Pepperwood Beer Festival

JerCraigs · Post by **JerCraigs** » Wed Jan 26, 2005 3:04 pm

Burlington's Only Brewpub, Pepperwood Bistro and Brewery, is proud to
present our 10th annual

Craft Brewers Beer Festival

Sunday, March 6th, 2005, 2:00 to 6:00 p.m.

A beer lover's dream, featuring over ten local micro breweries and craft
breweries, each presenting it's beers for you to taste. Representatives from
each brewery will be on hand to discuss the nuances of their beer and
brewing techniques.

Pepperwood Catering will be preparing a traditional buffet of beer inspired
food during the festival. A feast fit for a beer.

A portion of the proceeds will be donated to the Cystic Fibrosis Foundation,
a charity strongly supported by the staff and owners of Pepperwood.

Tickets are available at the restaurant for $25 per person. Come get hopped!
905.333.6999

northyorksammy · Post by **northyorksammy** » Wed Jan 26, 2005 9:09 pm

which breweries are in?

dhurtubise · Post by **dhurtubise** » Thu Jan 27, 2005 8:16 am

If you have never been there (at least in the last year since they changed the master brewer and started making all grain beers), it is worth a trip in even if it were only for their beers.

There are 6 beers being brewed by one of the most respected beer judges in Canada. 4 of these I would class as truly outstanding and worthy of being named amongst the best of their styles in Ontario (if not Canada).

Their pale ale is a picture perfect American Pale Ale that is rife with cascade hops and good malt support. Those who enjoy Tankhouse will likely love this beer as well.

They have a Dry Hopped Bitter that is an English styled beer (as the name implies) with a very healthy dose of English hops and is one of the true hidden gems in this province.

Their Monkey Brown Ale is a beautiful robust malty Southern Brown Ale beautifully laced with chocolate and smokey undertones.

Their Mild is probably my favorite, though I could blindly choose any of the above on any given day and be just as happy. This 3.5% brew is extremely rich and wonderful with tons of malt sweetness, striking a wonderful balance with the hop bitterness and again allowing for some chocolate and smoke character to run wild in the beverage.

The other two beers are a well crafted cream ale (for those who like the style this is a good one) and at least over the summer and fall, there was a raspberry wheat which is decent but could be better.

Overall, I would place the ales of this brewpub (especially the first 4)amongst the best brewed in all of Ontario =along with the Scotch Irish, Millstreet, Granite ESB, Merchant Ale House Bitter and a few others that I appologize for missing.

I have never been to one their festivals, though I might go this time. The real attraction for me is still the beers they are brewing.

pootz · Post by **pootz** » Thu Jan 27, 2005 10:43 am

If you have never been there (at least in the last year since they changed the master brewer and started making all grain beers), it is worth a trip in even if it were only for their beers.

There are 6 beers being brewed by one of the most respected beer judges in Canada. 4 of these I would class as truly outstanding and worthy of being named amongst the best of their styles in Ontario (if not Canada).

Any Marzens, Dunkles, schwarzbier, bocks, weizens, helles, Dortmunders, rauchbiers, roggenbiers, Kellerbier or Viennas? Maybe even some Tutonic ales...Alts or Kölsch?

Don't get me wrong...I love a well made ale like IPA or particularly brown ale, Porter and stout....and I will support any craft brewer making them but why is it hard to find craft brewers who don't have a variety of the better bottom fermented lagered beers? No aging time/equipment/space??

northyorksammy · Post by **northyorksammy** » Thu Jan 27, 2005 11:20 am

"The real attraction for me is still the beers they are brewing."

been there, done that

tupalev · Post by **tupalev** » Thu Jan 27, 2005 11:33 am

Any Marzens, Dunkles, schwarzbier, bocks, weizens, helles, Dortmunders, rauchbiers, roggenbiers, Kellerbier or Viennas? Maybe even some Tutonic ales...Alts or Kölsch

Everyone has to pick an angle and concentrate to be successful, at least initially in my opinion. I'd rather see Pepperwood concentrate on the 6 or so beers in their lineup, and do them apparently very well, then start going all over the board. Maybe once a brewpub becomes established and wants to experiment with seasonals or one-offs they can, but after we recently discussed how hard it is for brewpubs to make a go of it here in the GTA area, let's take things one step at a time.

And I'm just thinking out loud here, not knowing too much about the industry, but maybe a lot of it has to do with the brewers themselves? For those of you in the know, are the brewers in Ontario from a mainly British training background, or are they from all over Europe anf the U.S. as well? Or is it simply a matter of them brewing what I consider more "standard" beers (Brown Ales, Stouts, etc.) than those listed in the previous post? It is a business after all. Didn't our favourite former Whitby brewpub focus more on those types of beers?

tupalev · Post by **tupalev** » Thu Jan 27, 2005 11:39 am

been there, done that

Congratulations. What's your point?

As devoted beer lovers, perhaps one may consider supporting boring old quality local micro's and brewpubs when they can, instead of (and I'm just going off a general vibe here, not something specifically said) always harping about there being nothing new. I think there is a balance there between the two that can be struck. But to each their own.

Jeff

Wheatsheaf · Post by **Wheatsheaf** » Thu Jan 27, 2005 1:31 pm

tupalev wrote:
been there, done that
Congratulations. What's your point?

