Victoria Beer Week is returning in full force this year, with a collection of events that makes its lacklustre showing last year seem like a bad dream. This weekend, I happily attended the first two nights to see what some of the craft beer breweries that were there had to offer.
Lift Off! was held at the Powerhouse, and featured new brews from 15 local breweries. I started the evening off sampling the With the Tides Vol. 2 Mango Dry Hopped Fruit Ale (4.7% ABV) by White Sails Brewing. This easy-drinking ale has a gentle fruit flavour, with a crisp hoppy opening that lingers into the aftertaste.
Howl Brewing offered its Northern Flora Gruit (5%), a herbal ale with thyme, mugwort, elecampane root, yarrow, rosemary, and juniper, which carries a startlingly low-key malty intro with strong herbal flavours. It’s definitely a unique taste, but it has a conspicuously thin body which feels like it’s missing something.
La Cerveceria Astilleros brought their Tres Leches Lemon Dessert Sour (3.8%), which certainly earns its name. This sour beer is indeed reminiscent of lemon meringue pie, but, to its detriment, it also tasted like I was drinking lemon extract straight from the bottle, with none of the sweet redemption of its baked namesake.
L’Authentique Poutine & Burgers was the cuisine on offer for the night. Their burger poutine is more or less regular poutine with added ground beef and spices. On its own it was decent, but a little hot sauce really made the dish sing.
Luppolo Brewing Co. brought its Piccolo Helles Lager (4.7%) to the event, and it’s everything you could want from a good lager: it’s crisp and clean with mild hops and low malt. It also has a gentle but distinct floral flavouring, a result of its Saaz noble German hops. This was my favourite of the evening.
LoveShack Libations offered Bob’s Yer Dunkel (5.4%), which is a malt-heavy dark ale with just the right amount of hops to balance it out, and very subtle caramel and nutty undertones. This is a beer you could drink too much of on the beach, without realizing until it’s too late and it’s time to call a cab.
I finished the night off with a bang, with Longwood Brewery’s Conjunction Double Dry Hopped IPA (8.5%). A grimace and a shiver was my first reaction, but not in a bad way. At 8.5% you should know full well what you’re getting into. It has a dark, heavy body and hops that hit you right at the back of the tongue, but overall it’s actually quite a straightforward brew that tells you its intentions right from the first sip, with nothing to hide.
The following evening, I attended Barrels & Casks at the Victoria Public Market, featuring wood-aged concoctions from nine breweries.
I started off nice and easy with Framboise (6%) from Spinnakers, a light raspberry ale, sweet but tart, with a good balance of hops and malts. You might just forget that it’s alcoholic, so be sure to keep it out of reach of your children.
Strange Fellows Brewing had several offerings; I sampled their Balaton Wild Ale With Cherries. For 8.3%, it hits far lighter than expected, and it has a bit of a leathery aftertaste stemming from its Brettanomyces yeast, which takes a bit of getting used to, as does the bitterness. A difficult beer to drink much of in one sitting, but it’s certainly unique and memorable.
Russell Brewing offered a curious concoction, the Pina Colada Milkshake IPA (7%), which has a beautiful frothy head and a strong tart flavour. This is a special, one-of-a-kind brew, with added pineapple, coconut and lactose milk sugar, as well as a splash of rum, which makes it an excellent beer for pirates.
For a small snack, I tried the Philips braised pulled pork sliders from Roast sandwich shop. This little pork sandwich with onion is a blast of protein with a slice of pickle on the side. While decent enough, it wasn’t a flavour I’d come back for, which wasn’t helped at all by it being nearly cold. With that said, if someone else picks up the tab I wouldn’t turn it down.
From Sooke Oceanside Brewery came the Lone Starr Schwarzbier (4.8%), a dark lager with vanilla and coconut added to the cask. It has a creamy head, and is deep and malty. Its surprisingly low ABV is belied by its thinner body, but it’s a great compromise for those who want a strong-tasting dark beer without having to go home early.
Up next was the Monolith Barrel-Aged Barley Wine (12.4%) from Howe Sound Brewing. A true barley wine, this beer is so strong it actually made me cough on the first sip. It’s not shy at all with its dark, burnt caramel flavours, but is also surprisingly sweet. Drinking this beer is like dipping into grandpa’s cough medicine, and you should make sure to clear your schedule for the night.
Well, I needed a bit of a break after that humdinger, so I sampled a beer-braised chicken taquito from Taco Stand. The jalapeno jack cheese gave it a mild burn, while the cilantro jalapeno crema serves as both a neutral balance and an additional spicy kicker. This deep-fried delicious guilty pleasure is greasy in all the best ways, and it went down faster than I could breathe.
Finally, I finished the night off with some Maple Bourbon Imperial Stout (11.2%) from Barnside Brewing. A beer that can hold its own in a bar fight, this badass brew earns its stripes by threatening to punch your lights out. Aged for 12 months in bourbon barrels, it boasts a dark smoky taste that invokes the image of old Western saloons, with wolves howling in the distance beneath a full moon.
Victoria Beer Week runs until Saturday, April 9. Visit victoriabeersociety.com for details.