Local Breweries Feel Slighted by LDB’s Plan to Lure US Craft Sales to Gov’t Liquor Stores

by WanderingPaddy

Despite the fact that many small BC craft breweries often struggle to get their beers listed for sale in government BC Liquor Stores, the Liquor Distribution Branch (LDB) is sending one of their own to the Craft Brewers Conference & BrewExpo America (CBC) to give a talk about “market opportunities” in BC for US craft breweries.

LDB Portfolio Manager, Kimberly Giesbrecht, is set to give a one-hour talk entitled, Canada Market – British Columbia, during a day of talks dedicated to “Export Development” at the CBC.  According to the LDB, Giesbrecht was invited to speak at the CBC by the U.S. National Craft Beer Association (USNCBA) “because BC is recognized as very supportive of the craft beer industry.” Giesbrecht “will be sharing her insight into the BC market with their members,” addressing “craft brewers from around the world including many from BC.”

I hope BC craft brewers do not have to travel all the way to Washington, DC, where the conference is being held, to benefit from Giesbrecht’s insights about the BC craft beer market.

Craft Beer Culinary Tour Highlights Gastown

Rogue Wetbar beer samples & food pairings.

Whenever I plan to visit a new city, if it isn’t in Saudi Arabia, I’m checking out the local craft beer scene ahead of time online to ensure I enjoy some of the local flavour. I know I’m not alone in that regard because If you visit Rate Beer and Beer Advocate, you’ll notice each has a section set up for the brews traveller. And with the rapid growth of craft brewing in North America, beer tourism is also on the rise.

Beer festivals, like the Great Canadian Beer Festival in Victoria and the Okanagan Fest-of-Ale in Pentiction, are obvious tourism boosts to those cities. Penticton, however, isn’t known as a beer town. Victoria, on the other hand, is well-regarded in craft beer drinker circles for its high per capita number of breweries, pubs, and brewpubs. The fact that I don’t see much of Victoria outside of those when I visit is a testament to the quality experience our provincial capital offers.

Beer Wars: The Battle Rages Every Day

CAMRA Vancouver is screening the beer industry documentary, Beer Wars, at 4:00pm on Sunday, January 31. Greg Koch of San Diego’s Stone Brewing will be in attendance, and entertainment will be provided by local muscians, Sun Wizard. Central City, Driftwood, Granville Island, Howe Sound, R&B, Red Truck, Steamworks, Swans, and Yaletown brewing will be serving BC craft beer.

This is an ideal event for a person looking to find out more about beer and the craft brewing scene in BC. Where else can you have a good brew and watch a movie at the same time, except at home!

Beer Wars is not a stupid, drunken, frat-boy romp, filled to the brim with crude humor and bad taste. It’s a film that looks behind the scenes of the American beer industry (also relevant to Canada), where corporate behemoths are being challenged by small, independent brewers shunning the status quo, and creating innovative new beers. The story is told through two of these entrepreneurs — Sam and Rhonda — battling the might and tactics of Corporate America. Interviews with numerous industry players fill in the big picture.

Beer Wars is also not a flick that was made for the beer geek. Filmmaker, Anat Baron (UBC alumnus), set out to make an accessible movie that would give the average, mass-market beer drinker a better understanding of how their beer is made, where it comes from, and how it gets to them.

Beer Wars Movie Date: Sunday, January 31 Time: 4:00 – 8:00pm Venue: District 319, 319 Main Street, Vancouver, BC Cost: $30.00, $25.00 CAMRA members (includes entry & all beer) Tickets: only 150; advanced purchase only online at CAMRA Vancouver Alibi Room: see Rick Green on Jan. 28 from 6:00 – 8:00pm Dix: see Monica Frost at the bar on Jan. 28 from 6:00 – 9:00pm Firefly Fine Wines and Ales: see Lundy Wed. & Thurs., 3:00 – 11:00pm; Fri. & Sat., 10:00am – 6:00pm

District 319 is an exclusive venue that is only available for private functions. It was an abandoned Asian movie house that has been renovated into a stylish, state-of-the-art multimedia facility.

Postscript

As of February 1, Beer Wars is now available on demand, as a download, or on DVD.

Granville Island Gourmands

In BC, we’re slowly seeing a growing understanding of the role beer can play beyond the swill of choice for frat parties and sports bars. No longer are brewmasters dinners confined to just brewpubs and beer geeks. There are an increasing number of restaurants teaming up with their local brewery to offer something that Belgians have known for a long time.

