This blog was originally published January 8, 2025, and has been updated to reflect current brewery offerings as of January 2026.

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Gone are the days when “non-alcoholic beer” meant relegating yourself to a dusty bottle of O’Douls hiding at the back of a grocery store shelf. The craft brewing landscape is undergoing another transformation, driven by a growing wave of consumers embracing alcohol-free alternatives not out of necessity, but by choice. Whether motivated by health consciousness, lifestyle changes, or simply curiosity, more and more craft beer enthusiasts are discovering that cutting back on alcohol doesn’t mean compromising on beverage quality or craft brewing excellence.

BC’s craft breweries have risen to meet this growing demand, creating complex, flavourful beers that contain 0.5% ABV or less. Beyond traditional beer styles, you’ll also find a growing number of creative alternatives like hop waters, offering craft beverage experiences that maintain the artisanal spirit of craft brewing while eliminating alcohol content. Choosing not to drink no longer means missing out on the craft experience.

So why doesn’t everyone brew non-alcoholic beers?

Unlike making a mocktail, where one ingredient is easily left out, the traditional processes of brewing beer are what lead to alcohol being created during fermentation. What’s a brewer to do?

Without going into too much technical detail – because let’s face it: brewing is both an art form and a highly developed skill set that depends on chemistry, math, and biology, takes years to learn, and would take even longer to type into a single blog – there are two basic ways to create a non-alcoholic brew.

One is to brew a beer as normal, and then remove the alcohol. The second is to use specific ingredients and/or techniques that limit the production of alcohol during fermentation.

Sounds easy enough, right? So… what’s the catch? Well, the actual production of an NA beer might not be too complicated for a talented brewer given enough time to create a recipe, but both methods require specialized equipment that isn’t exactly available at your local homebrew supply shop and certainly does not come cheap. Add in the requirement for additional physical space in the brewery for said equipment, and more often than not, you run into a wall (literally, and figuratively). As the prevalence of NA beers increases, equipment suppliers are working to design equipment suitable for smaller breweries, while brewers are working to create more efficient recipes and find workable solutions to preservation methods such as small-scale water bath pasteurisation.

If you want to learn more about the process of brewing NA beers, I would highly recommend checking out this video produced by KPU Brewing and Brewery Operations. They definitely know their stuff: in 2024, a group of first-year KPU students took home a silver medal for their non-alcoholic Stout at the US Open College Beer Championships. 

What it all boils down to is this: brewing a tasty non-alcoholic beer is just as complex, if not more so, than crafting the next seasonal (alcoholic) beer release. It takes time, care, dedication, and significant investment. And, as we know, all BC craft beer is nothing if not exceptionally crafted. Keep reading to discover some of the incredible non-alcoholic beers, hop waters, and other non-alc beverages produced at breweries around the province.

(note: beers and beer alternatives are listed alphabetically by brewery)

Non-Alcoholic Beers

4 Mile Brewing Co. in Victoria, BC

4 Mile currently has three different offerings in their Point Four (0.4% ABV) lineup of low/non-alc beers. These tasty brews are only available on tap at the 4 Mile Brew Pub.

• Point Four: A blonde/golden ale
• Mandarin Point Four:  Made with real fruit puree
• Dark Point Four: A new, small batch Nitro Stout

Hero .5 from Buffalo Rouge Brewing Co. in Kelowna, BC

Lively and dynamic, with peach and tropical fruit flavours up front. This hazy non-alc brew is only available on tap in the tasting room. 

Dry Goods from Good Life Brand Collective

Originally crafted by the folks at Powell Brewery, the Dry Goods brand of NA beers is now under the umbrella of the team at Good Life Brand Collective. Their current lineup includes:

• West Coast IPA: Bright, hoppy, and unapologetically West Coast. With notes of citrus peel, pine and resin on the nose, it has a bold hop flavour with grapefruit and orange over a dry, golden malt base.
• Grapefruit IPA: Vibrant and punchy; a fruit-driven IPA that still drinks like a craft beer. Fresh grapefruit zest and tropical hops on the nose are backed with juicy citrus upfront, light sweetness, and a dry, pithy finish.

LOGO from Fernie Brewing Co. in Fernie, BC

Launched in June 2023, LOGO by Fernie Brewing Co. sets the standard for mountain-brewed, adventure-inspired, non-alcoholic craft beer. There are currently three brews available:

• LOGO Pilsner: Light and clean, with slight malt flavour. This non-alc Pils is a classic, go-to for the adventure lifestyle enthusiast.
• LOGO IPA: All the hop, none of the alcohol, this non-alc IPA is fruity and delicious. An accessible, hop-forward option that ensures no one gets left behind.
• LOGO Citrus: A bright, crisp brew bursting with lemon and lime. Big on refreshment, without the alcohol, this non-alc beer is made for adventure.

Field House Brewing Co. in Abbotsford and Chilliwack, BC

Field House is introducing non-alcoholic versions of two of its core beers:

• Salted Lime Mexican Lager: This non-alc beer is light, crisp and endlessly crushable, crafted for when you want the taste without the compromise. The style is elevated with real lime and a touch of sea salt, adding a bright, citrusy kick and just the right savoury edge.
• Salted Black Porter: Brewed with traditional ‘dutch droppies’ (salted black licorice candies), the Salted Black Porter offers flavours of coffee, licorice, chocolate, and caramel, for a balanced malt profile and residual sweetness.

iOTA from Phillips Brewing & Malting in Victoria, BC

Launched in late 2021 by Phillips Brewing, iOTA beers are brewed for craft beer fans who are “experimental, flavour-focused, confident, and self-aware.” 

The name iOTA comes from the Greek letter iota, meaning an extremely small amount. For the folks at Phillips, this was a reflection of their belief that craft beer is not defined by its alcohol content, but rather the community it builds. Even though there’s only a minute amount of alcohol (less than 0.5% ABV), iOTA is still authentically craft-brewed. The line-up includes: 

• Peach Wheat Ale – Brewed with equal parts wheat and malted barley, this delightful non-alcoholic summer seasonal is infused with the alluring sweetness of peaches, resulting in an easy-drinking and refreshing non-alcoholic beer drinking experience that is ripe for patio sessions and good times.
• Cerveza – iOTA Cerveza is the epitome of a thirst-quenching beer. A vacation in every sip, this light-bodied lager delivers big on refreshment with a crisp, clean finish.
• Pale Ale – iOTA Pale Ale is light gold in colour, crafted for smooth and highly balanced malt and hop profiles. This delicious brew brings rounded honey and cereal notes, a straightforward mouthfeel, and deliciously floral hops. This ale strikes a harmony between drinkability and flavour.
• Pilsner – iOTA Pilsner pours pale straw in colour, with an easy and effervescent mouthfeel. The body is light and malt-driven. On the finish, smooth German hop notes complement this even-keeled and delicious lager.
• Hazy IPA – iOTA Hazy IPA is low on bitterness & full of citrus and juicy fruit notes. Our house malted barley lends a hand in creating a smooth sip and helps carry that tropical hazy hop profile.

Steamworks Brewing Co in Burnaby, Mount Pleasant, North Shore and Vancouver, BC

The folks at Steamworks have developed a biological approach to crafting their non-alcoholic brews that respects the brewing process from start to finish. Using specially selected yeast strains and a carefully controlled brewing method, they create beer that naturally contains only trace amounts of alcohol: no harsh removal processes, no compromised flavour. They work with biology, not against it, allowing the natural fermentation process to deliver the full-bodied taste and aroma you expect from craft beer.

Steamworks crafts non-alc beers inspired by beloved styles, using quality ingredients to create brews that satisfy your expectations while standing proudly on their own merit. The result is a clean, authentic beer experience that maintains all the character and complexity of traditional brewing, because it never had that character taken away. Two current releases include:

• Lions Gate Lager (0.3% ABV) – Our Gold Medal winner at the 2025 BC Beer Awards in the non-alcoholic category. A crisp, refreshing lager that proves you don’t need the alcohol for authentic craft beer flavour.
• Hazy IPA (0.3% ABV) – All the juicy, hop-forward character you expect from a hazy IPA, just without the buzz.

Nevertheless from Strange Fellows Brewing in Vancouver, BC

It took the brewers at Strange Fellows years to perfect the recipe for their first NA brew, Nevertheless Pale Ale. Soon after having perfected it, a hazy IPA version followed, and then a Pilsner. Full-bodied, aromatic and flavourful, these brews are nevertheless non-alcoholic.

In 2023, Nevertheless Pale Ale made history by taking home a 3rd place medal in the Specialty Beer category at the BC Beer Awards. It was the first non-alcoholic brew to go head-to-head with alcoholic beers – and win!

Non-Alcoholic IPA from Superflux Beer Co. in Vancouver, BC

Bright and aromatic hop expression. Flavours of orange creamsicle and lemon rind, rounded out with a soft, lingering sweetness that carries everything through cleanly. 

Tin Whistle Brewing in Penticton, BC

Tin Whistle Brewing’s iconic Peach Cream Ale has gone 0.5%. The same beer you know and love, at only 0.5% alcohol. A luscious peach aroma with a light peach taste make this beer a true taste of the Okanagan. Brewed and packaged in Penticton in BC’s only carbon-neutral brewery. Available on draught and to go in the Tin Whistle’s tasting room, and in liquor stores throughout the Okanagan and Kootenays (for now!).

Whistle Buoy Brewing Company in Victoria, BC

Whistle Buoy’s non-alc line-up includes two ‘core’ NA brews: the NA Pale Ale and NA Hazy IPA. They’ve also released two seasonal NA options: the  NA Fuzzy Peach Sour and NA Shaft Coffee Stout. No matter what style of beer you’re craving, Whistle Buoy has an NA option to match.

