{"id":16376,"date":"2018-09-08T22:28:16","date_gmt":"2018-09-09T05:28:16","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/?p=16376"},"modified":"2018-09-12T07:41:15","modified_gmt":"2018-09-12T14:41:15","slug":"not-even-rain-can-ruin-the-great-canadian-beer-festival","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/2018\/09\/08\/not-even-rain-can-ruin-the-great-canadian-beer-festival\/","title":{"rendered":"Not even rain can ruin the Great Canadian Beer Festival"},"content":{"rendered":"

The weather wasn’t great on Friday, but not much can really ruin a weekend like the one the Great Canadian Beer Festival offers. The fest’s triumphant return this year, on Friday, September 7 and Saturday, September 8, was tons of sudsy fun, despite the return of fall weather. Nexus\u00a0<\/em>went, Nexus\u00a0<\/em>conquered a whole lot of great beers. Here\u2019s what I can remember.<\/p>\n

On Friday, the festival led media through a sampling tour; first off was East Vancouver Brewing Company’s When it Rains it Porter, a 5.0% American-style porter that went down smooth and had a carbonated kick that threatened to be overpowering but didn’t quite distract from the malty notes of this delicious dark brew. Next up was Ravens Brewing Company’s award-winning 4.5% Corvus Lingoberry Lime Gose; this seems like a good time to mention that I generally don’t want fruit anywhere near my beer, so even the saltiness of the gose couldn’t distract me from the fact that this felt more like a juice than a beer. Well done for fans of the flavour, no doubt; that just ain’t me.<\/p>\n

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Cheers, Spinnaker\u2019s Bourbon Black Lager, you amazing beer, you (photo by Greg Pratt\/Nexus<\/em>).<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Moving along to Sooke Brewing Company’s IPA, a big 7.0% whopper of an IPA that more than held its own; it’s a sweet drink, but it also is bold and heavy, a tricky balance that Sooke Brewing got right here. I expected to hate Whitehorse’s Winterlong Brewing’s Spruce Tip pale ale; I dislike forest \u201ctones\u201d in my beer as much as I dislike fruit in my beer (I’m trying to be unhealthy here, people) but Winterlong somehow made this one, which had heavy raspberry overtones, taste good. I wouldn’t drink a lot of it, but this is pretty convincing stuff.<\/p>\n

Fuggles & Warlock’s Last Strawberry witbier had lychee berries and strawberries and tasted more like one of my kids’ juiceboxes than a beer. Again, done well, but not for me. Locals Swans had the GCBF Collaboration Dunkelweizen on tap, and this 5.5% dunkel was a victory, all dark, malty, complex, and delicious. It was the best beer of the media tour, and a great way to end it off.<\/p>\n

Then, we were left to our own devices. And, because space is short, let’s do this: Cannery’s Naramata Nut Brown Ale was great, easy drinking but with enough rich dark flavours and a bit of sourness. Spinnaker’s Bourbon Black Lager was incredibly thick, strong, and smoky; tons of great flavour in this amazing drink. Persephone’s Dry Irish Nitro Stout was really smooth and really, really good, with hints of mocha helping it go down; surprisingly refreshing for such a dark beer.<\/p>\n

Lighthouse’s Siren’s Echo Imperial Red Ale was strong, tons of flavour, almost too bitter but refreshing all the same. It’s a great drink, unlike their Numbskull Imperial IPA, which they poured a citra edition of at the fest; it was just way too much of a bitter hop explosion for my tastes.<\/p>\n

Brittania’s Ashore Rye Porter was one of my favourites, with a bit of spice from the malted rye; Bomber’s Russian Imperial Stout was a huge 9.5% and brewed with oak chips, which I assume added to its incredibly strong and tasty flavour. A serious drink but seriously worth it.<\/p>\n

White Sails\u2019 Cathedral Grove California Common was a very well-balanced, malty but still light drink (in my notes: \u201chappiness,\u201d which was either a weird autocorrect thing or me being drunk). Category 12\u2019s Juicy Data Hayz IPA had a refreshing, fruity nose (and, again, I don\u2019t want fruit in beer, so that\u2019s saying a lot), and went down easy, with a thicker body than IPAs usually have. Blasted the hell out of my taste buds though, with a bit too much lingering bitterness.<\/p>\n

Trois Mousquetaires PQ\u2019s Porter Baltique was a big 10% porter with a surprisingly light body and a very strong, tasty flavour to it. Delicious. Back to Category 12 and their Mainframe Red Ale, which was quite hoppy for a red ale, a lively combo that worked. Twa Dogs\u2019 Rebel Run ESB was a fantastic ESB, with a perfect amount of flavour; it was easy to drink, with a nice dry finish.<\/p>\n

I saved the biggies for last: a 2015 Thor\u2019s Hammer from Central City had hints of toffee and sherry and a mouthful of oh my god this is one of the best beers ever, and Fieldhouse\u2019s Salted Black Porter, which packed a good bite and was nowhere near as \u201clook at me!\u201d as it could have been; instead, Fieldhouse took on a complex beer and emerged victorious, the subtle saltiness mixing perfectly with the porter’s pitch-black beauty.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The weather wasn’t great on Friday, but not much can really ruin a weekend like the one the Great Canadian Beer Festival offers. The fest’s triumphant return this year, on Friday, September 7 and Saturday, September 8, was tons of sudsy fun, despite the return of fall weather. Nexus\u00a0went, Nexus\u00a0conquered a whole lot of great […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":16377,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-16376","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-life"],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16376","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=16376"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16376\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":16381,"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16376\/revisions\/16381"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/16377"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=16376"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=16376"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=16376"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}