MAY/JUNE 2003

VICTORIA BC AND THE GREAT CANADIAN BEER FESTIVAL

Yes, this month’s issue is a double issue, due to recent time constraints I have had and the fact that I was away for two weeks in April. However, I hope some of you will find this month’s issue of use and are motivated to attend the upcoming GCBF in September. The 2002 Great Canadian Beer Festival took place in its usual spot and time period at the end of November at the Victoria Convention Center, conveniently located in downtown Victoria. The 2003 Festival will be moving outdoors and will be in September to enjoy the weather. The following is a guide and travel log of my 2002 beer hunting in Victoria…. please enjoy.

FRIDAY

The elegant exterior of Swans brewpub

I caught an Air Canada flight out through Vancouver leaving late Friday morning from Calgary. The Vancouver- Victoria flight is a mere 20 minutes or so in a plane not much bigger than a Cessna. After arriving at the Vancouver airport, wanting to be as frugal as possible, I found the cheapest way to get downtown is to take the Airporter shuttle for a five minute ride to a car park and from there you can hop on public transport into downtown Victoria. This can all be done for under $5. I had no idea of where to stay for the festival, but luckily Calgary CAMRA president Don recommended me to share a room with him at the Dominion Hotel. Based on the price of $59 for a double I really couldn’t complain and took him up on his offer. I got off the bus in the middle of downtown and it was a two-minute walk to my hotel, which was a good start to the day. I checked in and found out Don had already done so and had taken off to the Friday portion of the festival. I didn’t have a ticket so decided to do some beer hunting myself around Victoria. When I checked in to this lovely old hotel I was notified that breakfast and dinner for both Don and I were included in the hotel price! Sweet! This was getting better by the moment. But enough of that for now. I wanted to make my way around the city. First stop, Hugo’s, which is located fairly close to the convention center. Apparently Hugo’s has two entrances, one for the restaurant and one for the pub. I went in the wrong entrance, sat at the swanky bar and ordered a sampler of beer to which I was given a blank stare by the bartender as if I was speaking a foreign language. Luckily the hostess caught on to the fact I was probably looking for the brew pub side to which I was told was through the other door that said ‘Hugo’s’, which was kind of a relief as I was a tad hungry for a late lunch and the restaurant side didn’t seem to have much on the menu below $15. Humbly I went into the brewpub, which was pumping out 70’s and 80’s classic rock at a moderate level. Post Modern paintings adorn the walls, giving a yuppie feel to the place, while the mandatory TVs were turned on to sports. The nice thing was they had a rack of magazines, which gave me the impression that it is a place to come and relax by yourself with a beer. In fact 80% of the customers there seemed to be by themselves and a few of them seemed to be chatting about the festival at the bar. While unintentionally eavesdropping on these customers I noticed something interesting behind the bar “Ice Cold Jagermiester” on draft, interesting concept to say the least. I also assumed that by the structure of the brew pub that it was, at one time (or perhaps even now at night time) a nice club. As for the beers, the seasonal called ‘Rowdy Monk’ Dubble was a smashing success, with a fruity chocolate nose and a bubblegum palate. They also have a famous beer made with ginseng called ‘Super G-Ginseng’ which has a big ginseng nose and a spicy ginseng body. It was a good beer, but a sampler size of this was plenty for me. As for the other beers, well, they fell on their faces, except for the Porter, which was watery quaffable beer, but nothing more than that.

Next up was Swan’s, which is in an early 20^th century building and one of the first brewpubs in Victoria. It has an ‘inside section’ of the pub which was very lively and busy with the after work business crowd. The ‘outside section’ or I would call the ‘pantry’ is quieter and brighter as the windowed exterior is lined with light bulbs. Eight beers are available and two combined beers. They also have 5 sizes of glasses from 4 oz sampler size up to 60 oz jugs. They separate their beers serving half at cellar or 52-54 degree F and half ‘served chilled’, though I don’t really agree that Scottish Ale should be ‘served chilled’. The service here was great and the waitress very attentive and offered me some magazines to read. I wish every restaurant/pub had service like this place. As for the beers I found the lighter beers pretty much all too sweet and biscuity, so I recommend sticking to their dark beers. Though none of the beers were totally outstanding, their Oatmeal Stout had some nice coffee and toffee notes with a dry finish. While the Appleton Brown Ale had some nice molassesy notes and surprising chocolaty, almost mochachino like finish. While the Pandora Pale Ale appealed to the masses and was just very poorly constructed.