Co-owner Isaiah Archer says, “Our NA beers are made the same way as our full-strength beers: in small batches with high-quality local ingredients, but with a non-alcohol-producing yeast strain, and they are pasteurized for shelf stability.”

• NA Hazy IPA – This bestseller features Citra and Mosaic hops, providing a fruity aroma and flavour profile with a gentle bitterness that satisfies without overwhelming the senses.
• NA Pale Ale – Inspired by Whistle Buoy’s forever favourite child, Coastality, this beer strikes the perfect balance of all things beer – malty, fruity and hoppy. It’s the right fit for a balanced lifestyle.
• NA Shaft Stout – Created from a luxurious blend of dark malts layered together with chocolate, coffee, and coconutty hops. This classic combo kicks things up a notch to get the tastebuds buzzing.
• NA Fuzzy Peach Sour – This gose-style sour beer has big peach energy and a tangy citrus zip from a dry hop of HBC 1019. We get notes of fuzzy peaches, honeydew melon, and coconut. We’ve also added Vancouver Island sea salt for a slight saltiness that rounds out this light, fruity, and refreshing sour beer.

Other Non-Alc Options

Road Pop from Barnside Brewing in Delta, BC

Try January is about trying something new – not giving anything up. Road Pop Sparkling Hop Water offers a crisp, refreshing experience with zero alcohol and all the flavour you’d expect from a BC craft brewery. Now available in four flavours – Original, Cranberry Orange, Lemon Lime, and Ruby Red Grapefruit. Road Pop is 100% alcohol-free, with zero calories, zero sugar, zero carbs, and zero gluten. Easy to enjoy anytime, it’s a refreshing alternative for brewery visits, trail stops, and everything in between.

Road Pop reflects Barnside’s farm-based roots, using farm-grown Cascade and Triple Pearl hops to bring subtle citrus and grapefruit notes to every flavour and showcasing the local terroir.

Take the Alternate Route and find Road Pop at Barnside’s tasting room, as well as at a wide range of liquor stores and specialty grocers throughout the Lower Mainland and Vancouver Island.

Hopped Up! from Category 12 Brewing in Victoria, BC

All fizz. No fuzz. Just pure, aromatic refreshment. The folks at C12 have taken their love of hops beyond beer. Hopped Up! is their line of zero-alcohol, zero-sugar, zero-carb, sparkling waters infused with the same hops used in their craft beers.

They have captured the delicate aromatics of citrus, tropical fruit, and berries without any bitterness. The result: a scientifically precise, guilt-free refreshment for any time of day.

Choose from three flavours: Juicy, Citrusy and Berry.

Island Soda from Hornby Island Brewing Company on Hornby Island, BC

In addition to award-winning beers, Hornby Island Brewing also craft a line-up of bright, refreshing sodas perfect to take along on any Island adventure:

• Island Bliss Sparkling Tea: Contains Hornby Island Tea (organic black tea, citrus peel & lavender), delightfully combined with Westview Farm blackberry lavender simple syrup. Lightly carbonated.
• Delight Sparkling Tea: Contains Hornby Island Tea (Assam green tea, lemongrass, orange peel, horsetail, lavender, calendula and spearmint). With an added touch of local Hornby Island honey to provide a subtle sweetness with carbonation.
• Mango: Tropical beach vibes in a can.The perfect companion to sun-soaked days on Big Trib’s white sand, after an adventure through the trails of Mt. Geoffrey. Lightly sweetened with reduced sugar—never too sweet—so you can sip and savour your perfect Hornby Island moment.
• Ginger Lime Fizz: Contains fresh ginger and lime with zero sweetener, lightly carbonated with a delicious and refreshing kick.
• Sparkling Blackberry Soda: Simply delicious and never too sweet. A sip brings you back to late summer on Hornby Island—the scent of sun-warmed blackberries in the air.
  

  

Hydra Hop Soda Water from Jackknife Brewing in Kelowna, BC

Hydra hop soda water blasts you with refreshing notes of citrus from fresh New Zealand Motueka, Cascade and Mosaic hops. This bright, sparkling infusion is fuelled by a sacrificial offering of crimson hibiscus or juniper and butterfly pea blossom. Quench your soul with a can of Hydra on your next adventure! Zero sugar, Zero Calories, Zero Alcohol and only available in the dungeon…(aka: Jackknife’s taproom for the uninitiated)

Hop Soda from Longwood Brewery on Boxwood Road in Nanaimo, BC

The crisp, clean taste of soda water is complemented by the subtle floral notes of hops, providing perfect hydration for those looking to expand their palate and try something new. Enjoy it on its own, or mix it with your favourite spirits for a truly refreshing cocktail experience. Crafted with West Coast Hops: Amarillo and Cascade. Alcohol free, sugar-free and gluten-free.

Two non-alc, house-made options from Persephone Brewing Company in Gibsons, BC

Farm Fresh Lemonade: Bright, bubbly and bold – this farm fresh, sparkling lemonade is a refreshing take on a timeless classic.

Craft Brewed Iced Tea: A lightly sweetened, fresh-steeped iced tea, kissed with lemon and a balanced level of tannins.

Take your Try January experience to the next level with our photo contest.

January isn’t about skipping the fun, it’s about discovering something new. From now until January 31, 2026 head to your local brewery, try something a little different, snap a photo, and upload it to the BC Ale Trail mobile app for your chance to 𝗪𝗜𝗡

Because BC breweries are about so much more than just beer:

• Non-alcoholic beers, hop water, and craft sodas
• Seasonal menus and seriously good food
• Cozy merch you’ll want to live in
• Trivia nights, games, and reasons to linger a little longer

Every eligible photo submission scores you 25 bonus points and enters you to win one of two BC Ale Trail shirts or a swag pack. Head to the app now, or, if you don’t have the app, you can submit your entry here.

January is for curiosity, connection, and trying something new.
Let’s TRY it.

Every Pint Tells a Story

Supporting Local. Celebrating Community.

The post Craft Without the Kick: The Evolution of Non-Alcoholic Beer in BC appeared first on The BC Ale Trail.

When it comes to drinking a specific beer on a certain day of the year, there is no better-known example than drinking stout on St. Patrick’s Day. The tradition goes back a long time, mainly because of the marketing efforts of the Dublin-based Guinness brewery. The craft beer community tends to avoid some of the overdone aspects of St. Patrick’s Day boozing (eg. green-coloured macro-lager), but there’s nothing wrong with celebrating the day by enjoying a pint of your favourite stout (or porter) brewed by a local brewery.

What’s the difference between stouts and porters anyway?

Not much. No, seriously, they are pretty darn similar. Try doing a blind tasting sometime and see if you can identify a porter in a line-up of stouts or vice versa. Ask a few different brewers and you might find you’ll get contradictory answers, too.

According to the Beer Judge Certification Program (BJCP) Style Guidelines, porter is “a moderate-strength brown beer with a restrained roasty character and bitterness. May have a range of roasted flavours, generally without burnt qualities, and often has a chocolate-caramel-malty profile.” Meanwhile, Irish Stout is described as “a black beer with a pronounced roasted flavour, often similar to coffee.” The main difference here seems to be the colour but, in my experience, most porters are just as dark as stouts.

That’s because porters and stouts evolved together over the course of the last 300 years or so, shifting as technology and society changed, and nearly dying out entirely (except for Guinness) before the styles were revitalized during the craft beer revolution of the past 40 years. And once craft brewers get their hands on a beer style, well, you know what happens next… (Consider the IPA and all of its offspring: Hazy IPA, Black IPA, White IPA, Sour IPA, Wild IPA, Imperial IPA, Session IPA, Cold IPA, etc.)

Most BC breweries brew a stout or a porter, and some even brew both regularly. I reached out to Tak Guenette, Head Brewer at Gladstone Brewing in Courtenay and asked him to help us learn how to tell them apart. (Note: At the time of our original conversation back in 2021, Guenette was making both styles of beer at Gladstone. Unfortunately, the brewery does not have the stout in its lineup currently.)

Joe: What do you think the difference is between a stout and a porter?

Tak: Porters generally will be more chocolate-forward, while stouts exhibit more coffee notes. Of course, there’s a bit of overlap in those flavours.

Joe: What sort of different ingredients or techniques do you employ in brewing them?

Tak: With our porter and Irish stout, the brewhouse process and fermentation are pretty similar. To achieve the desired flavour profiles, we use about 9% chocolate malt, 6% crystal malt, and 3% black malt in our porter, while our Irish stout contains 10% roast barley and 4% chocolate malt. Both contain a bit of wheat as well for body.

Joe: What do you hope your customer would notice if they tasted them side by side?

Tak: The Irish stout is served on nitrogen, which really helps differentiate the two beers. Even if both beers were served the same way, I’m confident that each beer would be noticeably different. What would be more interesting is asking our patrons how they would classify the two beers.

Brewing evolution through technology

History tells us that porters evolved first. In fact, originally, stouts were just strong porters, as in “stout porters.” The word stout was used to describe stronger versions of all kinds of beer: stout ale, for instance. So is a stout simply a strong porter? Well, it was once, but not anymore.

Porter has a mythical origin story. Back in 1722, according to the Oxford Companion of Beer, a brewer named Ralph Harwood decided to create a special blended beer for “a publican who ran the Blue Last, a working-class watering hole on Shoreditch’s Great Eastern Street.” The pub was popular with so-called “porters,” strong men who carried goods unloaded from ships at the docks to markets, shops and warehouses in the heart of London. The new beer was a hit and came to be named after the porters who loved it.

