New Brewery: The Napanee Beer Co.

On Saturday July 9th I went into the town of Napanee, (only 15min from home) to make my first visit to one of Ontario’s newest Craft Breweries, The Napanee Beer Company. The brewery is located in an industrial area of town, only a couple minutes from Hwy 401, at 450 Milligan Ln., in an unassuming building. The garage doors were open and 7bbl stainless steel mash tun, kettle and  fermenters glistened in the afternoon sunshine.

I had the pleasure of meeting and speaking to Geordan Saunders, owner and award winning home brewer. Clearly Geordan knows his stuff and is enthusiastic to talk all things beer. First I sampled the breweries current line up, Deadline Premium Lager, Mayday Belgian Pale Ale and Blacklist Dark Lager (Schwazbier), in the tap room. Geordan explained that he is interested in focusing on Belgian and German styles. A great idea! There seems to be a lack of those styles in Ontario at the moment and very few craft brewers seem interested in exploring them.

Next, Geordan gave me a quick tour of the brew-house and told me that they were working on a Belgian Style IPA for the upcoming Grand Opening called Extremist.

The Napanee Beer Co. will be having it’s grand opening: Sat. July 23rd @11am.

All 3 beers currently in the line-up are very good!

Bit of a side note: I don’t know about you, but I tend to get frustrated seeing craft breweries producing so called Premium Lager. At the moment the LCBO seems to fill its limited shelf space with an abundant amount of these Lager beers. Which, in my beer snob opinion, (Warning: The Following May Offend Some) ALL CRAFT LAGER TASTES THE SAME. Before you start calling for my head on a pike let me explain. I’m not suggesting they taste the same as the big breweries, watered down, corn/rice filled garbage. I also realise that my statement is overly broad and that even craft lager has subtle differences, however, I have been less than impressed in recent years with the range of variety found on LCBO shelves. I get the feeling the person in charge of beer purchasing either has absolutely no idea what they should be putting on the shelves or they simply dislike beer, (lager being the only exception). I was pleased to see that Deadline Premium Lager rises above the sameness. It was full flavoured and very refreshing, (I was unable to get a 6 pack the day I was there). I did bring home a 6 pack of Mayday Belgian Pale Ale and 6 pack of Blacklist Dark Lager. Both are excellent and I will be posting full reviews in the near future.

 

Home Brew News: Kit Arrives

Home Brew News: Kit Arrives (time to brew)

Fun and exciting times are coming to Beer’d blog…well for me anyway. A week ago my Brewers Beast home brewing kit arrived from Canadian Home Brew Supplies. This Sunday will be my first (of many no-doubt) brew day. I have been saving bottles for quit some time in anticipation of starting home brewing. Perhaps the toughest decision was what style beer kits to buy…decisions, decisions…

For my first 2 kits I went with the Brewers Best IPA and Scottish Ale grain/extract kits. I plan to brew the Scottish Ale kit first. Looks like the easier of the 2. I plan to take picks of brew day and update as my first ale becomes a reality.

Lunch at Stone City Ales, Kingston

Stone City Ales:

Barrels with “something” aging inside.

A nice little brew pub, located on Princess St., downtown Kingston. Stone City Ales opened its doors July 2014.

In their own words:

Stone City ales is a small craft brewery located in the heart of downtown Kingston. 275 Princess boasts not only our brewhouse but a tap room and bottle shop. Come hang out with us in the tap room, if we’re brewing you’re going to be immersed in the experience along with us only you get to do it with a beer in hand! In addition to our own beers on draft in the tap room we offer Ontario guest taps, Canadian wine, cider, craft soda and wonderful bites from our kitchen.

It is important to note that we are first and foremost a brewery. We are dedicated to making the highest quality beer possible. We don’t cut corners. We don’t rush anything and no, we don’t filter our beer. We source the best ingredients from around the world and use local ones as often as we can without sacrificing quality. Inspired by the American craft beer revolution and by traditional Belgian brewing we aim to make well balanced beers that will blow your mind.

Our bottle shop allows us to sell take-out beer to you right out of our front door. Buying straight from the brewery means you’re getting the freshest, most tasty beer possible – and we’re selling beer to go until 11pm 7 days a week. We hope to see you soon.

Cheers!

The Stone City Ales Family

I finally got my butt in gear this past weekend and made it to down town Kingston to check out the brew pub and enjoy lunch with my wife. They have an interesting and varied menu, without the typical greasy pub grub. Julie had the Candied BLT, a  Ships-in-the-Night-candied local bacon, tomato, crispy iceberg lettuce and garlic aioli served on toasted Bread + Butter sourdough, (which she described as delicious). I decided to try the Banh Mi Gently sandwich, a Vietnamese style sub served on a traditional Vietnamese style baguette (made specially by Bread & Butter Bakery and Fine Pastries) topped with Char Siu pulled pork (Chinese BBQ sauce), sliced cucumbers, pickled carrots and daikon, lime aioli and liver pate all made in-house. A delicious sandwich, which I decide to pair with a glass of Sirena Spring Saison, a limited time specialty brew.

Sirena Spring Saison

I found the Sirena Spring Saison to be a unique summer offering, it opened sweet but quickly moved to a tart and rather dry finish, a nice compliment to the rather sweet Banh Mi sandwich.

Windward Belgium Wheat

My wife decided to try the one and only dessert offering, Cheese Cake Spring Rolls, house-made coffee cheesecake wrapped in phyllo pastry baked and tossed in cinnamon sugar, served with Vietnamese coffee-crème anglaise, (another satisfying menu item). I opted for a second brew instead and had the Windward Belgium Wheat. Foggy and pale golden in colour, it was surprising light in both nose and taste. It had a hint of banana on the nose and was crisp and refreshing.