Exactly.

If the beers on offer haven't impressed, then say so, and why. But knocking an event just because it won't offer the chance to tick a few boxes is, frankly, not a sentiment that I'm sympathetic with.

Beer Geek · Post by **Beer Geek** » Thu Jan 27, 2005 7:44 pm

been there, done that

This is exactly the reason why I don’t rate the beer I try. I don’t ever want to get to a point where I have no interest in a beer event because I’ve tried all the beer being showcased. I judge beer on whether I like it or not, and will I ever buy it again. I’m afraid that if I start to use sites like ratebeer.com then trying beer becomes a competition of who can try the most beer. I think picking it apart and making notes takes away from really enjoying a great beer. In my opinion, Paul Dickey brews some amazing beer that is worth drinking on more then one occasion.

Correct me if I’m wrong, but hasn’t he helped with some of the Black Oak recipes?

JerCraigs · Post by **JerCraigs** » Thu Jan 27, 2005 8:13 pm

Beer Geek wrote: This is exactly the reason why I don’t rate the beer I try. I don’t ever want to get to a point where I have no interest in a beer event because I’ve tried all the beer being showcased.

The two are entirely separate. Personally, I go to certain events/bars to try something new and rate it, I go to others bars/events to enjoy beers I enjoy on a regular basis. Sometimes theres a good mix of the two.

DAN-D-MAN · Post by **DAN-D-MAN** » Thu Jan 27, 2005 8:20 pm

This is exactly the reason why I don’t rate the beer I try. I don’t ever want to get to a point where I have no interest in a beer event because I’ve tried all the beer being showcased. I judge beer on whether I like it or not, and will I ever buy it again. I’m afraid that if I start to use sites like ratebeer.com then trying beer becomes a competition of who can try the most beer. I think picking it apart and making notes takes away from really enjoying a great beer.

Beer Geek, I'll drink to that... and enjoy that drink for what it is!

Cheers!

GregClow · Post by **GregClow** » Thu Jan 27, 2005 8:55 pm

JerCraigs wrote:
Beer Geek wrote: This is exactly the reason why I don’t rate the beer I try. I don’t ever want to get to a point where I have no interest in a beer event because I’ve tried all the beer being showcased.
The two are entirely separate. Personally, I go to certain events/bars to try something new and rate it, I go to others bars/events to enjoy beers I enjoy on a regular basis. Sometimes theres a good mix of the two.

Exactly what I was going to say.

While I admittedly go out of my way at times to try new beers just for the sake of rating them (see my posts in the Nickel Brook & Robert Simpson threads, for example...), I'm also happy to spend an evening with friends drinking some old favourites with no notepads in sight.

It's all about balance.

dhurtubise · Post by **dhurtubise** » Thu Jan 27, 2005 11:03 pm

Beer Geek wrote:
been there, done that
This is exactly the reason why I don’t rate the beer I try. I don’t ever want to get to a point where I have no interest in a beer event because I’ve tried all the beer being showcased. I judge beer on whether I like it or not, and will I ever buy it again. I’m afraid that if I start to use sites like ratebeer.com then trying beer becomes a competition of who can try the most beer. I think picking it apart and making notes takes away from really enjoying a great beer. In my opinion, Paul Dickey brews some amazing beer that is worth drinking on more then one occasion.

Correct me if I’m wrong, but hasn’t he helped with some of the Black Oak recipes?

I agree with the entire sentiment of this post.

As for the questions: Paul Dickey was indeed a consultant for Black Oak for some time though I do not know to what extent he was involved. One thing I am aware of is that their saison was formulated by Paul, though it would not surprise me that the second incarnation (the one we had this summer) was at least tweaked by Mathew Ohara , the current (and talented) brewmaster.

Paul is brewing incredible beers for Pepperwoods right now with an incredibly chalenging lack of apropriate equipment. With the present process, lagers are out of the question so forget about dunkles, helles, pilseners, continental dark lagers, bocks, shwartzbiers and all kinds of other wonderful bottom fermented styles. There are but a handfull of non-chain brewpubs that brew these well. In fact the only one I can think of right now is Amere a Boire in Montreal. Gordon Biersh and Denison brewed excellent and in some case fantastic examples of a few lagers. They had the equipment.

I have had some of Paul Dickey's personal lagers (a fantastic Dortmunder for one) and they have all been very good. It is merely a question of equipment and possibly clientel base for him.

As for Weizen or DunkelWeizen etc. I would imagine he would have no problems brewing them - they're relatively easy ales to make.

the.brewer · Post by **the.brewer** » Thu Jan 27, 2005 11:46 pm

Daniel,
Be careful with the quotes - it was Northyorksammy who said the "Been there, done that" that you were referring to. And as far as the last paragraph of your post goes.......I think I'll just crawl into a corner and shrivel up.
M.H.

P.S. Matt O'Hara left Black Oak in September. The current brewer Adrian is highly qualified and notably went to brewing school at VLB Berlin.

dhurtubise · Post by **dhurtubise** » Fri Jan 28, 2005 8:40 am

Micheal,

I am terribly sorry about that - did not mean to offend you or diminish the outsanding Denison product. It is very difficult to brew outstanding weissbier.