May 19, 2010 marks the official opening of Edmonton's newest craft microbrewery, Yellowhead Brewing Company. Expanding our short list of local craft breweries to three!
Named after a beer brewed by one of Edmonton's very first breweries, Edmonton Brewing and Malting, Yellowhead Brewing set up shop downtown in the now defunct Maverick Brewing space releasing their first brew to the public, a German style Lager.
Brewmaster, Scott Harris, originally from Edmonton but trained at Germany's prestigious Doemens Technicum has spent years working in German breweries before being accepted as Yellowheads main man. I suspect having spent so many years brewing German beer, he`ll not disappoint with his lager. Unfortunately I have yet to sample the product, but from what I hear the brew is available in 500ml bottles directly from the brewery and soon to be available on tap around the city.
To celebrate the momentous occasion, the brewery was blessed by Reverend Neil Gordon, of All Saints Cathedral. For his service, the Reverend was paid in beer. Four pints to be exact. Stay tuned for more information and tasting notes on Yellowhead Brewing Company.
Last night was the first Cask Conditioned Ale Night held at The Sugarbowl brought to us by the talented folks at Alley Kat Brewing. We sampled a cask conditioned version of their staple brew, Full Moon Pale Ale, only instead the beer was dry hopped using Centennial Hops and the second fermentation took place inside the keg.
The keg was tapped at 5 o'clock and served to an army of eager patrons including Alley Kat staff, Edmonton Homebrew Guild members, local beer geeks, and a handful of lucky regulars that happened to be at the right place at the right time. It was a terrific experience for everyone, who waited patently for the ale to come their way. Alley Kat brought over their English pump tap for the occasion, which really seemed to slow things down as each foamy pint hand to be carefully pumped from the keg by hand. But despite the slow pour, the cask was dry in little over an hour. Unfortunately because of the overwhelming turnout, not everyone got the chance to sample this delightful treat, and the ones who did were only allowed one.
The task of the first pour was given to local beer aficionado Jason Foster of onbeer.org. That's me with the big shit eating grin just over his shoulder. I was excited, to say the least.
How'd it taste you ask....well, delicious. My boss slyly snuck a pint into the kitchen for me and another chef to share in the basement, so we savored our splash of beer happily knowing we were lucky to even be tasting it. Firstly the dry hopping added a huge fresh citrusy floral nose, with nice fruity notes. The flavor was full and sweet, with a rich malty base and mild bitterness. Because it was conditioned in the cask and not artificially carbonated the bubbles were extremely muted and barely present. You could see them rising in the glass but they quickly disappeared once it hit your tongue. It was a heavy beer, without the carbonation. I saw it as a glimpse into the past of what beer was, before highly carbonated lighter beers took over the earth.
With this night being such a huge success, it's been decided that Alley Kat Cask Ale night will be a monthly event to take place at The Sugarbowl (joy!). The next event planed for the evening of June 24th. Stay tuned.
So what if out of eight posts, three of them are Alley Kat beers.
Alley Kat has just released its second in the 15th anniversary series, a Belgian Style Tripel. A Belgian Tripel is basically a a strong brewed pale ale (this one being 8.2%), associated mostly with the Trappist Brewery, Westmalle. Despite being around since the early 30's the Westmalle brewery perfected the recipe in 1956, and more or less established the Tripel style and name which has basically remained the same since. Alley Kat has decided to show us their version of this marvelous pale ale in a limited addition, bottle conditioned, 650mL bomber. This also being the first bottle conditioned beer Alley Kat has ever released.
It pours a hazy light amber, with a gorgeous head of thick foamy white bubbles. The nose packs a wallop! Rich fruity wheat & malt notes, spicy banana, coriander, with a hint of yeast. Is this beer or are we baking dessert bread? Very impressive.
The sweet fruity malt flavor is fantastic, lots of apricots and Christmasy spice. Well balanced hops with a pleasant peppery finish. A well rounded medium body with a perky effervescence. The 8.2% alcohol content is masked well behind a yeasty base.
Overall I'd have to say thumbs up to the talented folks at Alley Kat for providing us with yet another tasty treat. I should buy and age these limited addition releases and try them again in six months to see how they stand up.
