The latest Unity Brew is out! And due to COVID-19 it is quite different this year. No, I don’t mean the choice of style or anything like that. Because of COVID there are actually FIVE Unity Brews now roaming our province. That is a whole heck of a lot of togetherness.

For the uninitiated, Unity Brew is a mega-collaboration brew sponsored by the Alberta Small Brewers Association (ASBA). Once a year, ASBA arranges for a beer to be designed and made collectively by as many of its members as want to participate. One brewery volunteers to brew the beer at their location. A handful of brewers work to design the recipe. And on brew day dozens of brewers descend on said-brewery to “help” brew (which usually means a couple of brewers brew the beer and everyone else stands around drinking beer and visiting). When the beer is ready every brewery takes a portion of the batch and sells it in their tap rooms, retail space or restaurant. Proceeds go to a worthy cause.

You can probably see the problem already. Because of COVID, large gatherings of people are discouraged and so the organizers didn’t feel safe having everyone gather at one brewery. As a solution they divided the collaboration across five breweries. They picked a single style – Scotch Ale – and small groups of brewers designed and brewed different recipes. Each hosting brewery had a small, distanced event on brew day.

The five breweries were: Canmore Brewing, SYC Brewing, O.T. Brewing, Village Brewing and Railyard Brewing.

The five beer were released last week, during Alberta Beer Week (which also took a different form due to COVID). I did my CBC Radio Active beer column on beer week and the new Unity Brew, including trying two of the versions. You can listen to the column here.

I have had a chance to sample all five versions. I am amazed at how different they all are – and not in just subtle ways. Some are richer, some are smokier, others cleaner and lighter. All, I think, are appropriately within the style parameters (it is a rather broad style) and so show us just how brewers can add their own personality to a beer. All added small Alberta craft malt as some portion of the malt bill, just to add to the local flavour.

Proceeds this year (as the last couple years) are going to ASBA. When COVID hit, ASBA suspended all membership dues to help their members get through this difficult time. In addition the annual Conference and Alberta Beer Awards ceremony were canceled, basically depriving the association of most of its revenue streams. Revenue from Unity Brew will help ensure the organization weathers COVID as well.

I thought I would offer up a quick guide to the five beer. I did not take full notes, but here are my general observations about each beer. To help consumers distinguish each version, they have five different colour schemes for the label (the brewery name is also in small print at the bottom).

• O.T. Brewing (Yellow Label): Some dark caramel, hints of coffee, moderate body that is almost muddy, a strong wood smoke character to it, touches of dark fruit, medium finish,
• Railyard Brewing (Medium Blue): Chocolatey, rich with a noted sweet finish. Wisps of ester and a smoky undertone.
• SYC Brewing (Dark Blue): Lighter bodied than the others, caramel sweetness, dark smoky esters, touch of roast in background, some cherry and plum as accents.
• Village Brewing (Red): Cleanest impression, lighter in body and colour. Crisp in its appearance. Dark caramel accented by dark fruit. Hints of smoke in the finish, which is relatively dry.
• Canmore Brewing (Light Blue): Rich caramel and dark toffee flavour, hints of dry roast and a bit of smoke. Some nuttiness and flashes of wood. Raisin and plum accents. Finishes moderately sweet with a smoky finish.

As you can see there is a lot that joins the beer together, yet my descriptors vary significantly. I imagine if I sat down to do a more focused side-by-side tasting even more differences would emerge.

Everyone will have their favourites and, likely, each is open to some critique. In a way that is half the fun of this approach. We can sit around and debate over Zoom which version is our favourite.

Hopefully next year we will be through this pandemic nightmare and can get back to a regular Unity Brew (and Alberta Beer Week). But for now we can at least sit in our living rooms and appreciate the diversity of Alberta beer.