to LCBO customers.

isn't that the stuff you guys bought almost a year ago?

I bought some on e-Bay 5 years ago. Not sure if that counts.

[canuck]

I'm meeting Chris on Monday night for a beer and he was kind enough to ask if I wanted anything at Premier. I asked him if he could pick up that giftpack for me. Has anyone had it, and is it as good as the ratings indicate?

[Jimmy]

uploadfromtaptalk1354375601867.jpg

Sadly it's not mine though...

I asked what was left and they said 2 to 3 weeks supply remaining.

Sent from my Android using Tapatalk.

[derek]

Carlsberg Brewery once gave Niels Bohr a house equipped with a pipeline of free beer

Apparently, after he won the Nobel Prize in 1922, the Carlsberg brewery gave him a gift – a house located next to the brewery. And the best perk of the house? It had a direct pipeline to the brewery so that Bohr had free beer on tap whenever he wanted.

Probably Carlsberg was better in those days...

[mr x]

http://atlanticcanadabeerblog.wordpress ... beer-club/" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

Newfoundland Beer Club.

[sleepyjamie]

im gonna get my buddy to buy me some of these and ill grab em next time im in ottawa

http://metronews.ca/food/459872/rare-we ... g-to-lcbo/" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

[chalmers]

im gonna get my buddy to buy me some of these and ill grab em next time im in ottawa

http://metronews.ca/food/459872/rare-we ... g-to-lcbo/" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

In case you didn't know, Premier has these, in stock now. $100 for the brick (all taxes and deposits included).

http://premierwines.ca/store/product/21 ... -Giftpack/" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;