villageundertakerWell, the calendar has flipped over to February and winter keeps hammering the prairies, as usual. Just as reliable are the region’s craft breweries, who continue to release new beer at a good clip even during the cold months. Here is the latest round up of beer releases and other news that have come across my desk. Usual caveats about missing items apply:

  • The latest seasonal from Calgary’s Wild Rose Brewery is now out. Regal Lager is designed as a Schwarzbier and will be available for the next couple months. Also new from Wild Rose is their announcement in late January of Strange Brew Thursdays at their Tap Room which will profile unique, one-off beer designed and produced by the brewery’s brewing staff. The beer will be different every month, as will the actual Thursday which it is released.
  • In the coming days Big Rock will release their latest beer (it is unclear from their release last week which series it is). Birch Bark Canadian Imperial Stout is a twist on the formidable Russian Imperial Stout. Big alcohol, rich, roasty flavour with the addition of birch syrup to give the beer a unique Canadian twist.
  • Calgary is a busy place this month as last Wednesday Village Brewing also released its latest seasonal. Village Undertaker is what they are describing, intriguingly, as a Black Saison. The beer is brewed with rye malt, saison yeast for a spicy character and, the release says, “complimented by a tart sourness”. While I am not sure sour is a traditional quality of saison it could make for a very interesting flavour combination.
  • An hour west of Calgary, Grizzly Paw has announced the second release in its 622 Main Street Series (named after the address of the original pub). The series offers a selection of limited edition lagers brewed at, and only available at, the original brewpub in Canmore. The latest release is India Black Lager. The name is fairly self-explanatory. The beer clocks in at 5.8% alcohol and 60 IBUs. Move fast, however, as it has been around for a couple weeks now and might be running low.
  • Many Edmonton beer drinkers were surprised in late January to find bottles of beer from Calgary’s The Dandy Brewing Company in their favourite liquor stores. Dandy’s arrival in Edmonton was unanticipated and quicker than expected. Their mainstay, Golden Brown Dandy (reviewed here) as well as a couple seasonals, Bleak House Ale, a black ale, and Wilde Mild which the label indicates is a “steam beer” but its profile is much more like a Mild Ale. Apparently the boys at Dandy drove the beer up to Edmonton personally – what in the jargon they affectionately call “self-distribution”. While I imagine Edmonton won’t see tons of their beer – they brew 300 litres at a time after all – but it is nice to see them reach out to the other half of the province.
  • beer revolution logoBeer Revolution in Edmonton and Calgary are in the midst of Hop Revolution, a three-week celebration of hoppy beer of various sorts. This is not soley about IPAs (although there are a lot of those slated to be tapped), but anything hoppy. They will have a hoppy hefeweizen, a Triple IPA (seriously!) and a number of exclusive and one-off offerings over the next couple of weeks. While you will never now which beer are pouring on any given day (as is Revolution’s wont), you can expect over the course of the three weeks to see beer (many of them one-offs) from Evil Twin, Elysian, Crew, Steamworks, New Belgium and even the elusive Stone Enjoy By IPA. It runs in both locations until February 21. Plus, in March they will be holding a “Sour and Funk Beer Festival“. Get those cheeks ready for puckering.
  • Over in Winnipeg, Half Pints continues to roll out experimental new beer. First, the unnamed amber ale mentioned last time now has a name – First Fruit. Second, their latest on-site only one-off beer is Dr. Frankenstein’s Alt, which should be available for growler fills in the coming days.

That is it for now, as far as I know anyway. And just as we know another snowstorm is coming sooner rather than later, you can trust there will be another news roundup sometime in the next few weeks.