Longtime What’s Brewing columnist J. Random tackles the theme of our Winter 2020 “Virtual Beerality” issue by looking into the future of craft brewing.
Features a graph of BC brewery birth and death rate statistics. Were we already reaching peak beer?
For me in 2020, staying home and stewing has meant staying home and brewing. I brew classic British styles because the mild, bitter, and old ales I crave are rarely produced by BC brewers.
It turns out that during my early days of homebrewing in the UK, my two favourite hops had Canadian origins.
30 years ago, the craft beer enthusiast movement found fertile ground on Vancouver Island when both CAMRA Victoria and What’s Brewing were established. Thirteen years later, CAMRA would establish its first permanent beachhead on the BC mainland. WB contributor J. Random provides a look back at CAMRA Vancouver’s early days at the legendary DIX BBQ & Brewery, and the eventual loss marked by Four Beers & A Funeral.
From our Spring 2020 magazine, aka The Cider Issue:
Longtime columnist J. Random breaks down the history of cider from Europe to British Columbia.
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About the time our ancestors came down from the trees, they developed a taste—or at least tolerance—for the alcohol that naturally develops in rotting fruit. These evolving hunter-gatherers might have fermented a beverage from collected fruit well before agriculture.
Self-serve craft beer bars, as seen in the USA, are great for those of us not endowed with patience to wait for a server to come by our table. But self-service of liquor is not permitted in British Columbia, so don’t look for self-serve beer walls in this province any decade soon.
Funkiness, sourness, fusel alcohols, phenolics, and fruity esters may be highly appropriate in some beer styles, but when I find them spoiling styles not advertised as hybrids, I am not at all happy.
For craft brewers, the quality of the ingredients they use to make beer is critical. Each of the natural products they source from their many suppliers can vary from year to year or even batch to batch.
Rock star is a term that has occasionally been used to describe certain iconic BC brewers. Trading Post’s brewmaster Tony Dewald most definitely suits that label, but unlike others, he is doubly qualified: as a star musician in his youth, and as a star brewer today.
To BC’s current generation of craft beer enthusiasts, owner and brewer Iain Hill might be recognized as one of the brains behind Strange Fellows Brewing Company. His influence on BC’s beer scene, however, runs more broadly and deeply than even longtime fans might know.
Yes, Mr. Editor, I’m aware this issue is all about travel, but who in their right mind leaves Vancouver this time…
That's All There Was!
That's All There Was!