Beer historians argue that porter wasn’t created in one day, but rather evolved as the population of London swelled and new technological advancements allowed for breweries to grow larger and larger. According to Sean Hoyne, owner-brewmaster at Hoyne Brewing in Victoria, the first breakthrough was the brewer’s hydrometer, which was invented in the late 1700s. Prior to that, brewers could only guess at the efficiency of the malts they used, with the results varying considerably from batch to batch. Hoyne explained that using a hydrometer showed brewers that they could get much better extract out of pale malt than from the brown malt they had mainly been using before that.

Another technological advance in the early 1800s led to the creation of “black patent” malt, which brewers could use to give porter its dark colour while using higher quality (and cheaper) pale malt to make up the majority of the grain bill. It also gave the beer more of a roasted, coffee-like flavour.

Porter was the most popular beer style in England during the 18th and 19th centuries, and one of the many brewers who made it was Arthur Guinness in Dublin, which finally brings us to stout. Guinness started brewing porter in the 1770s, including a stout porter, and his brewery has been making it ever since.

Eventually, with the rise of pale styles like IPAs and pilsners in the late 1800s, porters and stouts dwindles in popularity. In the early 20th century, British beers became dominated by lower alcohol styles like milds and bitters, and porters disappeared almost entirely. Guinness dropped the “porter” part of the name at some point but kept calling it stout, even though it lowered the alcohol content to 4.1% ABV.

Many BC breweries serve stouts using nitrogen gas, just like Guinness, and some even package their stouts in nitrogenated cans, allowing you to enjoy the effect at home. Aside from making the beer extremely photogenic, nitrogen’s smaller bubbles help create a creamy body and pillowy head in the beer.

There are several variations on stouts and porters, including:

• Milk stout, which is brewed with unfermentable lactose to give it a sweet taste and creamy texture
• Baltic porter, a stronger version often brewed with lager yeast; and
• Russian imperial stout, which is very strong (above 10% ABV) and often aged in whisk(e)y barrels for added flavour and booziness.

Craft breweries also like to add ingredients like coffee/espresso, chocolate/cacao nibs, coconut, vanilla, and fruit to stouts and porters. There is even a style called white stouts where breweries brew a beer with only pale malts but try to emulate the flavours and body of a stout with ingredients like vanilla beans, cacao nibs and coffee beans.

Today’s stouts and porters likely don’t resemble the original versions from 200 years ago but, then again, who cares? Find your favourite version of each and there you have the perfect example of the style—for you.

Here are some fine examples of porters and stouts from the BC Ale Trail. Sláinte!

Both stouts and porters are often served on nitro taps at brewery taprooms and pubs, emulating the old Guinness tradition, which results in an ultra-creamy head and body. If you want a Guinness-style stout from your local craft brewery, look for an Irish Stout or Dry Irish Stout on the menu. If you want to try something stronger, ask for an Imperial Stout or Russian Imperial Stout — but be careful, sometimes those are bolstered by being aged in whiskey barrels, resulting in alcohol levels rising well above 10% ABV!

Hoyne Brewing (Victoria) – Finnegans Irish Stout (5.1% ABV)

Hoyne uses nine different malts in this stout: “My base pale malts are a couple of varieties from the UK, and then I have five different colouring malts, including black malt and roasted barley, and two different types of chocolate malts.” Although Hoyne does not make a porter regularly, he said, “I’d probably use less Black Patent malt and more roasted barley, and aim for a higher original gravity and final gravity to bump up the sweetness and accentuate the creamier mouthfeel.”

Crannóg Ales (Sorrento) – Back Hand of God Stout  (5.2% ABV)

Long considered one of the best stouts in BC, Back Hand of God is hard to find, but if you can find it on tap in your region, you won’t be disappointed.

Container Brewing (Vancouver) – All Season Dry Nitro Stout (4% ABV)

This delicious nitro stout features four different can designs to suit the seasons. Container also brews an imperial stout called Seawise Giant.

Old Yale Brewing (Chilliwack) – Sasquatch Stout (5% ABV)

Named “Best Beer in Canada” at the Canadian Brewing Awards in 2014, Old Yale’s Sasquatch Stout is smooth with notes of chocolate, espresso and dark roasted malts.

Townsite Brewing (Powell River) – Perfect Storm Oatmeal Stout (5.5% ABV | 30 IBU)

Townsite’s Belgian brewer, Cédric Dauchot, makes one of the tastiest stouts around. This is a rich, round and roasty oatmeal stout using flaked oats and roasted barley along with Columbus, Cascade, and Golding hops.

Persephone Brewing (Gibsons) – Dry Irish Stout (4.5% ABV)

Nitrogenated for a smooth texture, this has a coffee-like aroma with undertones of freshly baked oatmeal cookies and toast with a subtle bitterness.

Barkerville Brewing (Quesnel) – 52 Foot Stout (7% ABV)

This delicious stout, which is brewed with birch syrup, has won multiple awards, including 1st place at the 2022 BC Beer Awards — adding to the trophies pictured above!

Happy St. Patrick’s Day!

Look for some of these stouts and porters in your local stores or check your local craft brewery to see if they brew one. Most breweries do.

The post Seek Local Stouts & Porters for St. Patrick’s Day appeared first on The BC Ale Trail.

Many beer lovers have heard the folklore surrounding the origins of the India Pale Ale – that English brewers added massive quantities of hops to their barrels of pale ale in order to prevent the beer from spoiling on its long journey to India, where it would slake the thirst of British soldiers. The hoppy bite of the IPA was thus born. 

The story isn’t quite as simple as that, though. In recent years, beer historians and writers such as Martyn Cornell and Joshua Bernstein have provided more nuanced explanations of IPA history. However, the core ideas remain: beginning in the 18th century, pale ales were increasingly hopped to survive the journey to southern climes, including India, and the style became ever more popular over the next couple of centuries. 

Intellectual understanding of the IPA is one thing, but what did these early versions actually taste like? While there are relatively few 18th and 19th-century brewing-related records, a few survive that sketch out the shape of these older beers. Brewer and scientist Nathan Vadeboncoeur, founder of Project Hop and Brasserie du Bon Temps, has dug into the beer archives to find out how to brew these original versions of the IPA. And now you can buy some to try at home!

The Beginnings: Hop Science and the Roots of Beer

Vadeboncoeur’s Project Hop was initially not a brewing project at all, but a company rooted in his training as an environmental scientist. Launched in 2017, the original Project Hop offered quality assurance services for BC’s hop growers. As he worked on assessing hop quality across the province, he became increasingly interested in hop terroir. Wine has terroir, so why not beer? 

He noted that terroir – the soil, the microbes, the surrounding vegetation – affects hop flavours, even among hops of the same variety. He realized that if brewers knew they could count on the quality and flavour of a particular hop, they would be more likely to purchase – and thus he could help boost the business of small hop farmers and encourage more experimentation in hop production. 

The Covid Pivot and Founding the Brasserie du Bon Temps

However, the COVID-19 pandemic ground everything to a halt. At that time, he pivoted from hop terroir to hop history. His company Project Hop became the current Project Hop, which is his line of historical IPAs, and from Project Hop grew his brewery label: Brasserie du Bon Temps. 

Vadeboncoeur was a homebrewer, but in 2020, after he was invited to brew some single-hop beers at R&B Brewing, he learned to scale up and refine his techniques. He began looking into old recipes, experimenting with test batches, and serving some historical styles to R&B’s taproom customers. Brasserie du Bon Temps and Project Hop were born. 

“I was able to talk to customers about how it was a recipe from 200 years ago and tell them the story,” says Vadeboncoeur. “The story really makes the beer, and to go back in time offers a different dimension to that experience. People seem to really like that.” And customers at R&B enjoyed Vadeboncoeur’s adventurous beers, which included an Old IPA, a grisette, an Abbey-style ale, and a Scandinavian beer called Råøl, or “Raw Ale.” This beer, according to Project Hop’s description, is made without boiling the wort: “This raw (unboiled) beer is flavoured by infusing hot water with juniper branches […] then pouring this over grain to extract sugars, then straight into fermentation with a heritage Norwegian yeast.” Not something you’d easily find on a craft brewery’s tap list! 

Bringing the Past to Life

Brasserie du Bon Temps brews out of other breweries, such as [the now closed] Flashback and Tinhouse Brewing, and has that same spirit of collaboration in its name. The brewery is named after the Order of Good Cheer, founded by Samuel de Champlain in 1606 to help boost morale for the settlers of New France. It became, essentially, the first gastronomic drinking club; after its founding, deaths dropped dramatically. The brewery honours beer’s history of bringing people together through flavour and experience. According to the website, “Brasserie du Bon Temps re-creates historical recipes to bring you the story of beer from accidental discovery to the world’s favourite tipple. Our beers are faithful recreations of old styles or research-based best guesses when the historical trail runs cold.”

The goal of Brasserie du Bon Temps is to recreate historical beers, including the line of hop-focused IPAs under Project Hop. But how did Vadeboncoeur find the historical information that allowed him to do this? He’s a scientist by trade rather than a historian, but he certainly has the research skills required to unearth such treasures. One open-access resource he used was Project Gutenberg, which provides digitized scans of thousands of old books. He was looking for needles in haystacks, but he found enough information about breweries and brewing practices to allow him to brew his historical IPA mix pack: the 1754, the 1823, the 1870, and the 1914. 

1754: This beer imitates the earliest beers that were brewed at Hodgson’s Bow Brewery in London and shipped to India in the mid-18th century. The original beer used basic floor-malted pale malt and plenty of East Kent Goldings hops. It would have aged into a “stock ale” – a stronger beer, something closer to a barleywine – on its journey to India. The movement of the ship would have agitated the brewers yeast left in the beer, but would also have enlivened the Brettanomyces yeast living in the wood of the barrel. The Brett would eat all the long-chain sugars that regular yeast couldn’t, and would impart that aged ale flavour as well. 

