{"id":59155,"date":"2025-02-19T06:00:13","date_gmt":"2025-02-19T14:00:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/bcaletrail.ca\/?p=59155"},"modified":"2025-03-28T14:42:08","modified_gmt":"2025-03-28T21:42:08","slug":"move-over-dry-january-welcome-to-foamy-february","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/bcaletrail.ca\/move-over-dry-january-welcome-to-foamy-february\/","title":{"rendered":"Move Over Dry January \u2014 Welcome to Foamy February!"},"content":{"rendered":"

Foamy February isn\u2019t actually a thing (at least not yet!), but intentionally foamy beer pours have become a specialty at a dozen or more craft breweries in British Columbia \u2014 and there\u2019s even a new festival celebrating them that\u2019s happening right now. <\/i><\/strong><\/p>\n

Read on to learn more about side pours and slow pours before you seek them out to taste for yourself.\u00a0<\/strong><\/h4>\n

F\u014cM, the World Acknowledged\u00ae Lager Tour<\/a>, kicked off February with foamy lager tap takeovers at The Magnet<\/a> in Vancouver and The Drake Eatery<\/a> in Victoria. The Barley Merchant<\/a> 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 \u2014 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!<\/span><\/p>\n

\"Featured
Featured Czech lagers on tap – the side pull tap, that is – as part of the F\u014cM event at the Barley Merchant in Langley, BC (photo provided)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

What\u2019s All the Fuss About Foam?!<\/b><\/h3>\n

OK, maybe you have already encountered one of these specialty pours \u201cin the wild.\u201d 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 \u2014 hopefully, you restrained yourself and took a sip because then you probably lost any desire to complain considering how delicious it was.<\/span><\/p>\n

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.<\/span><\/p>\n

As American beer writer, Ruvani da Silva, writes in her 2023 article, <\/span>Less Beer, More Foam<\/span><\/a>,\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cNo 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\u2014all thanks to a single, purpose-built tap. The Lukr has landed.<\/span><\/i>\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

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.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Lukr was founded in Plze\u0148 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.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n