Given the great success vintners have had at marketing and educating the public about wine and food pairing, it may take some time for the brewers to catch up. But if the wine-obsessed Italians can come around to the idea of pairing food with beer, we eventually will too.

Granville Island Winter Ale Cooking Competition

Granville Island Brewing and Pacific Institute of Culinary Arts are holding their 1st annual “Winter Ales and Fare – Granville Island Brewing and Pacific Institute of Culinary Arts Winter Ale Cooking Competition” on Tuesday, November 3, at Granville Island.

Teams consisting of one culinary and one baking & pastry advanced student, will work together to create one entrée and one dessert item using Granville Island Brewing’s Lions Winter Ale. Competitors will have 45 minutes to race around the Granville Island Public Market to gather core ingredients for their dishes. One more hour will be allowed for cooking, prep, and mise en place, another 15 minutes to bring all the necessary elements to the GIB Tap Room for final plating before the judges.

Students’ final creations will be judged on a points system incorporating criteria such as creativity of menu and use of the beer, best representation of beer flavor, and aesthetic presentation of plating.

WHAT: Pacific Institute of Culinary Arts students go head to head, crafting mouthwatering meal and pastry creations using GIB’s Lions Winter Ale.

DATE: Tuesday November 3, 2009

TIME:
2:00pm – cooking @ PICA, Granville Island
1505 West 2nd Avenue, Vancouver BC

4:00pm – tasting and judging @ GIB Tap Room, Granville Island
1441 Cartwright Street, Vancouver BC

About Granville Island Brewing (GIB)
Established is 1984, Granville Island Brewing (GIB) is Canada’s first microbrewery offering a variety of award-winning beers which are brewed and sold here in BC . GIB is dedicated to handcrafting only the finest premium beers that are 100 per cent all-natural and brewed in small batches to provide consumers with the ultimate tasting experience.  In celebration of their West Coast heritage GIB names each beer after iconic Vancouver locations that embody the local lifestyle. From the original Island Lager and English Bay Pale Ale, to Cypress Honey Lager, and now their latest innovation; Brockton IPA, GIB continues to produce a diverse portfolio of beers inspired by life on the West Coast.

About Pacific Institute of Culinary Arts (PICA)
Located at the entrance to Granville Island in Vancouver, British Columbia, Pacific Institute of Culinary Arts offers two diploma-granting professional programs in the Culinary Arts and the Baking & Pastry Arts. Additionally, this culinary centre offers programs for the casual home-chef and industry professionals including intensive wine studies, restaurant operations management and hospitality entrepreneurship.  The onsite restaurant, Bistro-101, and bakeshop at Pacific Institute of Culinary Arts were founded to create a ‘real-world’ training experience for the school’s professional Culinary and Baking & Pastry Arts students. Open to the public five days a week for a la carte dining and available for private events, weddings and catering functions, Bistro-101 at Pacific Institute of Culinary Arts gives guests both a fine-dining experience and a glimpse at the world’s future great Chef’s in training.

Hopscotch Hop Homogenization

Vancouver’s upcoming Hopscotch Festival will be the 12th year it showcases Scotch, whisky, and beer. Unfortunately, unlike Victoria, the city continues to struggle in developing a festival that highlights a diversity of quality craft beer.

Part of the problem seems to be a money issue in that the craft brewers don’t have the marketing dollars the macros do to participate in these events. Therefore, organizers default to a beer lineup that would be familiar to the average mass-market beer consumer. In this case, Big Rock, Granville Island, Lighthouse, Molson (Rickard’s), Okanagan Spring, Pacific Western Brewing, Red Truck, Sleeman, Tree, and Unibroue. Lighthouse, Red Truck, Tree, and Unibroue are for the “more adventurous” punters, largely because they are less well-known and not because they are particularly challenging to drink.

The “exotic” beers are supplied by the importers, many of whom are wine agents with a token beer or two in their portfolio: Anchor, Dos Equis, Grolsch, Kirin, Krusovice, Kulmbacher, Palm, Pilsner Urquell, and Tiger. Most of these beers, however, are macro lagers in their respective countries that are available in the majority of liquor stores here. Ho hum.

The Autumn Brewmaster’s Festival at the Plaza of Nations was a step in the right direction; regretably, it expired. Now, the best that Vancouver can do is the cask ale festivals at Dix BBQ & Brewing and Central City in Surrey. Otherwise, when it comes to beer, you’ll find more interesting offerings at The Alibi Room, the Irish Heather, Six Acres or buying your own at Brewery Creek, Firefly, or Viti.

