Andy Cunningham

On our recent trip to Canada, I found a nice variety of brew pubs and microbreweries, and managed to try 59 different beers in two and a half weeks. Most of them in 4oz sampler glasses, I hasten to point out.

But, the collection:

1. Granville Island Lager. Clean, crisp fresh lager. Just the thing on a hot day.
2. Sleemans Honey Brown Lager. Sweet and dark, looks like an ale, but a definitely lager “bite” to the taste.
3. Granville Island 1516 Bavarian Lager. Excellent, stronger flavour than the normal lager.
4. Steamworks Brewery Lions Gate Lager. Crisp, slighly yeasty tasting light-coloured lager.
5. Steamworks Ipanema White Beer. Lightly cloudy and not to yeasty, this is a good beginners’ Hefeweizen. Slightly tart taste with a smooth finish.
6. Steamworks Empress IPA. Smooth and tasty, lots of hops as it should have.
7. Steamworks Signature Pale Ale. Nice, robust taste.
8. Steamworks Nirvana Nut Brown Ale. Great with good, this is robust and hoppy.
9. Steamworks Frambozen (Raspberry). Excellent, not too sweet, this is a “beer drinkers’ frambozen”. At 8.5% it’s a bit powerful, but makes a delicious mix in equal quantites with the Ipanema (a “berry white”) or the Coal Porter (a “black berry”).
10. Steamworks Coal Porter. Intense burnt creamy flavour. Very good, almost a stout rather than a porter.
11. Howe Sound Rail Nut Brown Ale. Didn’t make any notes on this one, sorry.
12. Granville Island Hefewiezen. Now this is the beer to drink on a hot day. Excellent example of the style.
13. Alexander Keith’s Lager. Nice and smooth, just the right bite to it. And at $11 a pitcher, a bargain too.
14. Shaftesbury West Coast Wheat Beer. The only disappointing beer of the trip, no cloudiness and almost tasteless.
15. Big ROck Traditional Ale. Excellent, close to an English bitter in style, but colder. Very smooth and tasty.
16. Kokanee Gold Lager. Described as a “naturally aged amber lager”, but it’s a bit low on taste.
17. Big Rock Grashopper. Slightly sweet lager, with a nice refreshing taste.
18. Grizzly Paw “Randy Goat” Pilsner. Sharo, citrussy notes and very smooth Pils finish.
19. Grizzly Paw “Grumpy Bear” Honey Wheat. Possibly disappointing for Hefeweizen fants because the wheat is toned down, but that does give it much better balance with the honey. Surprising smooth finish (from the honey) for it’s initial sharp taste.
20. Grizzly Paw “Rutting Elk” Red. The best of the three from this brewery, a dark ale with burnt toffee notes. Excellent.
21. Jasper Brewing Co Union Blonde Ale. Perfectly smooth Koelsch style, so smooth it almost feels like a nitro-keg beer (e.g., Boddingtons) in the mouth.
22. Jasper Brewing Co B Hill Pils. Smoother than you’d expect for a Pilsner, but a nice round flavour.
23. Jasper Brewing Co Rockhoppper IPA. A good IPA, loads of hops, almost spicy (cloves and nutmeg) in flavour. Still managed to remain very smooth (seems to be a trademark of the Jasper Brewing Co) despite all the hops.
24. Jasper Brewing Co Honey Bear Ale. “Hint of coriander … blends well with aromatic Germany hops”. I can’t argue with that. Very subtle coriander note, served with lime with makes it rather more fruity than it needs to be.
25. Jasper Brewing Co Liftline Cream Ale. Nitrogen powered pump, described as an “ESB” style. Smooth and creamy very similar to a northern British bitter, think of Boddingtons when they were still independent.
26. Jasper Brewing Co 6060 Stout. Chocolate and coffee flavours, again very smooth and rich.
27. Jasper Brewing Co Smoked Union Blonde. 1% peated malt gives it a smokey hint compared with the normal Blonde – almost like a whiskey chaser!
28. Molson Canadian. Not as bad as expected, it was a limited choice here.
29. Okanagan Spring Pale Ale A rather darker example of the style, but no worse for it. Robust and tasty.