To be honest in a world of craft brewers who building some extreme brews, I had always thought of Alley Kat as a "play it safe" kind of brewery. But in light of recent releases, I am learning that they are capable of brewing some extremely magnificent beer. Unfortunately in a market such as Alberta you must have to hold yourself back and produce more easily approachable beer to appeal to the masses, and of course make enough money to stay alive. But having a large and loyal group of fans will enable them to really experiment and create some fantastic extreme beer.
Tomorrow evening Alley Kat will be doing a cask conditioned ale night at our restaurant, The Sugarbowl, providing two cask conditioned versions of their popular Full Moon Pale Ale. This I am excited for. As for food specials we will be doing delicious scotch eggs, and beer battered fish and chips using Alley Kat's Amber Ale. I hope to pick the brains of any brew savvy people that might be attending including Jason Foster who writes an amazing beer 101 blog through Sherbrooke Liquor and also manages his own website called onbeer.org. Incredible what this man knows about beer.
And in other news, I am now the proud owner of a brand new home brew kit!!
I recently celebrated a birthday and my wonderful wife and daughter bought dad exactly what he wanted. I also recieved a Barons Premium Dutch Lager Beer Kit along with the brewing equipment. This particular beer kit is a good start for beginners like myself because no boiling is required. It's fairly idiot proof as long as you are capable of following directions. It's not the direction I plan to take with brewing my own beer, but it will allow me to get to know how to use all the equipment needed for brewing before buying the raw ingredients and attempting to make beer from scratch. For a mere $30 you will be be blessed with a good 20L of fresh beer! A pretty good deal I'd say. But the goal here is hand crafted beer. So let the home brewing begin!
I am extremely eager to crack this bottle tonight. In the past year or so I have developed a love for hops, and extreme beers. I've guess I've noticed the DIPA's around, but for some reason hadn't picked one up. I've tried a couple of extreme hop beers by renowned craft breweries Dogfish Head and Rogue, which are amazing by the way. But I guess you could say I didn't really know what a Double IPA actually was. After browsing on wikipedia, I've learned that a DIPA is brewed the same way as a standard IPA but typically with 50% more malt and 100% more hops. They tend to have an alcohol content higher than 7% and for obvious reasons finish extremely bitter. I was given a good list of DIPA's to look out for but unfortunately my local beer store (who currently carries 681 different brews) didn't have a single one of them. They had a nice little selection of DIPA's and I decided this particular beer would be the one for tonight.
Tree Brewing Company hails from Kelowna BC and has been operating since 1994. The Hop Head DIPA is a limited Edition brew hopped to the max with five different hops all grown in Washington state. The wort is dry hopped and aged for three weeks, allowing the beer to ripen to a bitter perfection. It pours from the glass a foggy amber haze (unpasteurized, unfiltered) and settles with a good fingers worth of frothy white bubbles. As soon as I poured it from the bottle the aromas smacked me right in the face, waking up the senses and set my brain into battle mode. The rich fragrance is loaded with grapefruit and lemon notes, a vaporous fruit salad. It has a wondrous hoppy floral nose. There seems to be a lot going on and I've only just smelled it. I wonder if you can get drunk just from breathing it in?
The bitter hops wash over your tongue quite aggressively but the beer is balanced out well and the sweet malts rush in to save your mouth from puckering right off your face. You can taste the booze, but it's not disagreeable. I'll be feeling this one when we're done. Once the bitterness fades away it leaves a lemony aftertaste and you can still taste sweet roasted malts right up until you take your next drink. I like this Double IPA stuff. I think we'll be talking about them more as we go along.
From what I'm reading, Vancouver Craft Beer Week is a complete success. Almost every single food/beer event is sold out, and fast! It breaks my heart that Alberta doesn't have anything like this. Unfortunately it seems Albertans are quite happy with drinking fermented corn piss, or anything that comes along with an annoying in your face TV commercial. Big trucks and shitty beer. Good times.
