Not the first brewery to take a political stance, but a notable political stance to take.
(via theblager)
“This machine kills imports.” I’ll definitely be saving the cap from this one:
Beau’s All Natural Brewing Company is a certified organic, family-run brewery located in Vankleek Hill, Ontario, here in Canada. I managed to get a single bottle (instead of the usual 4-pack) of their Lug Tread Lagered Ale from the LCBO’s weird basket of random, loose beers.
It’s a 600mL brown bottle, with 5.2% ABV. The bottle-cap, I’ve mentioned, is a keeper.
It pours a pale golden colour, with about two fingers of white head, which reduces to a ring around the glass and some lacing. It’s very clear. A lot of visible carbonation at first.
The smell is floral, herbal, a bit biscuity, and mostly grassy.
Mouthfeel is a bit thin, not watery, but a bit thin. It’s refreshing, and it really works here.
The taste is like the smell: sweet, grainy, grassy, biscuity malts, and enough floral hops to balance it out. It’s not a particularly strong-tasting beer, though I wouldn’t call it bland.
It’s a little light for my own tastes, but if you’re looking for a good, crisp, refreshing summer beer, check out Beau’s Lug Tread Lagered Ale. I’m not going to grade it, because I don’t know enough about its style (Kölsch), but Beer Advocate gives it a solid B, or a B+ according to the bros, and Rate Beer gives it a 48, but an 80 according to the style.
Liquor Bottle Hummingbird Feeders:
Etsy shop Deelux Designs uses liquor bottles to make these backyard feeders, filled with colored food that looks disturbingly like the real thing – but you could also use wine or beer bottles in a simple wire holder, as illustrated at Crafting a Green World. The feeder tubes are sold on Amazon.com for less than a dollar each, so plan on making some to sell or give away as gifts.
Buy local. Not a new concept but one that is not often practiced or understood. Especially given the American mindset in which we’re entitled to get whatever we want, from wherever we want, whenever we want.
This is the first of what we hope will be many beer reviews here on the Green Alcoholism blog. And it’s a beer of particular importance for this inaugural review’s author, Andrew, me, for three reasons: Flying Monkeys is located in heart of the town I grew up in — Barrie, Ontario; my first brewery tour ever, about four months back, was of the Flying Monkeys brewery (Green Alcoholism co-author Steven Herold came too); and the Cascadian Dark Ale style might just be everything I want in a beer — it’s got the roasted malts of a stout, with all the coffee, caramel, and other roasty characteristics, plus the hop characteristics of an IPA. My two favourite styles fused into a wonderfully black, highly-aromatic pint.
I can’t really speak to the sustainability or ecological impact of Flying Monkeys, though we learned during the brewery tour that Flying Monkeys does not use isinglass, and now augments local water instead of shipping in spring water like they used to. If you are vegan, be sure to ask breweries via email whether their products are vegan, or which of their products are vegan.
Without further ado, the Netherworld Cascadian Dark Ale comes in a 355ml brown bottle, at 6% ABV. It pours a dark, dark red colour, essentially black, like Coca-Cola, with a one-finger tan head, which dissipates fairly quickly. Because it is so dark, visible carbonation is almost impossible to gauge. Scent is mainly pine and citrus hop notes — typical of Flying Monkeys beers, and I thank them for it. Chocolate and coffee notes are also prominent. Mouthfeel is surprisingly light, moderately carbonated, and the hop bitterness tends to dance on the tongue and leave a lingering pine taste. Taste is intense but well-balanced; it is truly the best of both worlds, at least to my own preferences, which lean either toward the pine/citrus hops often used in American Pale Ales, or to the chocolate and coffee malts of Porters, Stouts or, even better, Imperial Stouts. With the Netherworld Cascadian Dark Ale, I don’t have to choose between either pale or dark ale. Hence the word ‘Cascadian,’ which avoids the whole contradiction problem of calling this style a ‘Black Pale Ale.’ You get the roasted malt, chocolate and coffee notes of a good porter or stout, as well as the pine/citrus hop notes of American Pale Ales associated most strongly with the Pacific Northwest.
Overall, this is a great beer. Beer Advocate gives it a B+, and Rate Beer gives it a 95. I would suggest something like an A grade, or a percentage grade in the mid- to high-eighties. I feel like I would sooner reach for a great stout, or a great pale ale, before reaching for this great blend of both styles, but all told this is a delicious, fairly-potent beer that I highly recommend. We should all be so lucky to have something so good in our hometown.
There are two reasons why the Ontario politicians have latched on to looser alcohol regulations as a cheap way to pander to voters. First, although Canadians are far from champion drinkers—Canada’s alcohol consumption per head ranks 23rd out of 30 OECD countries—beer has a special place in the national psyche. It is the tipple of choice, out-selling wine and spirits, both nationally and in Ontario. Perhaps more importantly, the beer companies have adroitly aligned their beverages with iconic Canadian pastimes, such as ice hockey, and with an outspoken brand of nationalism. At one point the Molson Brewery owned a majority of the Montreal Canadiens ice hockey team. The “I am Canadian” ad by that same brewery, which featured a man in a lumberjack shirt ranting about American misconceptions of Canada, became a national hit, uniting as it did Canadians’ love of beer and their latent anti-Americanism. (Molson retired the slogan in 2005, shortly after it merged with Coors, an American brewer.)
The second reason is that Ontario has traditionally been heavy-handed with its regulations on drinking. In 1927 the province struck a deal with pro-temperance voters, agreeing to control the sale of alcohol and keep it away from the underage and undesirable in exchange for putting an end to Prohibition. Until the 1980s you could not buy a drink in Ontario on a Sunday without ordering food. Even today it is illegal to stand outside a bar with a drink in your hand unless you are on a licensed patio. And the provincial government still will not allow the sale of beer and wine at corner stores, as is allowed in the more adventurous province of Quebec.
Garrett Oliver, in a New York Times op-ed piece from 2007:
Industrial beer is still the vast majority of the American market, and it’s not going away tomorrow, but there is no future in it. While industrial beers suffer flat or declining sales, craft brewers are experiencing double-digit growth. The big brewers now try to copy craft beers. European brewers, who once laughed at watery American beer, now look to the United States for inspiration.
The problem, as far as stouts are concerned, is that the low concentration of dissolved nitrogen means the process works at only a 15th of the rate seen in ales and lagers. But Dr Lee has an answer to that: more cellulose. He and his team spiked their beer with extra fibres from a cut-up coffee filter and watched the bubbles form under a microscope. By crunching the numbers from these observations, they calculate that lining a can of stout with nine square centimetres of fibres should form a head as good as that produced by a widget. If their method works on an industrial scale it will have two benefits. Stout will be cheaper. And those irritating adverts proclaiming that you do not need to know how a widget works in order to enjoy its benefits will disappear for ever.
