We’re celebrating Canada Day with a double-shot of Brewery Market and Brewer’s Backyard this weekend.  First up is a special Brewery Market ‘on the road’, in partnership with the Griffin Gastropub in Bracebridge.  This event, called The Battle of Wits, is a fun Ontario wheat beer competition, featuring Amsterdam, Bellwoods, Mill Street, Indie Alehouse, Muskoka, Beer Academy, Hop City, Lake of Bays and Sawdust City.  The event runs from 12 noon onwards at the Griffin’s patio in Bracebridge on Sunday, July 1st.

Back in Toronto we’re having our third Brewer’s Backyard event at the Evergreen Brick Works on holiday Monday, July 2nd.  This event, entitled The Constitutional Draught, featured a triple-header of local breweries: Black Oak, Cheshire Valley and Kensington Brewing, with food from Rock Lobster and Burger Bar.  The event runs from 12-4pm at the Koerner Gardens of the Brick Works.

Both events are free admission, and you can purchase food and beer there.

The summer solstice is upon us and BC has a brand new lager hitting the shelves: Creemore Springs! That’s right, while Ontario has been enjoying this craft lager for 25 years, British Columbians finally get a taste as well. Creemore was one of my seasonal staples for many years, so I was glad to grab a 6-pack from my local today. Despite the diversity of brews in BC, there still isn’t a whole lot of quality lagers, so hopefully this will fly off the shelves! Like Granville Island Brewing, Creemore is part of Molson’s Six Pints Craft Beer Division, so hopefully we will see some more of their great brews. Speaking of Granville Island, they just released a Cascadian Dark Ale, which is also available at the Government Stores. I think this is one of the best brews to come out of Granville. At 6% abv and 45 IBU it’s loaded with Falconer’s Flight hops with some quality malt to back it up. Really great stuff.

If you’re lucky, you might still find a Rick August Russian Imperial Stout from Russell Brewing. Rick was the 2011 Golden Stag Home Brewing Contest winner and Russell produced 360 cases at the end of May (Rick shares some of the profit). Now as cool as this whole story is, the beer is also REALLY great, so I recommend seeking it out. “The recipe uses more than 10 types of malts, two types of hops, a special yeast strain, juniper berries and licorice root. At 10.8% ABV this strong beer is intensely dark and extremely flavourful”.

The relatively new Hoyne Brewing Company has released yet another brew. The Summer Haze Honey Hefe is brewed with honey from the beehives at the Fairmont Empress Hotel. This one is on-tap at the hotel and also available from the brewery and select liquor stores in Victoria and Vancouver.

Also from Victoria for the summer is a variety of cans from Spinnakers! They’ll have the Blue Bridge Double Pale Ale, Lion’s Head Cascadia Dark Ale, Northwest Ale, Original Pale Ale and Ryder Hesjedal’s (2012 Giro d’Italia Champion) Tour de Victoria Summer Ale. Hopefully the canning line will instigate a larger distribution of their excellent brews. They’re working on a couple of new hop bombers as well: Hoptoria (6.8% abv & 80 IBU) and India Session Pale Ale (4.5% abv & 70 IBU).

Need some re-hydration in the summer heat? Or perhaps a Root Beer Float would hit the spot? Well, Cariboo Brewing is making a 0.5% abv. Root Beer!

The next 6-pack from Lighthouse Brewing Company will be TASMAN ALE. According to their facebook page, it’s brewed with “the Tasmanian hop varieties Topaz and Summer along with Motueka and Rakau from the Tasman region of New Zealand. Fresh and crisp, this copper hued ale features distinctive tropical fruit characters, clean and light bittering and a soft malt body. 5% alc/ vol”. New Zealand is becoming a bigger player in the hop market, and I do enjoy their unique regional flavours. With the southern hemisphere’s alternate harvest season, transporting their fresh hops half way around the world does make some practical sense. I’m certainly looking forward to trying this one!

This year the BC brewers took home 40% of the Canadian Brewing Awards, and once again the Brewery of the Year is Central City Brewing Company.

There’s always some interesting discussion around these awards, and it has already started in the
forums. Has BC reached its climax? Are other provinces rising up? This year Ontario brewers took the Gold & Silver in the American Style IPA category, and a sour beer from Quebec (Co-Hop V, À La Fût) was awarded Beer of the Year! From coast to coast, there’s some interesting times ahead. Congrats to all the winners!

Here’s what the BC brewers brought home:

Gold
Vancouver Islander Lager, Vancouver Island Brewery
Hermann’s Dark Lager, Vancouver Island Brewing Co.
Coffee Porter, R&B Brewing Co.
Red Racer ESB, Central City Brewing Co.
Swans Scotch Ale, Swans Brewery
Pale Ale, Yaletown Brewing Co.
Steamworks Pale Ale, Steamworks Brewing Co.
Sungod Wheat Ale, R&B Brewing Co.
Woolly Bugger Barleywine, Howe Sound Brewing Co.
Powell IPA, Coal Harbour Brewing Co.
Central City Imperial IPA, Central City Brewing Co.
Mandarin Orange Amber Ale, Dead Frog Brewery
Dark Snout Bacon Stout, R&B Brewing Co.
Thor’s Hammer Bourbon Barrel Barley Wine, Central City Brewing Co.

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Ontario Craft Beer Week, the signature week-long celebration of beer organized by the Ontario Craft Brewers, kicks off tomorrow (June 17th) and runs until June 23rd.

Now in its third year, OCB Week will be hosting over 100 events in over 40 communities across the province.  And there’s a ton to choose from, including pub crawls, special tastings, music events, beer dinners, and festivals.

One of the notable events to kick off the week is the second event of the Brewer’s Backyard (organized in part by The Bar Towel).  The event, entitled the Father’s Day Triathlon, is taking place at the Koerner Gardens of the Evergreen Brick Works as the official after-party of the Ride the Ravines bike ride.  The event will feature beers from Amsterdam Brewery (including the debut of the CBA silver medal winning Maverick and Gose, plus the GTA Belgian Farmhouse Ale, a collaboration beer brewed for OCB Week) and BBQ from Death Row Meals.  The event runs from 11-4pm and you can find out more at the Brewer’s Backyard website.

There are dozens more events to choose from, and you can keep yourself very busy with beer this coming week.  Take your dad out for a brew tomorrow, and enjoy the rest of the week’s events.  See after the break for a listing of many of the events taking place, and you can find the full listing at the OCB Week website.

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