To replicate this process, Vadeboncoeur adjusted his water to match London’s water chemistry at the time and estimated the alpha acid levels of older varieties of East Kent Goldings in order to calculate an equivalent amount in the hop’s modern version. He then added a specific strain of Brett to the wort and left it in oak barrels over the hot summer months to reproduce the conditions of the voyage to India.

1823: This beer replicates the Burton Brewery’s imitation of the Bow Brewery’s IPA (Project Hop’s 1754). When Hodgson decided he didn’t want to use the East India Company to ship the Bow’s beer anymore, the EIC looked for another brewer who could make the same product. They found Samuel Allsopp and his brewery at Burton-on-Trent. According to legend, Allsopp brought this beer to his brewer and asked if he could make it. The brewer spat it out in disgust: “Yes, I can make this. But who would want to drink it?” Many people, it turns out. The Burton version of Hodgson’s IPA uses the same recipe, with the exception of the water chemistry, which is unique to Burton-on-Trent. The Burton water is much harder, and there’s 4 times the mineral content in this beer, which helps the yeast eat more sugar and thus makes the beer a bit drier. Meanwhile, the sulfates enhance the hop flavour. 

1870: This beer is the same as the 1823, but with no barrel-aging and no Brettanomyces added. It uses East Kent Goldings hops but adds another hop variety to the mix: Strisselspault, a French hop. 

1914: This final historical IPA owes its lower ABV and lighter flavour to the popularity of lager combined with anti-German sentiment at the onset of World War I. English drinkers didn’t want a German product, so they adjusted their English beer to align with the current lager trend. This beer includes corn in the mash because there wasn’t enough barley available, and uses only East Kent Goldings hops, nothing from the continent. There’s no barrel-aging or wild yeast. It’s light and very drinkable – the patriotic option for those who didn’t want to drink German lagers.  

In addition to the historical IPA mix-pack, Vadeboncoeur also brews and sells other historical styles, such as the King Gambrinus Adambier, a velvety 10% ABV dark beer which replicates a 500-year-old German beer known for its lightly smoky taste and dark fruit character, and Biere St. Bertin, a medieval gruit ale (an unhopped beer flavoured with herbs). He currently brews out of Tinhouse Brewing Co. in Port Coquitlam, where he recently had a beer release. Customers who stopped by Tinhouse that day could taste a flight of historical IPAs while listening to Vadeboncoeur’s explanation of their origins. Phil Smith, brewer and co-owner of Tinhouse, says his brewery has welcomed small contract brewers for several years. “We were alerted to the fact that Nathan was looking for a home to brew some fun and experimental beers. It’s been a long work in progress, but we are so happy to have helped, and excited to have these beers hitting the market now,” says Smith. “It’s been an interesting process working with Nathan and watching him craft these IPAs that are true to the era in which they originated.”

You can sign up for the Brasserie du Bon Temps Beer Club to receive all the information about beer releases from both the Brasserie and Project Hop. The five-dollar monthly membership fee includes perks like member-only articles and videos, a live monthly presentation and Q&A on beer history and brewing, 10% discount on all Brasserie and Project Hop products, and the option to purchase quarterly micro-batch, member-only beers. Vadeboncoeur hopes to have regular production of his core historic beers, with seasonal releases that reflect when they would have been available in their original forms. Customers can also buy these beers directly – no membership required – from the Project Hop website.

If you’re looking for more opportunities to sample Brasserie du Bon Temps and Project Hop’s historical IPAS, you might be in luck if you also picked up tickets to the upcoming (sold out) North Island Craft Beer Festival on March 15,  2025. Vadeboncoeur will be there to pour these unique brews for Island beer lovers!

The post Raising a Glass to the Past appeared first on The BC Ale Trail.

Read on to learn more about side pours and slow pours before you seek them out to taste for yourself. 

FŌM, the World Acknowledged® Lager Tour, kicked off February with foamy lager tap takeovers at The Magnet in Vancouver and The Drake Eatery in Victoria. The Barley Merchant in Langley also joined the foamy festivities as of February 10. As the month progresses, tap lists will shift from golden lagers to darker, maltier styles. The participating venues will also feature gravity pours (similar to cask ales poured from a bartop but from a keg instead) and even a Beer Poking Day — which involves inserting a red-hot poker into a glass of beer to caramelize the sugars, adding smoky, roasted or toasted marshmallow notes to the beer. Yes please, you can poke my beer any time!

What’s All the Fuss About Foam?!

OK, maybe you have already encountered one of these specialty pours “in the wild.” You can be forgiven if you considered complaining to the server about a short pour when your pint of Czech-style lager arrived with three fingers of foam on top — hopefully, you restrained yourself and took a sip because then you probably lost any desire to complain considering how delicious it was.

Much of the foamy fanaticism is focused on a special so-called side-pour (or side-pull) tap, manufactured in Plzen, Czechia, that is the cause of all this free-flowing froth.

As American beer writer, Ruvani da Silva, writes in her 2023 article, Less Beer, More Foam, 

“No longer seen as a fault in service, foam is being reconsidered stateside as a sought-after indicator of sophisticated serving and an integral part of the beer-drinking experience—all thanks to a single, purpose-built tap. The Lukr has landed.”

Lukr is the Czech company that manufactures the taps that have been showing up in breweries all over North America over the past few years. According to da Silva, sales of these taps have topped 5,000 in the U.S. and we can assume that several hundred have been shipped to Canadian breweries, too. 

Lukr was founded in Plzeň in 1991, just a couple of years after the Velvet Revolution, which is the name given to the peaceful movement that marked the end of the Communist era in Czechoslovakia in November 1989. The Czech brewing industry and associated technology had not changed much over the previous 50 years of Communist rule so Lukr saw an opportunity to adapt and update traditional Czech beer taps for the modern market. 

Compared to a typical beer tap with a plunger valve that is either open or closed, Lukr side-pour taps employ a ball valve, compensator and strainer. The system gives the tapster much more control over the mix of beer and “wet foam” going into the glass. 

This “wet foam” is what it’s all about, according to Brent Mills, the brewmaster at Four Winds Brewing who was an early adopter of Lukr taps. Mills first encountered a side-pour in Plzeň while he was on a beer-and-cycling trip in 2016. Later, he installed one at Four Winds in 2020 where they used it off and on during the pandemic.

As Four Winds built its second location, the Four Winds Beach House & Brewery that opened in Tsawwassen last summer, Mills designed the brewhouse there for Czech decoction-style brews and ordered a custom tap tower from Lukr for the bar. On a subsequent trip to Czechia as part of a trade mission for brewers put on by the Czech government, the delegation visited the Lukr factory in Plzeň. After getting a one-on-one pouring tutorial, Mills said he spotted his own custom tap tower under construction in the brass tower manufacturing area. (He actually got in trouble for picking it up because it wasn’t sealed and polished yet. They were worried he would leave fingerprints on it, but he said if that happened, they would be his own fingerprints so he wouldn’t care.)

This was in April. A few months later, he was installing the beautiful burnished brass tower (without any fingerprints) at Four Winds’ new Beach House & Brewery ahead of its opening that summer. That tower has eight “nostalgie” taps, which is the most traditional one Lukr makes, and the brewery also has another set of eight “freedom” taps, which are designed for the North American market (the tap handle swings forward rather than to the side so the taps only need three inches between each other whereas the traditional side-pour taps need four or five inches of space).

Proper side pours result in gorgeous and photogenic glasses of beer topped with cream-like foam, but according to Mills, the beer doesn’t just look good, it also tastes great. 

“First, the foam that sits on top is a controlled foam with really tight bubbles. It’s kind of similar to the foam of a latté. It’s really silky and soft. Once you get that foam cap there you fill the beer underneath, and with that foam on top, you’re not allowing as much C02 to dissipate. And then under that silky, smooth foam is really bright, vibrant, carbonated beer that’s protected from oxygen as well. So you can sip the foam, which is really lovely, you can go through the foam and get some really crisp beer, or you can mix the two and it’s another unique experience.”

Mills has trained his staff on proper pouring techniques and they actually pour most of their beers through Lukr taps, including IPAs, which he says are “an elevated version of a regular IPA.”

Mile Zero Brewing — Certified Lukr Tapsters

Mile Zero Brewing installed a traditional Lukr tap shortly after it opened in 2022, and eventually expanded its tap lineup with five Lukr freedom taps. Co-owners Michelle and Mike Morgan also travelled to Czechia to attend Lukr’s Perfect Pour Academy. The each attended a three-day intensive course where they spent 20 hours learning hands-on at Lukr’s Beer Training Facility before the “final exam,” which required them to pour pints at a busy beer cellar in Plzen, side by side with a professional tapster. In the end, Mike and Michelle both earned the title of “Lukr Certified Tapster.”

How to Order Czech-Style Pours

Hladinka (“standard”): two to three fingers of foam on top of gorgeous golden lager.
Šnyt (from German “schnitt” for “cut”): two parts beer, three parts foam, and one part empty space at the top of the glass.
Mlíko (“milk”): a mug of mostly wet foam that tastes sweet and smooth. Drink it in one go!
Řezané (“cut”): similar to a British “black & tan” this is a layered beer with a light lager on the bottom and dark lager on top.

Slow Pour or Side Pour?

Another similar but different pouring technique is known as a “slow pour.” You might already be familiar with this technique because of a certain well-known Irish stout’s marketing campaign, “Good things come to those who wait.” Like Guinness, which is poured slowly in stages using a typical beer tap but with a nitrogenated gas mix, a Lukr side-pour can also be used to pour beer in steps that result in a meringue-like foam cap that rises well above the rim of the glass.