Hopefully, some day, we’ll have a respectable beer festival in Vancouver that doesn’t have mass-market brands (they already get plenty of exposure in the media) or needs to disguise the thinness of its offerings with alcopops and wine. It shouldn’t be a carbon copy of the GCBF either. I think Victoria has earned the right to its current format. Vancouver ought to come up with something else that distinguishes itself from others so as to present us with a greater opportunity for celebrating craft beer, not competing with others.

Postscript: in the fall of 2009, I gathered a team of friends & acquaintances to plan a “beer week” festival, after coming across San Francisco Beer Week on the Web. The following year, we hosted Vancouver Craft Beer Week, Canada’s first “beer week” festival. The City of Vancouver officially proclaimed May 10-16, “Vancouver Craft Beer Week”. Mayor Gregor Robertson opened the festival by tapping the first cask of VCBW Collaboration Ale at the Alibi Room.

B.C. Recognized at Canadian Brewing Awards

B.C. brewers won 14 out of a possible 63 awards at this year’s 6th Annual Canadian Brewing Awards in Toronto. A panel of 14 certified beer judges evaluated 239 beers from 50 breweries entered in 21 style categories. The following B.C. beers were winners:

Gold

• Lighthouse Lager, Lighthouse Brewing (North American Style Premium Lager)
• Tessier’s Witbier, Buckerfield’s Brewery—Swans (Wheat Beer Belgian Style)
• Hefeweizen, Tree Brewing (Wheat Beer German Style)
• Longboat Chocolate Porter, Phillips Brewing (Fruit and Vegetable)

Silver

• Rocky Mountain Genuine Lager, Fernie Brewing (European Style Lager—Pilsner)
• Belgian Wit, Granville Island Brewing (Wheat Beer Belgian Style)
• Sungod Wheat Ale, R & B Brewing (Wheat Beer North American Style)
• Hop Head IPA, Tree Brewing (India Pale Ale)
• Appleton Brown Ale, Buckerfield’s Brewery—Swans (Brown Ale)

Bronze

• Whistler Weissbier, Whistler Brewing (Wheat Beer German Style)
• Surley Blonde, Phillips Brewing (Belgian Style Ale)
• Swans ESB, Buckerfield’s Brewery—Swans (English Style Pale Ale Bitter)
• Amnesiac IPA, Phillips Brewing (India Pale Ale)
• First Trax Brown Ale, Fernie Brewing (Brown Ale)

Congratulations to the winners in their quest for excellence. Be sure to sample all of the above.

This Week’s Vancouver Casks

With the way Vancouver’s cask nights fall this month, we get to enjoy four firkins this week:

Wolf & Hound Kits Cask
July 30 @ 6:00pm
A winning combination when it comes to summer beer is berries and wheat. Tomorrow’s R & B cask is a Tayberry Sun God Wheat Ale with berries hand-harvested by the good folks at R & B (thanks Kim!). How’s that for a labour of love? This would be great with a creamy, fresh cheese or a green salad with a vinaigrette made with the beer. However, I think your best bet at the W&H, aside from sunshine on the patio, is dessert — vanilla ice cream, New York cheesecake, or anything chocolate.

DIX Cask Thursdays
July 31 @ 5:00pm
Unfortunately, if Derrick mentioned to me what cask he was putting on this week before leaving on vacation, I don’t have any recollection of it. I’m hoping to hear from someone beforehand and will post any updates here. Nevertheless, his Pissing Contest IPA is worth stopping by for if you haven’t tried it yet — 8.9% ABV and 101 IBU. Be careful that you don’t have too many of those on an empty stomach. It’s dangerously good.

Taylor’s Crossing Firkin Friday
August 1  @ 5:00pm
Compared to what Dave Varga is brewing up for Caskival, this month’s cask at TC is a paragon of tradition — Two Lions Pale Ale, dry-hopped with UK Kent Goldings. This is popular with the regular punters, so I would recommend stopping by early if you want to enjoy a classic English Pale Ale.

The Whip Real Ale Sundays
August 3 @ 4:00pm
More berries and wheat, this time from Granville Island. Vern Lambourne has a cask of Raspberry Wheat that will pair just as nicely with the food that goes well with R & B’s Tayberry Sun God above. (Note that The Whip has a new, abbreviated menu.) This should be as popular as Storm’s Raspberry Pils last week.