Advent is over, but the adventure continues

24 days. 24 beers. 17 countries later, our Holiday BeerADVENTure has come to an end.

It’s amazing to think that, had we gone from brewery to brewery, day after day to sample each beer, we would’ve had to travel over 163,000km!

Much thanks to Craft Beer Importers for their commitment to putting this calendar together. And thank you for joining us on this beer-tasting journey.

Although the calendar is now empty, no more bottles behind the windows, please don’t let that stop you from continuing to try different beers with curiosity, excitement and passion. Come see us at Legacy Liquor Store! We’ll make sure you find something that tickles your taste buds.

Wishing you a Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year (and beers) to come.  ~Legacy Liquor Store Beer Team

Last Day of Advent: Entendez Nöel

Entendez Nöel

Origin: Sound Brewery (Poulsbo, Washington, USA)

Style: Belgian Pale Quad

ABV: 11.5%

IBU: 50

Description: When I saw this beer I was truly excited. Sound Brewing makes great Belgian styles usually with their twist. Entendez Nöel is categorized as a Pale Quadrupel, we could also think of this as a strong Belgian Golden ale. Upon first pour aromas of spice, fruit, and a slight hint of bubblegum billow out of the glass, with spice and banana being the dominant aromas. There is also a subtle hint of alcohol, which one would expect from a beer with such a high alcohol content. The taste followed the aroma very closely with dominating flavours of fruit and spice, with a slight warming of alcohol. This beer is incredibly balanced, it is neither too sweet nor dry, and has the perfect amount of bitterness to balance out the malt character. This is usually fairly hard to do when brewing a beer with such a high alcohol content.

If you want to pair this beer with food I would pair it with strong soft cheeses such as Camembert, or triple cream Brie (preferably made with raw milk though that is very hard to find in Canada). This beer would also pair nicely with Porchetta and a wine reduction, or roasted short ribs with fried cauliflower herbs and fresh horseradish. Belgian beers pair well with lots of dishes due to being well balanced and rich in vibrant aromas and flavours.

If you were looking for a beer to fill the craving for Entendez Nöel I would go with almost any Belgian Tripel or Strong Golden ale. The yeast character of Westmalle Tripel or Tripel Karmeliet are very similar to this beer though the alcohol content is not as high and these beers tend to be slightly lighter in colour so the overall character of the beer will not be the same. Legacy Liquor Store also keeps a few of Sound Brewing’s other beers in stock if you want to try other offering from this wonderful brewery.

I hope you had as much fun with this advent calendar as I did. I wish you the best in your beer journeys in the New Year. – O.P.

Day 23: Blond Strong Ale Mountain Beer

Blond Strong Ale Mountain Beer

Origin: Mosco (מוסקו) (Zanoah, Israel)

Style: Blonde Ale

ABV: 6.5%

IBU: Not Listed

Description: This is my second offering from Israel and I am very stoked to try it. It is a blonde ale so we should be in good company to enjoy with friends or alone with some light food.

HELLO carbonation! Opening the bottle I get a small spill over even though it has been vertical in my fridge for a few days. Excited to see me, I expect. Wow, that is some head! If my memory of fractions serves me right that is 2/5th  head to 3/5th beer. Interesting. Who knew the Israelis copied the Belgians? It pours very murky yellow leaning to the brackish colour.

The nose brings some spice and after spooning out the 2″ head I get a tangy wine gum with mustard and malt vinegar. Damn, where are my Belgian fries?

At first sip, I get the thought of tasting a potion made with all the leftover spices out of the mouse-ridden pantry of a closed restaurant in Wolverhampton. The carbonation is still assaulting my palate and the aftertaste is of wet burnt toast from the Korean War. I feel the need for my mother to burp me and wash my mouth out with soap.

Now I could make all kinds of jokes and maybe in my review I have, but I am not going to segregate this brewery from the craft beer movement. Okay, I am going to make a joke. I understand where this beer is coming from and how long it took to get here, along with what it had to endure to get here. Heat, time and mishandling. Why does that sound familiar?? What this beer tells me is that craft beer while marketed and sold globally should really be enjoyed locally for best taste. As a sworn agnostic and a true Northerner comfortable in the cold, I have been given a reason to travel to the heat of a highly fervent area. Proof beer can unite. The mountain comes to Muhammad, it seems? -C.B.

