wesbray

Anyone into real ale here? Very impressed with what's on offer in Canada so far...

dbd33

I like beer. I like cask beer. I'm not into it to the extent of having a tweed jacket and drips of beer in my beard. I don't belong to CAMRA.

Where are you?

wesbray

Alberta. Though i'm not talking just Alberta beer. Alot of great stuff in Quebec and BC. Alley Kat is great aswell if we're talking specifically Alberta...

dbd33

<raises glass of Sam Adams>

<feels slightly guilty>

BristolUK

There's a brewery in this province that produces some decent stuff, including one that's reminiscent of Ruddles.

But it still says serve chilled on the bottle.

Bob

http://www.unibroue.com/en/beers/ephemere_apple/

I rather like that, though Unibroue beers in general are pretty good, but aren't half expensive down this way...

scrubbedexpat133

Which one??? Im partial to a Ruddles - had a couple last night!!

badab1ng

Big Rock. Albertas finest.

Atlantic Xpat

Very much a fan of cask conditioned ale. Very much miss it from the UK even after 8 years. Cask conditioned ale, not chilled too buggery is something that is impossible to find where I live and in my experience requires a bit of searching out even in the larger cities. Wellington brewery do a cask ale as does Granite in TO, I found a very chic real ale pub in Montreal once, and I've had a bad pint at the clocktower pub in Ottawa. Aside from that, it's chilled beer all the way. Don't get me wrong, some of it is pretty drinkable - the Yellowbelly brewpub in St. John's for example does a fine, keg, IPA - but real ale it's not.

BristolUK

It's Picaroons Brewery - pub apparently in Fredericton. Unfortunately I can't remember which one I tried but you could have fun trying.

I seem to recall there were 3 or 4 types at the offie.

scrubbedexpat133

Thanks Bristol - will investigate

Souvy

There are some pretty decent beers in QC (some dangerously strong ones, too).

Talking of beer, my neighbour brought a smile to my face last Saturday. The weekend before, I'd hurt my ribs crawling around under her deck. She didn't know this until she came to the impromptu powercut party we had in our front yard Friday night.

Saturday lunchtime she showed up with a box containing six assorted world beers, a pack of tylenol and a tube of Deep Heat. She called it a Man Cure.

I thought that was quite funny.

agr

Just down the road from Alley Kat (Edmonton) is a brewery called Amber. I took my team from work on an, ahem, industrial process familiarization visit there recently. Discovered that they will not only sell you a cask of ale, but if you take in a sack of hops from your yard they will brew a batch for you. The tour was interesting because the owner had a lot to say about the brewing industry in Canada, provincial government influence, and how it favours the big players.

MikeUK

So he forgot to mention the significant tax break small brewers (under 15,000 HL) get from the government to even the playing field...

Tax rates

Considering that brewing is still profitable with the higher taxes we ( the big boys pay) imaging how profitable it is when you not paying those taxes..

ExKiwilass

I really like Whistler Honey Lager, but it's hard to find.