Brent Mills says the foam generated by a slow pour is more bitter and acrid. He likens it to the foam on a cappuccino while wet foam is more like the sweet foam on a latté. To each their own. I’ve been known to cycle up to Sidney for a slow-pour Neverending Pilsner at Small Gods Brewing and then stop for a side pour of Westy Czech Pilsner at Category 12 Brewing. 

(Video: courtesy of Luppolo Brewing – a time-lapse view of a slow pour).

Where Can You Try a Side Pour?

Several BC breweries (and taphouses) offer specialty pours through Lukr side-pour taps. Here is as complete a list as we could compile – we will update it as more breweries add these specialty pours to their beer lineups.

The Barley Merchant • Langley

• Check out their IG video talking about their three side pour taps, and FŌM feature brews

Brassneck Brewery • Vancouver

Category 12 Brewing • Saanichton

The Drake Eatery • Victoria

Driftwood Brewery • Victoria

Fuggles Beer • Richmond

• Pixel Pilsner is available on side pour; watch for rotating lagers throughout February

Luppolo Brewing Company • Vancouver

The Magnet • Vancouver

Mile Zero Brewing • Metchosin (Greater Victoria)

The Parkside Brewery • Port Moody

• Side pours are always available, usually the Dawn Pilsner

Small Gods Brewing • Sidney

• At Small Gods, they love their side pours so much they made a custom logo!

Tinhouse Brewing • Port Coquitlam

• Watch for a rotating selection of brews to be featured, like the PoCo Pivo Italian Pilsner and the Czech Your Head Tmave Pivo (Dark Lager) which will be back later this summer

The post Move Over Dry January — Welcome to Foamy February! appeared first on The BC Ale Trail.

Brewers would create 20-40 litres of a one-off beer and serve it directly from a steel cask. CAMRA, Central City, Tri-cities, Vancouver’s Craft Beer Week, and Yaletown had regular cask beer events back when there were fewer than 50 breweries in BC. Unfortunately, all of these cask festivals have now passed into memory with only a few still going, like the Kiwanis Alefest Crawl – Cask Ale Weekend in Prince George.

For the uninitiated, a cask is a traditional British method of serving beer via gravity rather than under pressure of CO2 from a keg. The carbonation comes from active yeast in the cask. Once the cask is opened by hammering a tap through the plastic bung, the cask will gradually lose carbonation as it warms up, and oxidize as air replaces the poured beer. Kegging replaced casks in most of the world as casks are messy, and, if you’re not careful, can be pretty awful. But when they’re done right, I truly believe nothing can touch them. Although, if you want some fun, check out the “cask fail” videos on YouTube.

One of the things I loved about that cask scene was the creativity of brewers who would take the opportunity to add wild and wonderful ingredients. 20L is an easy amount to experiment with, and some of our favourite BC brews began life as a cask concoction. However, I would also find fault with many of the beers as this method of serving casks at festivals and cask nights irked my British “real ale” sensibilities: moving open casks, poor refrigeration, chunks of yeast being served to customers, etc. While many people loved these cask events I found more and more were being turned off by this. Hearing “I don’t like cask beer” hit me like a dagger.

When I opened Real Cask at Callister Brewing in Vancouver back in 2015 I took advantage of their incubator model to show how casks can be done. The message I wanted to put across is that any beer can be put into a cask, be wild, be creative, and fun. But that should be balanced with “real ale”: traditional British beer styles served in a CAMpaign for Real Ale- (and John Mitchell) approved fashion.

After I left Callister they kept the great casks going, even winning Best Beer at the 2022 Canada Beer Cup with a traditional British style. Now CowDog Brew Co has taken over the space with Michael Hodgson keeping the tradition alive with both real ales and fun cask collaborations.

Casks have generally fallen out of favour among the beernoscenti of BC, and only a few places still have permanent casks served through a beer engine hand pump*. Main Street Brewing’s cask program continues to impress, especially as the talented Bill Reilly was working with them for a few years. In addition to having up to four casks available on their beer engines, they also offer limited runs of rotating can-conditioned cask beers, available only at the brewery. 

*Editors note: you may have seen casks of beer sitting on stillage (wooden cradles), on the bar top or at a pouring station at a festival, without a way to effectively keep them cold. Beer or cask engines are manual pumps which allow the cask to sit under the counter in a cooler or fridge, keeping the beer at a proper serving temperature. 

Nearby R&B Brewing keeps their famous East Side Bitter on cask most of the time, which gives us an opportunity to try cask and keg versions side-by-side.

Moody Ales & Co in Port Moody has some legit real ale with a twin cask engine pouring two cask beers at all times. Check out what’s currently on cask on their website.

Here on Vancouver Island, there was a rich cask tradition in the brewpubs of Victoria and Nanaimo but now there’s only Spinnakers Brewpub with a full cask program. Luckily Spinnakers do a fantastic job with the casks thanks to 40+ years of brewing experience!

The current winners of the cask battle are the wonderful folks at Smugglers Trail Caskworks. As you can expect from the name, quality casks are a big feature in their impressive Langley tasting room as well as regular cask festivals. For their head brewer Tom’s take on casks check out this great video on their Instagram page. 

Of course, there are still a few breweries and pubs that have occasional or weekly casks:

CrossRoads Brewing & Distillery in Prince George: Starting late last year, CrossRoads is celebrating Wednesdays with Firkin’ Hump Day, where they tap a cask of specialty beer at 4:00 PM. Each Firkin is one-of-a-kind, featuring a unique twist on a classic beer style.

Kelowna Beer Institute in Kelowna: in addition to tapping a fresh cask every Thursday, the Beer Institute is also known for hosting large cask events throughout the year like the 11th Cask Throwdown coming February 27, 2025. Four of their staff have each created a cask, but only one will be declared the winner. And don’t forget the 24 day advent calendar of casks that are released each year leading up to Christmas.

Longwood Brew Pub & Restaurant in Nanaimo: a new cask is tapped every Friday at 2:30 pm. Their brewer tends to lean towards traditional brews like IPAs or ESBs for the base and experiment with different hops. Be on the lookout for more unique offerings at events or holidays like Valentine’s Day where the weekly cask will be a black current Irish red ale to pair with the evening’s menu.

The Parkside Brewery in Port Moody: Parkside taps a new cask every Wednesday. Recent offerings have included brews like a Blueberry Pomegranate Berliner Weisse, and an Orange Chocolate Stout.

Steamworks Burnaby Brewery & Taproom: unique casks are tapped on the last Thursday of every month. Recent offerings have included a Winter Ale and Hazelnut Chocolate Stout.

The post Keeping the Cask Alive: BC’s Changing Real Ale Scene appeared first on The BC Ale Trail.

Fresh hop beers are made with hops that come fresh off the bine, making it into the brew kettle or fermenter less than 24 hours after being picked. In BC, hops are typically harvested as early as late August through to early October, and then the race is on to get them to the brewery as soon as possible for maximum freshness.

Typically, hops are kiln-dried and pelletized to improve their shelf life. But fresh hop (or wet-hopped) beers retain more of the hops’ essential oils and volatile aromatics, resulting in a beer that is bursting with character that dried hops simply can’t provide.

Fresh hop beers are often brighter, earthier, more floral and can even feature an almost tingly sensation due to the prevalence of essential oils and acids. Naturally, beer styles that are built around hop character, like IPAs and pale ales, are generally preferred for fresh hop beers.

One thing is for sure, though, these unique beers are definitely different, and they only come around once a year, so get them while you can.

Unsurprisingly, it is best to drink fresh hop beers when they are fresh, as the volatile flavour compounds will degrade with considerable speed. Once a fresh hop beer is more than a month old, it’s lost most if not all of its magic.

Here’s a selection of fresh hop beers from across B.C. that you can find at your local craft beer store this fall:

Farm. Fresh. Hop. IPA by Barnside Brewing (Delta)

Fresh Cascade and Triple Pearl hops – with a couple of buckets of Tahoma thrown in for good measure – set the tone for the 2024 version of Barnside’s 100% farm-hopped beer. With their ’20 minutes from field to kettle’ promise, this beer is as fresh as it gets. It pours with a dark golden haze, presenting prominent stone fruit in the direction of nectarine and white peach, with citrus, grapefruit rind, and champagne-like carbonation, backed by a classic mild bitterness.

Hop Attack Fresh Hop IPA by Steamworks Brewing (Burnaby and Vancouver)

This classic West Coast IPA features assertive hop bitterness and plenty of that characteristic fresh hop tingle. Bright and lively with a sturdy malt backbone to not only support the hops, but leave the beer balanced and approachable as well. 

Green Reaper Fresh Hop IPA by Phillips Brewing and Malting Co. (Victoria)

This IPA features a massively fruity and floral nose, with massive gobs of citrus, pine and tropical fruit. Well-balanced with restrained hop bitterness resulting in a dangerously crushable beer.

Fresh Hop Extra Pale Ale by Cannery Brewing (Penticton)

Cannery’s annual fresh hop beer is based on their Muse Extra Pale Ale and this year features fresh Mosaic hops from Loftus Ranches in the Yakima Valley. The result is vibrantly fruity and floral with big hop aroma and flavours and a clean dry finish enticing you back to take another sip.

Maple Bay IPA Fresh Hop IPA by Backcountry Brewing (Squamish)

This lively hazy IPA bursts with stonefruit, citrus and melon aromas. Hazy gold in colour with a meringue-like head, notes of grapefruit, apricot and tropical fruit dominate with a lovely fresh hop tingle that will bring brightness to even the most dismal autumn days.

Sartori Harvest IPA by Driftwood Brewery (Victoria)

This year marks the 15th anniversary of Driftwood’s annual celebration of fresh hops. Centennial hops from the Sartori Cedar Ranch in Chilliwack’s Columbia Valley take centre stage here with luscious floral and earthy notes of pine, grapefruit and grass. An ample malt backbone helps support the moderate hop bitterness.

