My 5 favourite memories of 1 Year of Alberta Beer
When I started last January on my year of Alberta beer, I could see how it might have looked like an experiment in restriction. My source was a single region, and relatively small. Alberta was a newcomer to craft brewing but for a few veterans among roughly 20 breweries at the time. One tweeter called the experiment masochistic.
Who knew how wrong we'd be?
Alberta is fast approaching 50 breweries, 41 of which I was able to try during this year (some were too small or new to send beer out of their communities and I was unable to get to them). I drank no less than 119 distinct beers made by Alberta-based brewers. I was never short on variety, and quality only rarely.
But the truth is, my year of Alberta beer was never about quantity. It was about exploring what a developing industry had to offer. That turned out to be much more than beer. Oh, the memories. Here are my favourite 5.
I mentioned this in my contribution to the Daily Beer's best of 2016, but it made such an impression on me that I need to put it here too. In January, I went to my first cask event. Blindman Brewing brought 20 litres of its Ichorous Imperial Stout to an Edmonton restaurant.
The beer was awesome, but what made it a great event was the enthusiasm. The brewers made their way from table to table and everyone was raving about the stout, making for a cozy sense of community. I could not have asked for a better introduction to Alberta beer.
Related: Tasting notes for Blindman Brewing’s Ichorous Imperial Stout (January 2016)
Another indicator of the excellence of Alberta's craft brewing community arrived as a tweet. In May, @yegbeerjudge notified me that a year of Alberta beer wouldn't be complete without a lesson in all-grain brewing. So he and a couple of his friends and I sat in the backyard sampling beers, grinding malt and boiling wort.
It seemed both immensely complicated and the easiest thing ever, and felt like a glimpse of the big bang that spun out the industry we're seeing take shape today. I left with eyes wide open, even if my vision was a bit blurry.
Related: A recap of my first all-grain brewing lesson
Of the breweries I toured, the Dandy Brewing Co. made the strongest impression. Ironically, it was because of its smallness - a single bay in a modest-sized building in a northeast Calgary business park. Sales director Matt Gaetz gave me a tour and told me the story of 4 guys who pooled less than 100 grand and gave it a shot.
You could see the spirit of the venture everywhere - the resourcefulness and the can-do attitude (we love that in Alberta, right?) - from the massive gas burner they'd shove under the kettle for a boil, to the milling area sequestered in a loft, to the tiny tasting room out front, packed on a Thursday afternoon. It was all elbow grease and passion, and somehow awesome beer came out of it. A true labour of love, and a privilege to get to see.
Related: 3 great beers from my Calgary beer road trip
Thank Selinus, Osirus, Tezcatzontecatl, or whatever beer god you pray to, for Edmonton Beer Geeks Anonymous. I raise a brimming glass to their tireless efforts to share the miracle of craft beer with the masses. These days, I never miss their marquee cask events.
This summer's Real Ale Festival featured 29 casks from 26 Alberta brewers (and a friends from the Yukon and B.C.) gathered in a south Edmonton outdoor hockey rink. Each one - excellent, good or a little weird - represented a once-in-a-lifetime experience of creative brewing. That could be said of any one-off cask, but you don't often get to celebrate that uniqueness with 400 other geeks united by love of Alberta craft beer.
Related: A preview of the 5th annual Real Ale Festival
The thing I’ve enjoyed most about this year of Alberta beer has been sharing my discoveries - or, better still, making discoveries with others. My weekly jam night with a friends Guy (left) and Colin (we have a band called Hinterlands) doubled as an Alberta beer sampling session, with everyone taking turns bringing an untested beer.
"It was cool to try handcrafted beers made by people who really care about what they do," says Colin the guitarist, an enthusiastic convert.
My parents, however, surprised me most. Strictly speaking, retired baby boomers are not craft beer's primary demographic. They’re of a time when Trad was exotic. But mom became quite a skillful taster, picking out spices, fruit and eagerly refilling her dainty little “tasting glass” when uncertain. Dad got into it as well, even if his description of most varieties revolved around “hoppy.”
Still, Alberta beers made a real impression on him. “I've never spent so much time analyzing beer,” he says. “I used to just quaff it down.”
And that, I would say as I bring this illuminating and memorable journey to a close, is one of the most important things to come out of my fantastic year of Alberta beer.
This blog would not have been possible were it not for the help of several talented and supportive people. The first is my lovely wife, Leah, who worked the Facebook to get these posts read and also edited them so they were readable. When they weren’t it was because I foolishly ignored her advice.
Thanks also to Linda Hoang, who helped me set this whole thing up, provided invaluable contacts, and guided me through the wacky world of social media.
I could certainly stand to buy Rory Lee another Alberta beer for his great work on the graphics for this blog.
Mark Boulter of Ribstone Creek Brewery and Don MacDonald of Brewsters were among the most eager supporters of this project, and I am grateful for their encouragement and enthusiasm.
Thank you Tourism Calgary for making my Calgary brewery tour possible.
Were it not for the existence of Sherbrooke Liquor and Arcadia in Edmonton, I would never have been able to try so many of our province’s great beers. Alberta beer clearly has a friend in both these great businesses. Please support them.
Thank you to CBC Radio Edmonton AM and Metro Edmonton for helping to spread the word about this blog and therefore also about Alberta beer.
And thank you to all the breweries in Alberta for making the beer that made me stop and think about what I was drinking and if a difference might possibly be made in doing so. I look forward to quietly watching the industry grow into one of Canada’s - and North America’s - finest producers of craft beer.
A toast to our brewmasters.