If you’re in Kingston, passing through or up for a drive I recommend checking out Stone City Ales. Always nice to support local.

The standard line-up at Stone City

•Windward Belgium Wheat: 4.9%, 18 IBU

•12 Star Session Ale: 4.8%, 35 IBU

•Uncharted IPA: 7.0, 70 IBU

•Watchtower Conspiracy Imperial IPA (collaboration with Big Spruce, Cape Breton NS): 9.1%, 85 IBU

•Ships in the Night Oatmeal Stout: 5.6%, 25 IBU

 

Before I forget – make sure to take some beer home! This is what I left with. :^)

 

 

 

 

Spiced Dunkel from Waterloo Brewing

Just a quick post.

I had the pleasure of running into a salesperson from Waterloo Brewing, in the parking lot of the Napanee LCBO, a number of weeks back. I asked him, “Why hasn’t Waterloo done a better job of creating new beer varieties?” I told him that Waterloo Dark was one of the beers that help me make my way into craft beer. I believe it is a good beer for anyone new to craft beer and may be looing to branch out and challenge their pallet with more robust flavours. It is, however, not compelling enough to keep me coming back, as it lacks the complexity I now look for in beer. This could be said about the limited line up Waterloo boasts. Don’t get me wrong, I do not mean to sound…mean, nor diminish a good brewery. Waterloo is one of Ontario’s early craft brewers and I am a supporter of local brewers.

As we spoke in the LCBO parking lot, the salesperson (I can’t remember his name?), pulled out a can of the new seasonal beer Waterloo was about to have in the LCBO, a SPICED DUNKEL. I notice that Waterloo’s web site has a page for this new beer. I haven’t seen it in any stores yet, but when I do I will defiantly give it a try. Hopefully some exciting seasonal beers will bring me back to Waterloo brewing.

 

Episode IV: A NEW HOP

Not so long ago in a galaxy near,

and not that far away…

 

It is a period of beverage war. Craft brewers, striking from unique and varied manufacturing facilities, have struck and won a small market share victory over the evil Big Beer Empire.

The Brewers Association recently reported that craft beer sales have risen, from 5% of American beer sales in 2010, to 11% in 2014. A significant increase over 2013 sales of 7.8%.

So there you go. Rejoice craft beer drinkers. The “force is strong” and we are making gains. No need to worry, right?

Wrong!

It seems that the Dark Side is trying to buy back some of that market share that they have slowly been losing. Perhaps you’ve noticed some of the pathetic attempts by the Big Brewers to concoct and market new products in ways which suggest qualities that are innate to craft beer. Adding “the refreshing hint of lime” or “the crisp refreshing taste of apple” to light beer doesn’t make it better. But this is blatantly obvious to those of us that bother to look. The more insidious way that the Dark Side is trying to gain craft beer credibility is by simply buying up craft breweries. AB Inbev seems to be on a buying spree over recent years, Chicago brewer Goose Island was purchased in 2011. Blue Point Brewing Company was reportedly purchased for $24 million in 2014 and Oregon based craft brewer 10 Barrel Brewing Company was purchased for $10 million. We in Canada have seen this trend before of course, let us not forget that Molson Brewery purchased Creemore Springs Brewery in 2005.

There are two compelling perspectives on all of this money now flowing into the pockets of craft breweries. Firstly, there’s a case for simple capitalism. All the hard work, blood, sweat and tears pay off, and a nice pay day is enjoyed by those scrappy brewers that started the brewery. It’s always nice to see quality succeed in a difficult marketplace. With that comes the added bonus of big beer money supporting the continued production of quality craft beer. Right?

Well…maybe. Of course the Empire will insist that they are not going to interfere with the quality or integrity of the newly purchased craft brewery. I tend to find that harder to swallow than a bottle of Bud on a hot summer day. It’s the job of the Empire to improve shareholder profits. Invariably the pressure to cut costs will be pushed on to the craft brewery at some point. Which would lead to sourcing cheaper ingredients or reducing employees etc., there by leading to a degrading of a once fine product, and the end of the world as we know it!

Sorry. Got carried away.

The second perspective, is of course, outrage!

Yes, we could start screaming, yelling, throwing tantrums on the tear stained carpet.

“Why? Why oh why, did they do it?”

“Those greedy son of a bit%#’s”

Here’s where I plead for calm. I do think that there is a danger of something being lost when a craft brewery is beholden to the Empire. CEO, Carlos Brito, has a notorious “slash and burn” approach for improving profits at AB Inbev for shareholders. An article by Devin Leonard for Bloomberg Business titled, The Plot to Destroy America’s Beer, does a great job of exploring and explaining AB Inbev (I highly recommend it). So if you feel, as I do, that something is lost, then as a consumer, you should inform yourself as to who is owned by whom. Then make a choice to purchase craft beer produced by someone else. Yes I know, you’re saying,

“But Aaron, I love Goose Island IPA.”

I understand, but there are, according to The Brewers Association, more than 3400 craft brewers in the US and hundreds in Canada. I bet there are several if not dozens of brews to replace the loss of those few favorites that can’t help but be turned to the dark side.

P.S.

Episodes I, II and III will come after episode VI, but they will of course suck.

Brew news

I am not a journalist, but I think all craft beer lovers should be as informed as possible when it comes to news surrounding the craft beer industry. Here I will comment on and link to stories regarding beer news that we can all use.