Quicker than I expected, there is enough news to justify the first round-up for 2014. I had been thinking January would be pretty quiet on the beer front, but, lo and behold, the breweries keep doing new things. Damn them!

At any rate, here are the latest goings-on in beer around our parts:

• The award for the first beer release of 2014 goes to Alley Kat, with their January 6 news release for their latest Big Bottle beer, New Moon Cascadian Ale, which by the name you can tell is a Dark IPA (I prefer the Cascadian label, but it is bad writing form to be repetitive). They say it has a citrusy hop character but with enough dark malts to create the balance required in a Cascadian IPA. The name comes from the fact that there are two new moons this month. Not full moons, which would justify the name Blue Moon Cascadian (despite obvious trademark infringements), but two new moons, which are actually just as rare as blue moons (do the math…).
• Big Rock announced this week a major re-design of the packaging on their main line of beer. To see the new labels and packages, go to their special website to announce the launch. In general the design is more lively with imagery that evokes the beer it represents. They are also switching their bottles, moving away from the industry standard twist-off to a more unique, embossed pry-open bottle. It is a rather large departure from the more conservative packaging they have adopted in recent years, suggesting this is part of their ongoing effort to remake the brewery’s brand as more craft oriented.
• Winnipeg’s Half Pints has announced its next two seasonals. In the coming days, they will be releasing Isolator Doppelbock, while sometime in February  the latest version of Saison de la Ceinture Flechee comes out. As usual it is hard to know whether any of these two beer makes it outside Winnipeg (those damned Winnipeggers love the stuff so much, they sometimes drink it all!!), but we will see.
• The first beer from Bin Brewing are now in SLGA stores around Saskatchewan. The new Saskatchewan brewery (profiled here recently) has launched with a copper ale called Sask Ale and Sask Berry Ale, a fruit beer with saskatoons and raspberries.

There will undoubtedly be more beer news in the coming weeks as breweries roll out their winter seasonals, etc. I will try to keep you updated as best I can.