New Tricks Fresh Hop Hazy IPA by Yellow Dog Brewing (Port Moody)

This hazy little number features intensely fruity hop aromas and flavours, with juicy fruit flavours of citrus, stonefruit and melon. Low hop bitterness and a smooth finish mean you’re gonna go crazy for this fresh hop hazy. 

Wolf Vine Wet Hopped Pale Ale by Hoyne Brewing (Victoria)

Earthy notes of citrus, pine, and grass feature heavily in Hoyne’s annual foray into fresh hop beers. Malt notes of cracker and grain help round out this fresh hop pale ale.

The post Hop to It: Your Guide to B.C.’s Fleeting Fresh Hop Beer Season appeared first on The BC Ale Trail.

It wasn’t so long ago that thirsty beer drinkers with a hankering for a high-test brew had very few options. Big beers were once brewed only to give drinkers more bang for their buck, and flavour was an afterthought for these “malt liquor” offerings.

The early days of the craft beer boom soon brought more options, but not many. If you were lucky enough, you might be able to find a barleywine or a barrel-aged imperial stout with a double-digit ABV—but even then, they were likely to be small-batch seasonal releases. Blink, and you’d miss them!

Today, however, there is a plethora of full-bodied, fully-loaded libations produced by B.C. breweries, in just about every style imaginable. And unlike the repulsive paper-bag brews of yore, these beers are unequivocally delicious, with bold and complex flavours that are complemented and heightened by their higher alcohol content.

It goes without saying, of course (but I’m saying it anyway): please enjoy these beers in moderation. Many are so deceptively smooth and so dang tasty that they can get you into trouble if you’re not careful.

So, with that in mind, I think it’s high time to set out on the BC Ale Trail and explore this new generation of high-test beers…

Weighty by Four Winds Brewing (Delta, South of the Fraser Ale Trail)
10.0% ABV | Triple IPA
This utterly opaque Hazy IPA has the appearance of a glass of orange juice with a dollop of meringue on top. The intoxicating aroma of mandarin orange and tropical fruit creates an expectation that this beer totally delivers on. Imagine a Creamsicle in beer form, with notes of citrus, tangerine, and vanilla. Big hop flavour and aroma, with almost no perceived bitterness and a complete absence of alcoholic heat. This beer is so smooth, it should probably come with a waiver to sign. Four Winds has done it again! Is anyone surprised? 

Entropy Series No. 31 Balaton 12° by Dageraad Brewing (Burnaby, North of the Fraser Ale Trail)
10.5% ABV | Mixed Culture Barrel-aged Quadrupel with Balaton Cherries
Dageraad has long been B.C.’s own gateway to big Belgian-style beers, and Balaton 12° is yet another in a long line of exceptional releases as part of Dageraad’s ongoing one-off Entropy series. This deep crimson-brown ale sports a sturdy, if not vigorous, off-white head (you might want to consider opening it over a sink). It’s delightfully tart and complex, with notes of cherry, dark fruit, spice, fruitcake, burnt sugar and balsamic vinegar. You’re going to want to pair this one with a lovely charcuterie plate or roasted pork loin.

Numbskull Rotator No. 13 by Lighthouse Brewing (Esquimalt, Greater Victoria Ale Trail)
9.1% ABV | Double IPA

After more than 10 years, it’s safe to say Esquimalt’s Lighthouse Brewing has their gargantuan DIPA rotator dialled in at this point. Lucky number 13 features French Barbe Rouge hops, a relatively new hop on the scene known for its aromatic red berry notes. This decidedly “West Coast” take on the DIPA pours a brilliant gold with a fluffy white head with notes of dank citrus, strawberry, Meyer lemon, kiwi, and pine, offering just enough hop bitterness to clean up the finish without puckering your lips. 

Double Dark Sour by Field House Brewing ABBY (Abbotsford, Fraser Valley Ale Trail)
11.5% ABV | Fruited Sour Ale

Field House’s Dark Sour has long reigned as one of the best fruited sour ales in the province. Despite clocking in at 10%, the absolute maniacs at Field House decided that wasn’t good enough. Introducing the Double Dark Sour, brewed to celebrate the brewery’s 8th anniversary, and boasting even more alcohol. Yet, just like the original, it still manages to keep that alcoholic warmth almost undetectable. Deep purple with a rapidly dissipating pink head, this beer features increased acidity as well as alcohol, offering tart, lively notes of cranberry juice and blueberry.

Tenth by Longwood Brewery (Nanaimo, Vancouver Island Ale Trail Part I)
9.0% ABV | Barrel-aged Golden Ale

What a way to celebrate a 10th anniversary! Longwood’s production brewery and tasting room in Nanaimo may have opened a decade ago, but this barrel-aged wild ale tastes like they’ve been brewing beer in a Belgian monastery for centuries. Likely one of the best Belgian-style beers I’ve tried all year, Tenth pours a brilliant crimson-brown with a thin, off-white head, offering notes of dark fruit, plum, cherry, vanilla, oak, balsamic vinegar, spice, leather, bourbon and funk. It’s as complex as it is impressive, and I regret not buying an entire case of it.

Eins by Abandoned Rail Brewing (Naramata, Penticton Ale Trail)
11.0% ABV | Barrel-aged Doppelbock
Naramata might be best known for its wine, but in just one short year, Abandoned Rail and its award-winning beer might be changing that perception. Eins is the brewery’s first anniversary release and it’s pretty spectacular, with bold malty flavours of dark fruit, burnt sugar, bourbon, vanilla, oak, raisin, toast, and fruitcake. The great thing about brewing in wine country is there’s no shortage of barrels at your disposal. 

Occultation by Temporal Artisan Ales (Brewed at Container Brewing, Vancouver, Yeast Vancouver Ale Trail)
11.0% ABV | Barrel-aged Stock Ale

First off: can we talk about how adorable this little itty bitty baby can is? I’m pretty sure this is the first 250 mL-format can the B.C. craft beer scene has ever seen. But despite the dainty packaging, the contents pack a punch. This beer pours so black, that Anish Kapoor is not allowed to drink it, with huge flavours of cocoa, coffee, toffee, caramel, vanilla, bourbon, and oak. It’s so sweet, smooth and rich, Occultation might as well be the Ryan Gosling of beers.

Infinite City by Small Gods Brewing (Sidney, Greater Victoria Ale Trail)
10.0% ABV | Fruited Sour Ale

Sidney’s Small Gods hasn’t been around for long, but they’ve certainly made a name for themselves in just a year and a half of existence. Infinite City is a great example as to why. This huge fruited sour ale is tart and delicious, with acidity restrained enough to not overpower the flavours of citrus, lemon, mandarin orange, strawberry, kiwi, and vanilla.   

Hermannator (2022) by Vancouver Island Brewing (Victoria, Greater Victoria Ale Trail)
9.5% ABV | Ice Bock

If you’ve been drinking B.C. craft beer for a hot minute, then you had to know the Hermannator was going to be on this list. VIB’s classic winter seasonal release has been around since the dawn of time and it still absolutely slaps. Malty, fruity goodness, with notes of chocolate, coffee, toffee and cereal grain. If there’s a Mount Rushmore of B.C. beer, Hermannator is on it.

The post Big, Bold Beers from British Columbia appeared first on The BC Ale Trail.

Here is a sampling of some autumnal beer styles to look for from your local brewery or to seek out on a fall getaway.

How Fresh Can You Get?

Each autumn, beer lovers await the arrival of a very special style of beer. Fresh hop (or wet hop) beers are highly anticipated because they can only be produced once a year during the hop harvest. Brewers work with nearby farms or hop distributors to get hops fresh from the harvest and into their brew kettles within 24 hours of picking them. The resulting fresh hop beers showcase bright, grassy flavours and a distinctly fresh quality that isn’t present in dried hops. However, the volatile flavour compounds in these beers break down quickly, so fresh hop beers should be refrigerated and consumed immediately.

The first fresh hop beer produced commercially in British Columbia was Driftwood Brewery’s Sartori Harvest IPA, which dates back to 2009. In fact, Driftwood brewed its first batch of Sartori before it ever brewed Fat Tug IPA, the beer it is now best known for. Driftwood always uses Centennial hops from the Sartori Cedar Ranch in Chilliwack.

While the Sartori Harvest IPA is undeniably the most sought-after fresh hop beer in BC each fall, many other breweries make fresh hop beers, too.

Here are some more fresh hop beers to look for in the coming weeks:

• Bright Eye Brewing (Kamloops) Fresh Prince Cold IPA brewed with BC Comet hops and fermented with clean lager yeast.
• Cannery Brewing (Penticton) Fresh Hop Extra Pale Ale brewed with Cascade hops from Northwest Hop Farms in Chilliwack, as well as frozen fresh cryo hops from Yakima Chief Hops, and Golden Promise malts.
• Dageraad Brewing (Burnaby) Wet-hopped Blonde Blonde Ale brewed with locally harvested Centennial hops from Sartori Hop Farms.
• Hoyne Brewing (Victoria) Wolf Vine Fresh Hop Pale Ale brewed with copious quantities of local, fresh, hand-picked Centennial and Cascade hops straight out of the field.
• Jackknife Brewing (Kelowna) Death Wish IPA showcasing a blend of kveik cultures selected to enhance the tropical notes of frozen fresh hops from Yakima Chief.
• Locality Brewing (Langley) Local Kicks Fresh Hop West Coast Hazy Pale Ale collaboration with Sidekick Brewing that is packed with local hop aroma.
• Longwood Brewery (Nanaimo) Wet Hop Smash IPA brewed with Island-grown hops from Maple Bay Hop Farm and Island craft-malted barley.
• Nelson Brewing (Nelson) Dank Trip North West IPA using fresh Cascade and Tahoma hops from a small new hop farm in Argenta, BC, dry hopped with some Rakau hops.
• Phillips Brewing (Victoria) Green Reaper Fresh Hop IPA.
• Spinnakers Brewpub (Victoria) Fresh Hop ESB features a blend of fresh hops grown at Spinnakers’ own hop farm in Sooke.

