BrewVic Saison Meet

Finally a return to blogging. I moved house again at the start of this month and this has led to the inevitable slowdown in brewing and blogging, but its good to be back. Last week the BrewVic saison meet was held at my place, and it went off well. We had good attendance and lots of beers to try. There were around ten of us who brewed saisons specifically for the event using a variety of recipes, techniques, and yeasts. We began with a quick talk on the history of the saison, which emerged from time immemorial on the farmhouses of Wallonia to nourish and refresh the harvest workers. We then tried a couple commercial examples like the classic saison DuPont and the excellent local saison Deckhand, from Lighthouse brewing. Finally, we moved to the homebrew tasting, taking notes and allowing the brewers to talk about the details of their beers, followed by a round table discussion. There was a great variety in the ingredients used in the beers, from rye, to orange, to pepper, to brettanomyces and one thing that impressed me was the overall quality of the beers in general. Another thing that stood out was the different characters of the yeasts used, there was a pretty even split between people using the DuPont yeast (Wyeast 3724/WLP565) and the Brasserie Thiriez yeast (Wyeast 3711). The DuPont yeast really kicked out that classic saison fruitiness, whereas the Thiriez had that intense satisfying dryness that the DuPont couldn't quite achieve. This was a great event and it was awesome to see so many Victoria brewers getting together, hopefully we will have more events like this one in the near future.

Basement Brewing at Moon Under Water

This past Sunday I spent a great day brewing at Victoria's newest brewpub, Moon Under Water. Don, Ron, and Bonnie Bradley, the proprietors of Moon, were good enough to allow me into the inner sanctum of the pub to help out with a bit of brewing. Ron and myself spent the day labouring over the incredible nano-brew rig (55L batches) constructed in entirety by Don (the elder Bradley), a contraption that just about any homebrewer would kill for.

Home Brewing at Hoyne - First BrewVic Meeting in the Books

The past weekend's inaugural meeting of BrewVic is all done and was a great success. Thanks to the hospitality of Sean Hoyne we were able to conduct the meeting at the brand-new, soon-to-be-pumping-out-stellar-beer Hoyne Brewing in Rock Bay. My brew system, as well as that of Dave and Dan from Beer On The Rock were in action for all to see. My brew system is somewhat ghetto compared to the boys' rig, so people could see a couple different takes on home brewing.

Trip to Portland aka "Beervana"

My trip to Portland over the long weekend began with a ferry ride to Anacortes, Washington State, then a cruise south down the I-5. We stopped for diesel along the way at a place that appeared to not even be a town, just a gas station and convienience store on the side of the road. When I went inside to grab a drink I was blown away by the contents of the beer fridge. Sierra Nevada? New Belgium? Deschutes? All for under 10 bucks... in this place? Are you kidding me? Apparently not. Welcome to south of the  border.

Basement Breweries Homebrew Shindig

Another tasting shindig at Basement Breweries is in the books and we had a great turnout this time around. After the success of last year's tasting party I was looking forward to holding another gathering and putting up my new beers for general review. This time there were nine beers to try ranging from an easy drinking saison to a heavy-duty Imperial stout. We got more organised about it and printed up scoring cards so everyone could rate the beers and leave comments on their impressions. Many thanks go out to all those who helped make this night come together.

Spinnakers Spring Firkin Festival

My last outing to a beer festival, the Island Beer Fest, was memorable for all the wrong reasons so I was hopeful the latest cask festival at Spinnakers would be a big improvement. At $35 dollars a ticket ($30 for CAMRA members) it wasn't cheap, but when it comes to beer events, I rarely take much convincing.

The Island Beer Fest

I very nearly didn't go to the Island Beer Fest, which was held at Club 9One9, downstairs from the Strathcona hotel. I figured that maybe it would just be all the beers I was used to seeing in the pubs around Victoria without much that was new or exciting. But a number of my friends were going and I figured maybe there would be some upcoming beers available for the first time, so I relented. I wish I'd gone with my first instinct.

Wet Hopped IPA Tasting

I had been looking forward to this night ever since I decided it was a good way to try the new wet-hopped IPAs that I picked up on a recent trip to Whidbey Island in Washington State. Wet-hopped, or fresh-hopped IPAs are made from hops that have never been dried, but have gone straight from the field to the kettle, and thus showcase the hop in its most natural form.

The Island's own version of this style, Driftwood's Sartori, is one of my all-time favourite beers. It can only be brewed once a year, during hop harvest, and always becomes a heavily sought after item for local hop-heads. (Note: I recently picked up 4 bottles from an undisclosed liquor outlet, score!) In addition to Sartori five of us would be blind tasting three US brews: Sierra Nevada Estate Homegrown Ale, Bridgeport Hop Harvest Ale, and Great Divide Fresh Hop Pale Ale, and putting them in order from first to worst. Starting from the bottom, lets talk about the beers.

IPA Tasting Night

I was fortunate enough to be invited to one of the famous IPA tasting nights at the Sutherland's in the heart of Oak Bay, and it more than lived up to its reputation. Our task for the night would involve sampling and rating a total of 19 beers including a few from Basement Breweries. The beers to be judged were mostly IPAs with the odd stout, lager, and berry beer thrown in to keep us on our toes. The tasting was conducted blind, without any knowledge of the beer in question. This added an intriguing element.