B.C. breweries clean up at the Canadian Beer Awards
B.C. breweries owned the podium last weekend at the Canadian Beer Awards, proving, yet again, that the West Coast is the Best Coast. In all, close to 50 of the 167 medals for beer went to BC breweries, including Revelstoke’s Mt. Begbie Brewing, which won the coveted brewery of the year honours.
Among the gold-medal winners were Moon Under Water’s Potts Pils (Kellerbier/Zwickelbier), Mt. Begbie’s High Country Kolsch (German Style Kölsch) and Begbie Cream Ale (Cream Ale), Cannery’s Kiek in de Kök (Baltic Porter), Steamworks and Dageraad’s East of East Van Saison collab (French and Belgian Style Saison), Steamworks’ Black Angel IPA (American-Style Black Ale), Foamers’ Folly’s Blacksnake Porter (Porter), R&B Brewing’s Red Devil Pale Ale (English Style Pale Ale), Off The Rail Belt Up ESB (English Bitter), Strathcona’s British IPA (British India Pale Ale), Trading Post’s Smuggler’s Trail Rye Amber Ale (North American Style Amber Lager), Powell’s Lazy D’Haze IPA (American Style India Pale Ale), Townsite’s Blackberry Sour (American-style Sour Ale), Whistler Brewing’s Chestnut Ale (Herb and Spice Beer), Coal Harbour’s Smoke & Mirrors Imperial Smoked Ale (Smoked Beer), Central City’s Thor’s Hammer (Barley Wine-Style Ale – English-Style) and Hastings Mill Brewing Company’s Griswold Winter Ale (Flavoured Stout/Porter).
Check out many of the award-winning brews this weekend at the Vancouver Craft Beer Week Festival, June 3 and 4 at the PNE Fairground. For the full contest results visit CanadianBrewingAwards.com.
Main Street celebrates third anniversary with Hoppy Tripel
Vancouver’s Main Street Brewing is celebrating its third anniversary by releasing a Belgian tripel (of course), and it’s pretty fantastic. This West Coast take on the Old World classic features a heavy dose of Mosaic and Cascade hops, which perfectly complement the fruity Belgian yeast esters. This thing is light-bodied, dangerously smooth, and goes down WAY easier than its 8% ABV suggests. So be careful, is alls I’m saying.
KPU students win gold, silver
Students from Kwantlen Polytechnic University’s brewing program won gold and silver medals at the recent 2017 U.S. Open College Beer Championship, and placed second overall amongst brewing schools in North America.
The competition is the only brewing contest exclusively for colleges and universities that have brewing programs in North America.
Competing against 13 other post-secondary institutions, this was the first time KPU entered the contest.
First-year students Derek Kindret and Ryan Jurgens won gold in the Belgian category for their witbier. Jurgens also took home silver in the Bavarian category for the helles lager he brewed with fellow first-year student Adam Chittick.
“It feels great to have our students win gold and silver medals,” said instructor Alek Egi in a press release. “This experience is invaluable for our students; building their confidence as they launch their professional brewing careers and earning them international recognition, and is an indicator of the strong talent coming out of the KPU brewing diploma program.”
You can try KPU student’s brews at, you guessed it, the Vancouver Craft Beer Week Festival this weekend, June 3 and 4 at the PNE Fairgrounds.