Day 22: Final Countdown

Final Countdown

Origin: Rooie Dop (Utrecht, the Netherlands)

Style: Saison

ABV: 6.5%

IBU: Not listed

Description: To the honest, when I first saw the name of today’s beer, I was worried. The words “Final Countdown” evoke the image of ’80s Swedish hair band Europe singing a nonsensical song about going to Venus. So where is this winter saison going to take me? And am I going to be able to take this brewery seriously?

The story of Rooie Dop’s inception is a familiar one in the industry – a few passionate craft beer drinkers decide to concoct their own brew. Sometimes interesting and experimental, but the beers are always aimed to be flavorful and awesome. And here’s where the story gets interesting: They don’t have their own brewery , so where do they make the beer? Not in their basement or at the local U-Brew, but Brouwerij de Molen, an internationally recognized Dutch brewery that’s known to make big, bold, experimental beers! Pretty impressive, I must say. It’d be kinda like a few home brewers in Santa Rosa gypsy-brewing at Russian River Brewing. And in the two years since Rooie Dop started brewing, they’ve already collaborated with a handful of breweries around the globe, most notably Hair of the Dog, Cascade and Gigantic of Beer City USA (a.k.a. Portland, Oregon). These collaborations are all positive signs. Perhaps I can take them seriously after all…?

Much like the Weïti from a few days ago, Final Countdown pours hazy golden hues with a big foamy off-white head. The aroma is bread-yeasty, a little peppery, with a hint of orange rind. In the back of my mind I wondered, Is it going to taste similar to the witbier?

Nope.

Hello, smoke! Where did you come from? How come I didn’t detect you at all in the aroma? The smoked malts & rye used are a bit bolder than I’d expected. but perhaps the smoke is the very thing that winterizes this saison.  There’s this pithy bitterness that lingers on the back of my palate as well. Initially, I’m missing that barnyard funkiness I find familiar with the saison yeast I prefer. But as the beer warms, the smokiness disappears, allowing the funk to come out to remind me that it’s indeed a saison.

I love saison for its versatility, pairing wonderfully with sweet & savoury dishes. Meat dishes are always great, but why not try baked brie wrapped in phyllo, served with your favourite jam/preserves, or a cheddar-crusted apple pie?  It’s challenging to come up with an alternative beer that’s similar to the Final Countdown, but for fans of a lightly-smoked beer, give R&B‘s SPCAle Rauchweissen a go. And Four Winds Brewing makes a delicious saison that has the right balance of spice, floral and wheat notes.

This Final Countdown didn’t take me to Venus, but it does make me want to try Rooie Dop’s other offerings (I heard the Barrel-Aged Double Oatmeal Stout is supposed to be really good). I could only hope that one day, they’d come to collaborate with a B.C. brewery. – C.T.

Day 21: Winter-Böckle

Winter-Böckle

Origin: Fürst Wallerstein Brauhaus (Wallerstein, Germany)

Style: Doppelbock

ABV: 7.5%

IBU: Not Listed

Description: There’s something about a doppelbock that I find so satisfying. I have always been a fan of the style, but my appreciation took a complete turn once I discovered the history of this beer style. German Monastic monks, the stand-up citizens of civilization hundreds of years ago, had several periods throughout a year that required them to fast for holy reasons. The longest of these periods was Lent, during which the monks would fast for 46 days, from Ash Wednesday to Easter Sunday. Throughout this time, no solid food would be consumed. However, they did believe that liquids purified the body and the soul. As such, they developed a beer that had a filling, bready quality to it to nourish their bodies.

In other words, they would spend a period of over a month ingesting nothing but beer while adhering to strict religious doctrine. These are guys I could really get along with.

Enough with the history lesson. As for this particular doppelbock, the overall quality is there to hold itself up with some pretty famous brews. The pour is a dark, rich, striking amber with a quickly fading yellow beige head of large bubbles. Particularly beautiful in the glass, I spent a few minutes admiring the colour tones themselves.

The nose brings many wonderful scents, including red currants, cranberries, plum and raisin. Distinctive toffee sweetness is at the forefront of palate at first sip, which slowly fades to a mouthfeel akin to chewing bread. That fades to a light spice kick towards the end, while a bit of sweetness remains on the tongue in a very satisfying manner.

All in all, a fine beer. Doppelbocks are not really meant to be paired with food. They are meant as a replacement for a meal, and really stand as a dessert in themselves. But if you were to have one with food, I would suggest tapas of some sort. Rich seafood, such as mussels in a thai curry sauce or oysters in sambal would work well. Pick up an Ayinger Celebrator Doppelbock, held high as the original and best of all doppelbocks, stocked year around on Legacy Liquor Store shelves, and experience one for yourself. You won’t be disappointed. -C.L.

