This story originally appeared in the Fall 2019 issue of The Growler, out now! You can find B.C.’s favourite craft beer guide at your local brewery, select private liquor stores, and on newsstands across the province. The information contained […]
Brewing Up Gender Parity: The Quest for Beerquality
Women are markedly underrepresented in craft beer. This is not news to anyone. But have you ruminated on just how large the gender gap is? A 2018 survey by Nielsen-Harris found American craft beer drinkers are 68.5 per cent male […]
The new face of craft beer is here
You know that phenomenon when something, seemingly out of nowhere, tickles your brain, then takes up residence, and has you ruminating for months? That’s what happened to me at Bart Watson’s key-note speech at the B.C. Brewers’ Conference back in […]
Label of love: The creative world of modern beer can art
You can’t help it, I can’t help it—we all judge beers by their labels, maybe as much as we judge the beer itself. Beer labels have been around for ages: 83 years on cans, and much longer than that on […]
(You Gotta) Fight for Your Right to Paaaatio!
Picture it—it’s warm, the sun is shining, the beer is cold (but not too cold) and you’re on a patio enjoying it all. If you live in Vancouver, you’d better get up really early in the morning if you want […]
A brewery by any other name…
Anyone who’s done it will tell you that opening a brewery isn’t easy. Choosing the name? Even harder. Despite all the time and effort involved, and having so much riding on choosing the right one, some of B.C.’s breweries have […]
Beer gimmicks, pretentious nonsense and other hipster fuckery
This past fall, gruits – that ancient, hopless beer style flavoured with herbs that seems to be all the rage right now – got me thinking about the elusive line that divides fads, trends, and gimmicks from creative innovations and […]
Free the Hops!
Of the four ingredients in beer, hops are the New World’s contribution. It seems rather fitting then, that North America has its economic paws allll over hops. Trademarks, patents, royalties – how are these business-y things having their way with […]
Does beer have terroir?
The concept of terroir and its influence are enthusiastically debated in the wine world. Very few of the beer geeks I asked cared one whit about terroir, and hadn’t even given it a thought before I asked. After some debate, they decided that although […]