Now I was definitely hungry and had made my reservation at the “Hunters” restaurant attached to the hotel for 6:30 and wandered back there. I hoped they would have a micro or two on tap at ‘Hunter’s’ restaurant, however I was wrong… they had 25 BC/Vancouver Island micros on tap!!!! Not only that but they had some extremely rare micros on tap including the elusive Pender Island Porter from Gulf Island breweries. Unfortunately I was ten minutes late and was told they only held reservations for ten minutes after they time you booked, from their point of view it made sense as the place was PACKED, the only seating left was at the bar, where I promptly ordered a Pender Island Porter. Forget what I had drunk so far… this proved to be the best beer yet in Victoria. A beautifully sweet malt backbone with milk chocolate and coffee notes throughout that linger into a smooth coffee finish…. just outstanding. Not only was that outstanding, but the food! I started off with a red pepper/fennel soup which I will go out on a limb and say was one of the best soups I have ever had in my life. Like Hugo’s, post-modern art lines the walls and I initially had the impression yuppieville, but was pleasantly surprised at how laid back the place was, not to mention an excellent bar staff who knew a thing or two about beer and made some pretty interesting conversation. My main dish was a white fish of some sort that easily met expectation and was followed with a incredible Crème Brule that just hit the spot. This meal alone would probably run me well over $20 and I was only paying $30/night for the room?? ‘How do they make money??’ I thought, then I realized I didn’t care as it was taking me away from savoring the dessert and beer.

Two brewpubs down, two to go. I was determined to say the least. Next up the Canoe Club, which is a beautiful, multi-leveled brewpub located appropriately down near the water. Again, another packed place, so I managed to squeeze my way into a table full of middle aged men engaged in a political conversation of some sort. Soon after joining them I got into the conversation and found out they were all speechwriters for various provincial politicians. WOW, I can only imagine now how busy they must have been brainstorming ideas for what to write after Mr. Campell’s return from Hawaii earlier this year. In any case, our conversation never strayed from politics for a solid hour and a half and at the end I had a better insight into BC politics and they had better insight in Japanese politics. Not to mention the beer, which goes perfectly with politics as the more you drink the more honest people tend to become about their political feelings. My notes start to get a bit messy at this point but I gave moderate to high marks to all of the Canoe Club beers I tried. My favourite was the “Vienna” style, which has a beautiful clear amber color, fruity nose, and sweet fruity bubblegum taste. It was a step above most beer I tried this trip. Though an interesting second place was to Das Beir that was full of cloves and spicy hops, something really interesting. In my opinion this would probably the first place I would go back to on my next trip to Victoria, despite the fact Spinnakers tends to be the most famous of Victoria brewpubs, which is where I was off to next.

Wow Spinnakers is not central at all compared to the other brewpubs and was a good 15-20 minute walk from the Canoe Club, though that allowed me to pull my senses back together. I arrived at the quaint brewpub with the beautiful location right on the bay, which I can only imagine if it wasn’t 10 pm at night would have a beautiful view of the Harbour. In any case, I promptly headed to the second level of this brewpub, as the first level seemed pretty dead. In the small cozy wooden atmosphere of second level I settled down with their Winter Ale Barely Wine, which had strong hints of berries, chocolate and whiskey but was extremely smooth with a refined vinous finish, just spectacular. I also tried their Scottish Ale, Dark Wheat Beer and the Tsarist Imperial Stout. The former two were quite similar to each other with malty caramel backbones, though the Dark Wheat had more whisky notes. While the Tsarist Imperial Stout had coffee whisky notes. I found it strange that all their beers except for the Scottish Ale had whisky notes. My senses were not at their peak at this time, nor were my notes. In any case all the beers there were exceptionally good, HOWEVER the place closed at 10:45 on a Friday!!!!!!!!!!!! Which gave me a 30-minute walk back to my hotel, which was complimented by downing a liter of water to ensure I was in top-notch shape for next day’s big festival.

