Vue Weekly’s annual Beer Issue is out, available at racks around town and online. The venerable alt-weekly in Edmonton has offered a corner of its magazine to my beer column for over a decade now, but I always get excited… Continue Reading →
You all, simply, have gotten too smart. You know too about beer these days. So, congratulations you graduate! A couple weeks back Sherbrooke Liquor posted my final Beer 101 column on its website. You can read it here. I started… Continue Reading →
Since my post the other day on the significance of ABInbev’s purchase of Wicked Weed I have had a few people (including Steve in the comments section – thanks Steve!) send me links to a recent story on the Good… Continue Reading →
I love side-by-side tastings. They really isolate the effects of a manipulation to a beer. Some are more challenging to operationalize than others. Blindman Brewing recently released not one, but two barrel-aged versions of its imperial stout, Ichorous. Not long… Continue Reading →
This past weekend I served as the Head Judge for the Northern Lands Festival beer competition. For those who don’t know Northern Lands, it is a premiere beverage and food event profiled, exclusively, Canadian wine, craft beer and craft spirits… Continue Reading →
So lots of breweries engage in hop experiments – swapping out varieties of hops to experience the flavour effect. Most breweries are not so fast to play around with their malt. Malt is the anchor for a beer. It lays… Continue Reading →
This past weekend, I headed down to Olds to judge at the Mountain View Homebrew Open, organized by the Olds College Brewmasters Program students. It was a good day of judging with a group of knowledgeable and convivial beer judges… Continue Reading →
A couple weeks back I introduced CBC listeners to a new kind of IPA – new at least for these parts. New England IPA. You can listen to the CBC column here if you wish. The column was inspired by… Continue Reading →
A couple weeks back I wrote a post reflecting on my visits to Calgary’s newest and second oldest breweries (which you can read here). The visits got me pondering the similarities and differences between older and newer breweries. Since that… Continue Reading →
My CBC column last Friday took aim at the growing list of Xmas and holiday ale offerings (you can listen to it here). While in the piece I do talk about why holiday spiced beer and the like are so… Continue Reading →