Many other breweries will also be releasing fresh hop beers at this time of year so ask for one at your local.

Oktoberfest!

The annual Oktoberfest celebration in Munich is famously the world’s biggest beer event with more than six million people attending the event every year. Typically, it runs for nearly three weeks, beginning in mid-September until early October. It was first held in 1810 to celebrate the wedding of Prince Ludwig and Princess Therese, and has been an annual event ever since. For more than 200 years, it has only been cancelled because of wars, economic disruption in the 1920s, and now, sadly, the COVID-19 pandemic.

For now, we can only fantasize about being part of a crowd of happy people in one of the giant tents, hefting enormous one-litre steins of beer and singing along to the oompah band. However, many BC craft breweries produce German-style beers, including their own versions of the traditional Festbiers or Märzens served at Oktoberfest each autumn. These are delicious lagers that are brewed to be slightly stronger and darker (more amber than yellow) than the typical Helles (light) lagers that German breweries make year-round. 

Several BC breweries have produced Festbiers that you can sample as part of your very own Oktoberfest celebration at home.

Pros’t!

Vancouver’s Parallel 49 Brewing is throwing a massive Oktoberfest party from September 16 to October 8.

It features a 120-seat Biergarten with tasty German food, live entertainment, and, of course, some special beers brewed for the occasion. If you can’t make it to Vancouver you can also look for P49’s special Bierfest Mixer pack, which includes two cans each of these four special beers:

• German Pilsner – Refreshing and citrusy with a rich yet light malty finish.
• Hefeweizen – A hazy wheat ale that’s slightly bready and leaves you with a creamy mouthfeel.
• Schwarzbier – A dry, dark lager with dark chocolate notes and a delicate roasty flavour.
• Festbier – A slightly malt-forward pale lager with floral and spicy hop notes/

Moody Ales & Co in Port Moody has released a special Oktoberfest Pack that features four beers designed to celebrate the season:

• Oktoberfest (5.9% ABV) Brewed with German Pilsner and Dark Munich malts, along with Hallertau hops. Pairs perfectly with bratwursts and soft pretzels.
• German IPA (6.5% ABV) Showcasing a suite of German hop varieties, this bold IPA features complex notes of bitter pine, fresh raspberries, and crisp white grape.
• Schwarzbier (4.8% ABV) A dark lager with a light side, this brew features warm notes of roasted malt, coffee, and bittersweet dark chocolate.
• Helles Lager (4.7% ABV) This German-style lager is smooth with a crisp, clean finish.

For Glory Festbier – Container Brewing (5.8% ABV | 22 IBU)

An Oktoberfest lager brewed with a blend of Magnum and Hallertau Mittelfrüh hops, imparting a balanced bitterness and a delightful floral aroma. This beer and others from the Container line-up will be featured at Oktainerfest, two days of Oktoberfest beers and German food taking place at the Vancouver brewery on October 6th and 7th.

Look for more Oktoberfest-style beers at BC breweries.

Enjoy A Taste of the Harvest

Craft breweries also love to celebrate the arrival of autumn with special beers featuring the agricultural bounty of the harvest season, including fruits, grains, and even squash.

Spruce Tip Saison – 33 Acres Brewing in Vancouver (4.9% ABV)

Foraged Sitka Spruce tips contribute fragrant red fruit and bubblegum aromas nestled among a bed of fresh pine needles. Brewed with Field Five Farm barley and straw, then bottle-conditioned with Brettanomyces, this Saison is an expression of the Cascadian bioregion.

Schrute Farms Beet Farmhouse Ale – Bridge Brewing in North Vancouver (5.8% ABV | 22 IBU)
Beets. Beer. Battlestar Galactica. This Farmhouse Ale was brewed with 100lbs of beets, resulting in a beer with a vibrant pink colour, an earthy aroma, and a dry finish.

Look for more harvest-themed beers from BC breweries this fall.

Pumpkin Time?

Last but not least, many breweries make pumpkin beers, incorporating the popular fall flavours of pumpkin pie spice in a wide variety of beer styles. Here are a few to try:

Squash Gourdon – Red Collar Brewing (6.5% ABV | 20 IBU)
Squash Gourdon is a pumpkin beer made exclusively with sugar pumpkins grown at Thistle Farm in Kamloops and lightly spiced with allspice, nutmeg, and ginger.

Full Patch Pumpkin Saison – Longwood Brewery (9% ABV | 30 IBU)
A Belgian-style saison brewed with pumpkins and spices.

PumpkinEater Imperial Pumpkin Ale – Howe Sound Brewing (8.0% ABV)
Howe Sound has been brewing this deliciously dark and rich pumpkin beer for a long time, and this year it will be packaged in cans as well as the usual 1-litre bottles.

Can’t get enough Pumpkin??

Here are a few more BC pumpkin beers to look for:

• Fernie Brewing (Fernie) Ghostrider Pumpkin Brown Ale
• Parallel 49 Brewing (Vancouver) Lost Souls Chocolate Pumpkin Porter and Schadenfreude Pumpkin Oktoberfest Lager
• Phillips Brewing & Malting (Victoria) Crookeder Tooth Barrel-Aged Pumpkin Ale

What’s your favourite BC beer of the autumn? Post it on social media and tag #BCAleTrail to let us know!

The post Enjoy the Tastes of Autumn appeared first on The BC Ale Trail.

In a flight of beers, a saison will stand out as elegant and effervescent, almost like champagne. These days it is even more popular in North America than it is in its country of origin.

The Beer Judge Certification Program guidelines describe saisons like this:

• A family of refreshing, highly attenuated, hoppy, and fairly bitter Belgian ales with a very dry finish and high carbonation. Characterized by a fruity, spicy, sometimes phenolic fermentation profile, and the use of cereal grains and sometimes spices for complexity. Several variations in strength and colour exist. 
• The pale, standard-strength version is like a more highly-attenuated, hoppy, and bitter Belgian Blond Ale with a stronger yeast character. At super strength and pale colour, similar to a Belgian Tripel, but often with more of a grainy, rustic quality and sometimes with a spicier yeast character.
• Typical saisons are brewed to around 6% ABV with a hop presence of 20-35 IBU.

When the famed British beer writer Michael Jackson first began writing about Belgian beer culture in the 1970s, he found very few examples of saisons in existence. By the early 1990s, he even described the style as “endangered.” But he loved saisons and worked hard to bring attention to them. Because of his enthusiasm, an American distributor reached out to the Belgian brewer Dupont to import its saison, described by Jackson as “a down-to-earth classic of the style.” Dupont was surprised by the request since their blonde ale, Moinette, was a much bigger seller in Belgium.

“At the time, the [saison] represented just two percent of Brasserie Dupont’s sales and was being considered for discontinuation,” Bryan Roth wrote in All About Beer in 2016, going on to state that the saison now accounts for 40% of Dupont’s production because of the export market.

The Belgian Connection in BC

Cédric Dauchot, brewer and co-owner of Townsite Brewing in Powell River, grew up about 35 km from the Dupont brewery, but despite its proximity, Dauchot says, “I never drank saison Dupont at the pub. We always drank Moinette. Saisons were not a big part of beer culture in Belgium.”

On my own trip to Belgium in 2014, I sought out saisons at every pub and brewery, but the truth was I only encountered them here and there. I did, however, experience one of my all-time favourite food-and-beer pairings on that trip when I picked the Dry-Hopped saison from Dupont to go with salted Gruyere cheese at Nüetnigenough, which describes itself as “the Brussels brasserie for greedy gluttons and fine beer lovers,” or, in other words, me! 

According to legend, saisons were originally brewed by farmers in the winter months and then stored away for the summer when they were consumed in great quantities as sustenance by the saisoniers, or seasonal workers, hired to help with the harvest. It’s a great story, one I’ve told many times at beer tastings and seminars, and people always love it when they hear it. However, as with many beer origin stories, it’s probably a little too tidy to be true. Check Dutch beer writer Roel Mulder’s site, Lostbeer.com, for a few articles devoted to debunking the myth if you’re interested.

When I asked Cédric Dauchot about the origin story, he said it might have been true “maybe 100 years ago,” but with a twist: “There was a communal brewery in every village. Every farmer would have a couple of wood barrels and fill them and then tap them for the workers in the summer.” He remembers that his father worked on a farm in the 1960s “and there were some beer barrels there, but that was one of the last farms in the area to do that.”

Saisons can vary considerably from brewery to brewery, but many people, including myself, regard the saison Dupont as the benchmark and measure other versions against it. And I love Michael Jackson’s description of it: “A big, rocky, creamy head; a sharp, firm, refreshing attack; a restrained fruitiness; and a long, almost tangibly dry, finish.” That “firm, refreshing attack” makes me smile because it’s bang on even if it isn’t the usual way to describe a beer.

Townsite Brewing’s original saison was called 7800 saison, so named for the distance between Dauchot’s hometown and Powell River. In recent years, the beer has been updated and rebranded as Shelter Point saison, but it remains a classic of the style reminiscent of the Dupont standard. He uses the traditional Belgian saison yeast, which he believes is a clone of Dupont’s, and several different grains, including spelt, oats, rye, and raw, unmalted wheat along with barley.

“I like all the flavour that comes from the grains. And the yeast must be present: a lot of peppery esters. And a dry finish. It’s a thirst-quenching beer for sure.”

Townsite brews several batches of it in February and March so that it is ready in the spring and summer —“exactly like the tradition.”