SATURDAY

CAMRA Calgary and friends enjoying a brew or twenty. The crowded main beer hall

Woke up spry and early, went down and had a long breakfast with Don, due to lack of service and just general relaxation. At about 11:30 we headed down to the convention center for the noon start time. Don informed me there would be a line so we should try and get there at least 20 minutes early. We did and were one of the first in what ended up being a moderate line up. This festival sold out 27 minutes after it went on sale in September, but due to the fact that CAMRA Victoria holds this festival they are kind enough to ensure CAMRA Calgary doesn’t miss out on obtaining tickets to the festival and our group ended up having one extra ticket which sold at the door in approximately a nanosecond. Our strategy was simple… buy twenty one dollar sample tokens, get our first beer and grab a table in the side room. It worked beautifully and that is where we stayed for the next eight hours. There were about eight of us from Calgary and we shared the table with a man named Chuck from Bellevue, Washington who was instrumental in setting up the Great American Beer Festival in the eighties as well as his wife. Initially, for the first couple of hours it wasn’t that busy, however over time it soon became packed in the main hall where the beer was being served. In all, 32 breweries showed up with well over 100 beers including, Wildwood and Brew Brothers from Calgary, a huge number of BC micros and a hand full from Washington and Alaska. Also, Unibroue from Quebec served their much anticipated La Terrible which was to be on liquor store shelves that following Wednesday according to the rep (although, as you will read later, she was oh so beautifully wrong). Well I couldn’t resist the Terrible. It was my second sampler and, in all honesty, it was the best beer of the festival for me, and one of the best beers I have ever put on my lips. Not everyone will agree with me on this, but the general consensus is that this is one of Canada’s best beers. Kind of like a bigger and bolder version of Trois Pistole. This amazing gift from the gods has a dark brown color that gives off a surreal spicy port-like nose that leads into a madeira, mildly caramel and chocolaty body and SMOOOOOOTH warming mildly spicy whisky finish. The yeastiness compared to other Unibroues is toned down a bit. I just tried another bottle of Terrible the other day six months after and it had picked up more chocolately notes than I initially detected.

The festival wasn’t exactly all down hill after my second sample. No, in fact I tasted great beers through out the day. Notables included, Alaskan Porter which is basically liquid toasted bagel and cream cheese with smoked salmon, which I know doesn’t appeal to everyone. Steamworks Pumpkin Ale, which had notes of nutmeg, cinnamon and pumpkin throughout. Similarly, Granville Island’s Christmas Ale had strong hints of cinnamon and cranberries through out.

The festival also had a smattering of food offerings, which I didn’t try and a variety of seminars on different beer subjects including former CAMRA Calgary president Brian Read on Hops: Their History and Role in Brewing. There were also live bands, but the focus of the festival was beers. There were some cask conditioned real ales at the festival, but most were served out of standard kegs. By about 3 pm the place was packed to the brim and I was very glad that we had scored some seats otherwise our feet would have got very tired. The only real complaint I have about the festival is the lack of facilities for the men. With only one small washroom, there was a constant 15-minute lineup. The women on the other hand were much luckier as they had two or three facilities to use and their lines were much shorter. Other than that, the festival was very well run and I am looking forward to the outdoor version this coming September.

SUNDAY

I spent the day visiting relatives, one of whom introduced me to his favourite pub, which happened to be one of the first licensed establishments in Canada and at one time a brewpub, The Prairie Inn. Its glory days are long gone and it now is just a quaint little pub out towards Brentwood Bay. I also found out that this is where Spinnakers will be opening their second brewpub/hotel. Lucky for me, this brewpub (in the words of my uncle) is “within crawling distance of his house”, which is a definite motivation to continue to visit relatives in Victoria.

MONDAY

There are ‘Specialty Liquor stores’ as designated by the BCLDB, which have a large selection of wine and beer and Victoria is home to one of them at Fort St and Foul Bay Rd. in a shopping plaza about 2 km from downtown. I was in there when it opened on Monday morning at 9:30 and to my pleasant surprise they were just unloading cases of La Terrible and needless to say I became the first person in the province to buy a bottle, along with an assortment of other BC micros/imports. If you are in for the festival you can take a bus or taxi down Fort St and it will take about 10 or 15 mins. All liquor stores except for a few smaller ones are closed on Sundays. These small stores also charge an arm and a leg for everything they have so be aware of what type of store you are buying your beer at.

All in all, the trip was good. I will definitely stop by Spinnakers and the Canoe Club next time out there for a sampling of the beers I may have missed.

Best BC beers of the trip:

Gulf Brewing – Pender Island Porter

Canoe Club – Vienna, Das Bier

Spinnakers – Winter Ale Barley Wine

Steamworks – Pumpkin Ale

Vancouver Island - Scottish Ale

Drain Pours:

Hugo’s- Pale Moon Ale, Pilsner, Blonde Ale

Swan’s – Pandora Pale Ale

Okanagan Springs – Nut Brown