Canadian Beer Round-Up

While in Victoria this season, as with Alaska, I tried a lot of different beers.  Here we are going to focus on three Canadian breweries with brews that I particularly liked:

Phillips Brewery

Along with Service 1904 which I talked about last post I tried several beers from Phillips Brewery.  Blue Buck is what seems to be their stock beer – a pale ale with a bitter, biscuit flavour.  Analogue 78 is a Kölsch style beer with a creaminess to it that I also found in the Service 1904.  It was wheaty with a buttery aroma overlapping a freshness that was quite pleasant.  I think I have made it quite clear in previous posts that I enjoy a good raspberry wheat and the offering of this style from Phillips is very tart with a raspberry beginning.  I enjoyed the wheat aftertaste but wished this brew had more body.  I found the selection from Phillips Brewery to be quite satisfying and diverse.

Cannery Brewing Co

I have a friend who currently lives in Vancouver (which we will return to shortly) but studied in Victoria.  One day she picked us up from the ship and we went to her friend’s house for a bbq and some beers.  I picked up Cannery Brewing Co’s taster pack (in cans, no less) and really enjoyed it.  For a start I think a mixed six pack, three each of a style, is an awesome idea.  I know Boston Brewing Co also does mixed sixes, this idea needs to come over the pond for sure!  In my taster pack was their IPA, their Nut Brown Ale and the Anarchist Amber.  Of the three the Nut Brown was my favourite – brown with a tan head, a sweet, malty aroma that continues into the flavour with a good balance of nuttiness also.  The Amber came a close second being bitter to begin followed by a malt sweetness and a caramel finish.  The IPA wasn’t quite fruity enough for me, leaning more to the malty side of the IPA spectrum, but was still drinkable.  These guys are also pretty active on twitter so if you try their offerings, let them know, they like the feedback.

Steamworks Brewing Co

Back to Vancouver then, where we stopped just once and my friend came to visit again.  This time we had lunch at Steamworks Brewing Co which has a good selection on offer.  I tried the Frambozen (obviously) first, and this has become an instant favourite.  It is bright red in colour with a low pink tinged head and smells strongly of raspberry sweetness with a sour background.  The taste is pure raspberry with a bitter aftertaste that balances the sweet beautifully.  Secondly I tried their Ipanema White wheat ale which was also very tasty.  This is a very aromatic brew smelling of orange and spice, but unlike some of this style these are not overpowering in the taste which sometimes puts me off.  Slightly floral and spicy but balanced with a creaminess I enjoyed this brew almost as much as the Franbozen.

Before I sign off for this post I should also mention Lighthouse Brewing Co and Vancouver Island Brewing, who I also had some interesting offerings from.  If you are every in Canada, there is so much to choose from you will definitely find something that suits your taste buds!

Beer House, Estonia

Beer House is a microbrewery in the medieval town of Tallinn in Estonia.  It has a good selection of beer brewed on the premises and boasts a tradition honey lager and a premium lager supposedly endorsed by a Prussian king.  The story goes that the Prussian king was passing through the town and tried Beer House’s Premium and deemed it the best beer in the land so it was brewed under his royal seal.  It is a pretty good beer, an instant fave with me for its sweetness.

Beer House also offers a great selection of food – their pizza is pretty good – and a great atmosphere with old style wooden benches and tables and an inside back patio set up like a medieval village.  The wait staff are even in period costume with buxom wenches and lederhosen clad fellas

If you are in Estonia you should definitely go check it out.  I’m only sad I may never get the chance to drink some BH Premium again!

Check out their website here

The Heineken Experience - Amsterdam

While I was in Amsterdam back in April I visited the Heineken Experience.  This is more of a museum and activity center than a brewery tour as Heineken hasn’t been brewed in the old brewery since the 80s, but it is still worth a visit for those of us interested in beer.

Half of the Experience is about how the company was built through four generations of the Heineken family and how they developed the world renowned beer we know today.  The second half of the Experience explores the marketing side of the company, which has played a huge part in its success.