Day 20: Vixnu

 

Vixnu

Origin: Cervejaria Colorado (Ribeirão Preto, São Paulo, Brazil)

Style: Imperial India Pale Ale (IIPA)

ABV: 9.5%

IBU: 75

Description: I was a little worried upon first opening this beer. As I removed the bottle cap the beer was like a geyser with foam escaping from the bottle all over the table. My first thought was it was infected. Thankfully I was wrong, the beer was just carbonated slightly more than it should have been.

Upon first sniff of Vixnu from Cervjario Colorado I was transported back in time to when IPAs were a different beer than we know today. This reminded me of the IPAs my dad used to drink when the craft beer culture was just starting in the United States. This beer doesn’t have the citrus character of most Imperial India Pale Ales that we know today. The character is more focused on malt with pine and floral hops. The malt character is up front with tons of biscuit, crystal, and pilsner malt. Then hop characters of pine and herbs make themselves present. There is little hop aroma in the beer but lots of resinous pine in the flavour. The malt tends to dominate the overall beer yet it still finishes fairly dry.

If you were looking for a beer that would be similar to Vixnu I would go with No-Li’s Imperial IPA or Central City’s Imperial IPA. Both are malt forward beers with great hop character, though the hop character in both of these beers tends to be more citrus than pine.

Overall I thought this was an enjoyable beer. I can only imagine what it would have tasted like fresh. – O.P.

 

Day 19: Winterporter

 

Winterporter

Origin: Brouwerij de Molen (Bodegraven, the Netherlands)

Style: Porter

ABV: 6.7%

IBU: Not Listed

Description: Well… here it is: the review I did not want to write. The de Molen Winterporter should have been a wonderful beer from a lovely Dutch craft brewery but sadly I got an infected beer. I suspect acetaldehyde but cannot be sure. I got green apples and a real sour flavour – not what the brewer was intending, I am sure. Frankly it’s taken an offering from the Scotch Malt Whisky Society to repair the damage to my palate.

The important point is this: bad bottle aside, I do not lose faith in de Molen as they have made some fantastic beers before and I know will do in future. The wine world is ripe with corked bottles so I can easily forgive this dud. I look forward to talking with other testers to see what they thought. -C.B.

 

Day 18: Weïti

Label featuring a Guyanese jaguar

Weïti

Origin: Jeune Gueule, Brasserie Guyanaise (Matoury, French Guiana)

Style: Witbier

ABV: 5%

IBU: Not listed

Description: When I was in elementary school, I used to watch a kids TV game show called Where in the World Is Carmen Sandiego? Contestants acting as junior detectives would use their geography knowledge to capture fictional villains on the loose. And during the Bonus Round (my favourite part of the show), the final contestant in the episode would try to correctly identify different countries on a giant unmarked world map for a chance to win a trip. You might wonder, What does this show have to do today’s beer? Well, very little. But when I saw the beer’s from French Guiana, I wished I’d paid more attention to the show so I didn’t need Google Maps to tell me this country is located in South America, bordering Brazil and Suriname.

Brasserie Guyanaise started off as a pico-brewery (which produces less than half of an average nanobrewery’s annual output). Less than six months after it made its first batch in 2011,  the brewery expanded its production tenfold to keep up with demand. A good thing, since it’s the only craft brewery in the entire country.

I can tell right from the get-go that tasting this beer is going to be quite an adventure. Uncapping the Weïti, I see bubbles trying desperately to escape the bottleneck, a sign that carbonation is quite high. It pours a cloudy straw colour with a thick, fizzy white head, topped off with some clusters of sediment from the bottom of the bottle. A little unappealing but has little affect on the taste of the beer.

Its bold aroma is of candied lemon and orange peels and cloves, reminding me of mulled cider during the holiday season (How fitting!). Light-bodied, it tastes of pithy bitterness of citrus peels, fruity and tart. I would’ve liked the spicy, peppery characteristic of a witbier to be a little more pronounced in the Weïti, as I have a difficult time detecting it.  Nonetheless, a fine Belgian style wheat ale I’d like to try when it’s freshly made, perhaps with some pad thai.

Typically considered as the perfect summer beer, witbier can still be enjoyed year-round due to this style’s popularity. Try Victoria, B.C.’s Driftwood White Bark, , Kili Wit from Hood River’s Logsdon Farm Brewery, and from Italy – Birrificio Brùton‘s Bianca, each with its own distinctive notes of coriander and orange peels.