Tonight is an exciting night. I happened to get out of the restaurant early and rushed home in the mood to drink and write. I've been stocking my fridge with frosty delights to keep the writings interesting and tonight I had one picked out before I even opened the door. In my last post I had mentioned how I love hops, and had asked for some hoppy IPA suggestions. Unfortunately I couldn't track down any of the beer I was told would most likely tickle my fancy, but I did pick up something that I thought might do the trick. I grabbed myself a bottle of Tree Brewing Company's "Hop Head Double IPA." A limited addition Unfiltered Double IPA. I was stoked to drink this giant bottle of bitter strong beer. So tonight I get home, pull this bad boy out of the fridge to warm up a bit and browse the beer ramblings on the interweb before cracking the bottle when I came across some info on Alley Kat's new 15th Anniversary Smoked Porter. And the sleepy hamster in my head began to run.....
You see I love the flavor of smoke. I have a borderline obsession with smoked things. And recently acquiring my father's Bradley Smoker on loan, I've been eagerly smoking my dinners hoping to refine my pit master skills. It wasn't long ago that I caught wind of the fantastic conception of smoking your malts, and brewing god damn beer out of it! Genius concept! But up until tonight I hadn't really had the chance to experience this clearly brilliant brew.
Now, having read about Alley Kat's limited one time offering (only 250 cases available) I had to get some, and I had to get it right NOW! So I got on the horn to my local, and truly fantastic beer store Sherbrooke Liquor (running I believe 681 beers from around the world), and inquired about the availability of said brew. I was so amped to hear they had it in stock, and rushed down to buy some before they were all gone. Because in my mind, they were flying off the shelf and I'd have to be a retard not to buy it at this very moment. I was relieved to see probably twenty or so bottles sitting on the shelf and convinced myself to buy only one so that I could also pick up a bottle of Chatoe Rogue's First Growth Single Malt Ale.
For this beer Alley Kat smokes the malts in house using applewood, a mild and sweet smoke compared to other heavy hard wood like mesquite or hickory. At first glance it looks reasonable, with a very cold coffee like color and consistency. I'm going to have to drink a lot more porters to compare and it's probably just inexperience talking, but I've come to expect a heavier body from most porters. But what do I know. The head is of larger bubbles that fade quickly, but will arise very nicely with some agitation.
It smells nice and sweet, very malty with a full nose of coffee and a hint of bittersweet chocolate. I'm getting some fruit....something but I can't narrow it down. I was hoping for more smoke to come through, but sadly it's extremely muted in the background. I get more wet charred wood than smoke. Like a dead campfire in the morning. If anyone has ever experienced Lapsang Souchong tea, you'll have a good idea of what I was expecting...or what I was looking for in a smoked beer. Mabey one day it will happen. Mabey that is my destiny in beer brewing.
On the tongue its mild, and on the thin side of medium. It has a pleasant roasted malt sweetness that lingers on the very tip of your tongue and a very subdued bitter. The smoke shows its face more here, but for me not until the very end once the flavor of the malts dissipate. It's kinda neat how it shows up actually, almost when you've given up you'll feel it crawl from the back of your throat and slowly make it's way up. Suddenly the flavor of the smoke really shines through, and your left with a dry campfire taste enveloping your tongue. Towards the end of the bottle its very evident that you are drinking a smoked beer as a strange tacky sensation lingers, a finish very similar to that of the Lapsang Souchong.
In the end I'd have to say this particular brew was enjoyable, and an experience. Alley Kat has produced a smoked beer which is both gratifying and drinkable. I will definitely pick up another bottle of this to share with guests, or drink while I am tending the smoker or BBQ. Overall I was expecting more from this smokey affair, but I was not left disappointed. I will continue to explore the world of smoked beers, and mabey one day brew something that I can be proud of as I'm sure Alley Kat is proud of this. Happy Anniversary Alley Kat, and many more to come! Cheers!
I saw a very inspiring promo video that I wanted to share for the upcoming first ever Vancouver Craft Beer Week being held in various venues around the beautiful city of Vancouver showcasing over 25 of BC's talented craft breweries. I pray to the beer gods that Edmonton, or even Calgary will hold an event as important to the industry as this one. It damn near brings a tear to the eye. Enjoy!
"Pride is more payment than any money you can make"