I was very interested to learn that currently the company is owned by a woman, Charlene de Carvalho-Heineken.  She gives you a little speech via video part way through.  When you get into the old brewery proper with the mash tuns and old equipment on display you get a chance to taste the wort made from the ingredients Heineken brews with.  I didn’t realize how sweet and like warm cereal it would taste!  I also had a go at stirring the wort while wearing traditional brewers garb.

One of the activities you can take part in is being brewed.  You are shown a video discussing the brewing process while standing on a platform that moves.  It shakes and mixes you while the temperature in the room also changes and you get sprayed with water!  I apparently now know how malts feel.

There is of course the obligatory beer tasting at the end of the Experience.  With your ticket you get a wrist band with three tokens on.  One token is good for a half pint.  You get a half pint in the tasting and then at the very end can get more in the World Bar. 

Overall I found the Heineken Experience interesting, it is definitely a different approach to a beer tour.  A lot of the information is about the company and its marketing process however so if all you really want to know about is the beer and the brewing process, that side is a little light.  I still think it is worth seeing though, but you definitely have to be a beer or business enthusiast to really enjoy it.

Beers in Europe

Hello! Welcome to A Woman’s Brew. I started this blog to record my adventures with beer as I travel around the world… unfortunately work got in the way and I haven’t had chance to really get stuck in.  So let’s try again!

There are so many things that I want to write about yet so little time to do it. However, I am drinking beer and trying new styles all the time.  So maybe the best place to start is my tasting notes.

Back in April and May I was in Europe and got to sample some new brews while I was there. I had the usual suspects such as Sagres in Azores and Heineken in Amsterdam (more on that later) but I also got a few more enticing numbers:

Weische Witte

Drank this complex brew in Amsterdam after a day visiting the Heineken Experience. I enjoyed it a lot as there wasn’t too much clove but some fresh citrus flavours to refresh the palette.

Pilsner Urquell

Though I didn’t get chance to go to its homeland, I tried this beer in the crew bar of my cruise ship.  I felt it had a chewy mouth feel and good biscuity taste.

Lapin Kulta

This native of Helsinki, Finland went really well with my chicken and garlic pizza – a slight lime aroma with a citrus alkaline kick.  It is golden in the glass with a slight foam head and bitter biscuit and lime flavour.

Rostocker Pils Premium

While in Warnemunde, Germany, you can’t get much more local than this.  However, I wasn’t too impressed with this brew.  It has an astringent, lemony aroma that continues into the flavour and unfortunately reminded me of dish water. I had a Krombacher to wash the taste away and was much happier.

So, there’s a start to my beer travels.  Keep an eye out for more about the Heineken Experience in Amsterdam and a blog post all of it’s own for the beers I tried in Estonia!

What's My Story?

I have only been drinking beer since 2008. I thought you might like to know
how this came about, so here's my story...

I have tried beer at various times throughout my life. My grandad and uncle
would dip our dummies in their pints when we were little. As I got old
enough to drink alcohol myself I didn't really like beer. I was girl, I
drank fruity drinks.

In 2007 I began work on cruise ships and the crew bar only served beer and
wine. I'm not a big wine drinker. I only really like white wine and sweet
ones at that. That left me with Smirnoff Ice.... Which was so sugary it
gave me indigestion. I had to find something else to drink...

I suffered the lack of suitable beverages until the summer of 2008. I was
on a different ship by then and with new people. While in the crew bar one
night one of my male friends went to buy me a drink and the conversation
went something like this:
Him: What do you want?
Me: A Smirnoff
Him: I'm not buying you that, it's basically Sprite, I'm getting you a beer
Me: But I don't like beer!
Him: You've never had a Sam Adams, have you?

He was right, I hadn't... I loved it! To this day Sam Adams is still my
favourite. It opened me up to a whole world of hoppy goodness. From there
I wanted to try more - lagers, ales, stouts, fruit based. I have found a
world of flavours in beers and I want to find more!