“The fermentation is usually at 30-32 C—the fermenter feels like there’s blood inside. You get lots of esters, bubblegum notes.” The result is a complex beer, to be sure, but when all those flavours are balanced, the result is very special.

Townsite also makes two other specialty saisons that are aged in a foeder to give them extra depth and character:

• Georgia Strait Foeder-Aged Saison (5.7% ABV)
• Desolation Sound Foeder-Aged Dark Saison (6.5% ABV)

Beyond Townsite, many other BC breweries make saisons, whether as mainstays in their lineup or season releases. 

Dageraad Brewing, the Burnaby brewery founded in 2014 with a focus on Belgian-style beers, makes several different saisons on a seasonal basis. One of their regular summer seasons is Field Theory, a dry-hopped saison (4% ABV). 

For Dageraad’s anniversary in May, the brewery will release three different interesting versions:

1. Negen: A bière du coupage, a blended saison, part of which was fermented with a mixed culture for half a year, and then blended with fresh saison and dry hopped before bottling. 
2. Enology Series No. 2 Petit Verdot: A blend of barrel-aged mixed culture saison that sat for a time on petit verdot must (2023 version similar to the 2022 version pictured above).
3. Tous les Jours: Brett saison (3.2% ABV) first released in bottles, now coming out in cans.

Saison Styles

Complex, “rustic” versions of saisons are often described as “farmhouse ales.” If you are wondering what constitutes a farmhouse ale, this article by Seth Levy might help clarify the matter. In a nutshell, it argues states that saison is a member of the “farmhouse family”:

To provide a definitive answer to the question: All saisons are farmhouse ales, but not all farmhouse ales are saisons. The term “farmhouse ale” is an overarching classification, encompassing and unifying many unique substyles of beers, including “funky” styles like saison, sahti, gotlandsdricka, biere de garde, and others. Think of the farmhouse ales as a family — with each member sharing two vital family traits: flavour and origin.

Brett Saison

A unique class of saisons is brewed with the addition of brettanoymces yeast. These “brett saisons” are purposefully aged for months following inoculation with this funk-producing yeast that conventional breweries typically avoid for fear of their regular beers becoming infected by it. But when used properly, it creates a spectrum of flavour in saisons that seems nearly unlimited in depth and complexity.

Super Saisons and Grisettes

Super saisons are basically bigger, stronger saisons (higher than 7% ABV) while another version, grisette, is a lighter, low-alcohol version of the traditional season. It’s a little less common but you will see it appear occasionally on BC brewery taplists.

Saisons from BC breweries to try:

Brassneck Brewery: Joe’s Barn, Sticks & Stones Rye Saison, Stockholm Syndrome Brett Saison

Driftwood Brewery: Viewfield Brett Saison  

Four Winds Brewing: Saison, La Maison Wild Saison, Operis Brett Saison, Sovereign Super Saison

Strange Fellows Brewing: Bayard Farmhouse Saison, Mistral Riesling Saison, Moon Rabbit Szechuan Saison

Whitetooth Brewing: Saison des Moustiques

What is your favourite saison from British Columbia? Post a photo on social media and share it with #BCAleTrail.

The post Style Profile: Saison appeared first on The BC Ale Trail.

What is a cream ale?

Beer writer Michael Jackson includes cream ale among American ales, defining it as “a very mild, sweetish, golden style of ale made in the United States. A sociable brew.” Elsewhere he says a cream ale is “as pale and sparkling as a Pilsner” but with a sweet and “mildly hopped” character. Jackson connects the development of cream ale, which is somewhere between an ale and a lager, to American brewers’ desire to distinguish themselves from the popular dark lagers of Germany and the light lagers of the US. The American cream ale was America’s version of a Kölsch, sometimes with corn or wheat in the grain bill. 

Despite the style’s American origins, the cream ale most BC drinkers recognize is a Canadian one — Sleeman’s Cream Ale, a longstanding and popular beer first sold in 1988. However, a west coast version of the cream ale was emerging at about the same time.

In 1987, Vancouver’s Shaftebury Brewing made a splash with its hugely popular Coastal Cream Ale. However, it wasn’t technically a cream ale at all; it was a British mild, according to Michael Jackson, and it was created by the very Brit who helped build BC craft beer — John Mitchell. Jackson admired Shaftebury’s Cream Ale but was confused at its name: “it’s a malty, nutty brew curiously launched as a Cream Ale.”

Barry Benson, brewer for Shaftebury and later a co-founder of R&B Brewing, agrees with Jackson. The Shaftebury Cream was a dark mild. However, at the time, marketing a beer as “dark” was a sure way to lose customers. “Cream” made the beer sound sweet, light, and approachable — exactly what drinkers wanted. Shaftebury’s marketing-savvy owners, Tim Wittig and Paul Beaton, may not have known the style guidelines for a cream ale, but they did know that “cream” sounded good. 

Their choice to call Shaftebury’s dark mild a cream ale was overwhelmingly successful, not just for Shaftebury but for BC’s nascent microbrewing industry in general. Cream ale became associated with craft beer more generally (although in those days everyone still called it “microbrew” for lack of a better name), and since people loved cream ale they wanted more “microbrew.” 

This is what Benson realized when he helped create the recipe for Russell Brewing’s Cream Ale, and then later, R&B Brewing’s version — the Raven Cream Ale. Both breweries looked to Shaftebury for inspiration, so both produced dark milds that were marketed with the power of the “cream” descriptor. Both ales became immediately popular and award-winning, due in large part to how they echoed the taste profile of Shaftebury’s (though with their own spin). Both are still being brewed to this day. Why change a good strategy? 

Another popular cream ale in the early years was Granville Island’s Kitsilano Maple Cream Ale, launched in 2003. Like other breweries, Granville Island seemed to use “cream” as a marketing term rather than a style descriptor. This ale was dark amber in colour, which is much closer to Shaftebury’s dark mild than to the traditional American cream ale. 

Because of this history, cream ale is sometimes mistakenly perceived as an unsophisticated beer style — a gateway into craft beer, but not something the discerning beer fan would seek out. However, BC’s brewers are now producing their own unique versions of this style with authentic recipes that reflect cream ale’s origins and their brewery’s brand identity.

A few BC craft brewery cream ales are profiled below, but we’re hoping to see even more cream ales in the near future – hunt some down for yourself!

Northpaw Brew Co.

Northpaw’s C.R.E.A.M. Ale was one of the signature beers that helped the brewery’s launch. Head brewer Kristy Isaak says that the reason they initially made a cream ale was that no one else was doing it — so why not fill a gap in the market? The recipe is that of a traditional American cream ale, with a lager-like base, but they’ve put a twist on the “cream” moniker by using the acronym: “Craft Rules Everything Around Me.” As Isaak puts it, “the cream ale is not only a tasty beer but it is literally a reflection of our craft here at Northpaw.” The traditional C.R.E.A.M ale as well as the radler-style C.R.E.A.M.s (seasonal versions of the same ale) are light, approachable, and very popular. Just like Shaftebury’s cream ale, Northpaw’s C.R.E.A.M. is a bridge between beer lovers and the non-beer-drinkers.

A-FRAME Brewing

Okanagan Lake Cream Ale, now one of A-FRAME Brewing’s core beers, was first brewed on their pilot system before the brewery even opened. It’s proven so successful that it won a gold medal in the Cream Ales category at this year’s Canadian Brewing Awards. Head brewer Andrew Sawyer experimented with different ingredients to align with traditional cream ale style guidelines, but his ultimate priority was to create a light, approachable beer that would resonate with consumers. Sawyer admits that the beer can be hard to market because there are still misunderstandings about the style — some drinkers still expect something “creamy” when in fact a cream ale should be dry, crisp, and lager-like. But, Sawyer says, these moments are opportunities to introduce drinkers to new styles and experiences. 

Land & Sea Brewing

Glacier Cream Ale is one Land & Sea’s core lineup, and has been consistently popular. In a February 2021 interview with Adam Chatburn of What’s Brewing magazine, head brewer Tessa Gabiniewicz discusses why the brewery added a cream ale to their core beers. She explains that it was one of the first brews she tried on their system, and that its unforgiving nature means that mistakes can’t be hidden — which is something that appeals to her. Gabiniewicz’s love of the clean, crisp style of a Kölsch was part of the reason she was drawn to cream ales, and it’s also why, according to her, their cream ale remains popular. The brewery describes the Glacier Cream as “a light-bodied lagered ale” with “faint aromas of fresh cut grass and sun-drenched fields.” Sharp and refreshing, but without any “creaminess” in sight.

Gladstone Brewing

Gladstone first made its cream ale in 2016. It’s their “lawnmower beer” — crisp, clean, and perfect on a hot day. Like some of the other newer cream ales around, Gladstone’s is a true American-style cream ale, produced with an ale yeast but then lagered at a cooler temperature. This remains a core beer due to its popularity, but customers sometimes still confuse the American Cream Ale style with an Irish Cream Ale (like Kilkenny) — which is a very different kind of beer.

Tin Whistle Brewing

Tin Whistle’s Peach Cream Ale is one of that brewery’s longest-standing and most iconic beers. First brewed in 1996, one year after the brewery’s opening, the Peach Cream Ale was an immediate success. In style it is a wheat ale made with Norwegian yeast, rather than a traditional cream ale, and the peach addition highlights Penticton’s local agriculture. Customers often ask if cream or milk is in the beer (it’s not), but are still drawn to the style because of how approachable and tasty it sounds — peaches and cream are a natural fit!

Have you tried a BC cream ale recently?  Post it on social media and tag the BC Ale Trail! We’d love to hear about it.

The post Do You Take Cream With That? BC’s Cream Ales, Then and Now appeared first on The BC Ale Trail.