30. Okanagan Springs Lager. German Style Lager with good flavour. Drank rather a lot of this.
31. Whistler Brewing Co. Red Truck Lager. Canadian Barley and Czech hops give a nicely fresh flavour, smooth but with bite.
32. Whistler Brewing Co. Lifty Lager. Longer maturation with Munich malt and European lager yeast gives this lots of good, well balanced flavour.
33. Whistler Brewing Co. High Mountain Pale Ale. Very bitter, hoppy IPA. Still manages to stay smooth despite the hops.
34. Whistler Brewing Co. Red Truck Ale. At the lighter end of the amber style, this is rich and smooth tasting.
35. Whistler Brewing Co. Big Wolf Bitter. Like many many micro bitters, this is very malty tasting but true to the bitter style.
36. Whistler Brewing Co. Frank’s Nut Brown Ale. Smooth, creamy and delicious. Well balanced though could do with a touch more hops.
37. Dirty Miner Stout. Smoother than many stouts, with deep cocoa and coffee notes. Very smooth, creamy, almost port-like finish.
38. Russells Brewery Special Lager. Another good smooth tasting, well balanced lager with plenty of malt.
39. R&B Sun God Lager. “Subtle hint of wheat” in a nice, crisp, refreshing lager.
40. R&B Raven Cream Ale. “Dark Ale with a light refreshing palate”, it says. Almost a stout-like chcolcate note, very nice.
41. Granville Island Palomino Pale Ale. A little flat in falvour, not quite up to the main Granville beers.
42. Swan’s Brew Pub Tessier’s Witbier. Smooth, well balanced, not as sharp as some but very refreshing.
43. Swan’s Brew Pub Arctic Ale. Slightly lacking in body, this one.
44. Swan’s Brew Pub Pandora Pale Ale. Crystal Malt, Goldings and Fuggles hops. Rather more bitter – more IPA than pale, but nice and tasty all the same.
45. Swan’s Brew Pub Raspberry Ale. Fruit and Ale notes both equally present, strong fruity flavour with smooth ale finish.
46. Swan’s Brew Pub Bucklefields Bitter. Lots of malt up front, long hoppy finish, creamy taste throughout. Again, typically maltier than a British bitter would be.
47. Swan’s Brew Pub Appleton Brown Ale. London style brown ale, complex toffee and dried fruit notes, this is an unusual style for a brew pub, but very well executed.
48. Swan’s Brew Pub Oatmeal Stout. Richly deep chocolate and espresso flavours with a smooth burnt finish make this one of my favourite stouts on the whole trip.
49. Swan’s Brew Pub Riley’s Scotch Ale. Again, another unusual style for a brew pub, based on the Scottish “wee heavy”. Rich toffee notes, and a smooth creamy finish.
50. Spinnakers’ Twenty. Late hopped ale, very smooth and lightly hopped.
51. Spinnakers’ Hefeweizen. Clear vanilla and banana notes make this rather unusual, but it’s still true to it’s style. Very good.
52. Spinnakers’ Honey Pale Ale. Very smooth ale, nicely rounded by the honey. Citrus notes in the aftertaste add a nice counterpoint to the honey.
53. Spinnakers’ IPA. Very smooth, good IPA.
54. Spinnakers’ Nut Brown Ale. Good brown ale, cinnamon and raisin flavours, toffee finish.
55. Spinnakers’ Doc’s Pale Ale. Smooth and quaffable English plae ale. Hints of tangerine make for an interesting flavour.
56. Spinnakers’ Extra Special Bitter. Easily the best bitter on the trip, with none of the excess malt that characteries microbrewed bitters.
57. Spinnakers’ Jameson’s Scotch Ale. Like Swans, this is a good take on the Scottish style beers. Lighter, with a hit of peat and lots of malt.
58. Spinnakers’ Irish Stout. Much closer to a commerical stout than some, this is very smooth with hints of chocolate in the aftertaste.
59. Alexander Keiths’ Pale Ale. Forgot to make notes on this one.

So there we have it. Best of the lot? Hard to say, but the Whistler Brewery stands out as having the best overall selection.