Though I may have trouble identifying places on a map, what’s clear to me is that delicious witbiers are being made around the world and I want to try them all. -C.T.

Day 17: Marmalade Porter

Marmalade Porter

Origin: Wold Top Brewery (Driffield, East Riding of Yorkshire, England, UK)

Style: Porter

ABV: 5%

IBU: Not Listed

Description: On the Eastern coast of Northern England sits a 600 acre farm that has been worked by the same family for generations. The 80s and 90s were a hard time to be in the agriculture business, so the current generation looked at their options for diversification. What did they decide on? Beer!! It seems like they made a good choice. Wold Top Brewery now produces an extensive line of award-winning cask and bottle-conditioned ales that have found distribution all over the world.

This offering from Wold Top Brewery is a porter produced from barley grown on their land and malted on site. Water is drawn from a borehole and chalk filtered to feed their brewhouse. Their source of hops isn’t mentioned in any of the literature I’ve found, but all of their ingredients certainly combine to produce a fresh, clean-drinking brew.

The pour is typical of a porter, with a thin creamy head that quickly dissipates to rim the surface of the brew. The colour is a very dark brown with amber and gold hues towards the edges.

Although the body is thinner than I prefer on a porter, it does produce more than its fair share of aromatics and flavour notes. Claiming to be triple hopped, I’ve found a decent amount of citrus hops wafts from the glass accompanied by a malty sweetness. On the palate the bitter bite is most noticeable, the hops playing well with roasted coffee and chocolate notes that border on burnt. Citrus also plays a role here, though it is quite muted.  My least favourite trait of this beer is the finish, which I find quick and dry without any lingering tastes to hang my hat on.

The best food pairing for this would be a dessert, preferable creamy and sweet. Crème brûlée would do nicely, or a generous slice of chocolate cake with creamy layers and a wafer crunch. Perhaps I shouldn’t write these posts while hungry. Yum, beer and cake.

Overall I was a little disappointed in this beer. It just doesn’t seem to have any legs to really stand it up as a quality beverage. There are certainly interesting tastes there, but overall it lacks punch. It does hold the distinction of being a certified gluten free beer, as does a good portion of the Wold Top line, so I am interested to try the other two offerings on Legacy Liquor Store shelves, the Against The Grain bitter and the Scarborough Fair IPA. Or, if you are interested to try a few other porters, I would suggest the Driftwood Blackstone Porter or Samuel Smith Famous Taddy Porter, both nice examples of the style. – C.L.

Day 16: Bersalis Kadet

Bersalis Kadet

Origin: Brouwerij Oud Beersel (Beersel, Belgium)

Style: Belgian Pale Ale

ABV: 4.5%

IBU: Not Listed

Description: When I saw this beer I was truly excited. I had never seen Beersalis Kadet in B.C. and have never had the opportunity to try it. Oud Beersel is a wonderful brewery that offers many different varieties of sour beers at an affordable cost. This is one of the reasons I love this brewery. They are making beer styles that are usually some of the most expensive and offering them at a price that even a non-beer geek wouldn’t cringe at.

Beersalis Kadet is wonderfully bright golden that has a wonderful aroma of spicy noble hops, pilsner malt, with light fruitiness, hay, and spicy character from Belgian yeast. Upon first sip flavours of pilsner malt and hop make themselves present in the front of the palate followed by a light earthy, barnyard character. This beer finishes extremely clean and has a high carbonation that immediately dissipates on one’s palate.

Belgian pale ale is a wide style category. That being said, there are not very many options for an alternative beer that would be close to this one. The closest one available at Legacy Liquor Store is Luciernaga from Jolly Pumpkin. Luciernaga is still crisp and refreshing; however, it is much more complex with a very assertive funk character from the yeast and tannic bite from oak aging.

If I were to pair this beer with food I would choose medium-light dishes that are very aromatic: moules frites, chicken Cacciatore, and Khoa Soi ( a Thai coconut milk-based noodle soup from Thailand that is assertively spicy and has a fragrant aroma). Beersalis Kadet is a very versatile beer to pair with food and wouldn’t overpower delicate dishes while still having enough character to hold up to more assertive dishes.

Overall I felt this was a wonderful beer that if it was easily available I could drink every day. This beer had a solid flavour profile yet was still crisp and easy drinking that would be perfect for any occasion. – O.P.