Winters are supposed to be the slow season for beer. Sales are down due to the weather. It is a chance for craft brewers to catch their breath, do some maintenance and clear out the backlog of paper work. Apparently not this winter on the prairies. It seems like every week breweries in the three flat provinces are releasing something new. I recently mentioned Alley Kat’s latest innovation, and Yukon’s spate of new beer. But there is more. So here is a quick run down on what I haven’t mentioned recently:

• Wild Rose Brewery has announced that they are collaborating with members of Calgary’s homebrewing and beer appreciation club, the Cowtown Yeast Wranglers to produce a 16thAnniversary beer. Over the next couple of months members of the Wranglers will work with Wild Rose to design a unique one-time beer. I am very curious what it will be. You won’t be able to try it until August, but sometimes anticipation makes the appreciation all that much more. Wild Rose claims the Wranglers are “Canada’s largest homebrew club”, but I suspect there are a few folks in Edmonton and Regina who might challenge that claim. All I know is that the prairies have, without question, the strongest homebrewing community in the country.
• Winnipeg’s Half Pints has a couple of new beer out (neither available outside Winnipeg, sadly. We really must lobby Half Pints Dave to brew a little more of each seasonal and ship them west). As a fundraiser for Winnipeg’s local campus radio station, they have brewed up CKUbreW, which is a moderately hopped blonde-coloured ale (I suspect fairly American Pale Ale-ish if Dave’s description rings true). But the beer that really catches my attention (and makes me insanely jealous that I can’t get any) is Half Pint’s effort at a Saison, called Saison De La Ceinture Fléchée (named after a colourful sash worn by French Canadians and Metis in the 19th century). I can only imagine what twist on this difficult, classic style Half Pints has taken.

And it is not just the breweries that have been busy this winter. Upstart restaurant (at least in terms of beer) Continental Treat has been rolling out beer dinners almost monthly. And they have been original and creative, including most recently a gluten-free beer dinner. On March 1 they are hosting a beer dinner with Phillips Brewing out of Victoria. Four courses matched with 5 Philip’s beer. Here is the menu: Ginger Beer as the greeting beer; a goose liver pate with Trainwreck Barley Wine; Garlic Potato Soup with Hoperation Tripel Cross Belgian Ale; Fillet Mignon with Blue Buck Ale and a raspberry mousse torte with Longboat Chocolate Porter. Wow! Tickets are selling fast, so if you are interested, get on it.

And we can’t forget the homebrewers. The Yeast Wranglers are hosting their annual competition, the Cowtown Homebrew Roundup next week. You have until Friday to get you entries in. I shipped a couple down earlier this week. And Regina’s Ale and Lager Enthusiasts of Saskatchewan will be once again host for the Canadian Qualifier for the National Homebrewing Competition, the largest homebrewing competition in the world in early April. So make sure you leave some of your best homebrew to ship to Regina.

All this great beer is enough to take one’s mind off the fact we are having the weirdest weather ever around these parts.