It’s time to dust off the grill and break out the tongs again, barbecue season is here! In celebration, here’s a hand selected list of some of the finest brews ever to be paired with outdoor cooking. Drink up, read on, and enjoy.
Full Sail Session Black
A dark beer that’s surprisingly light. Toasty malts combine with a hint of chocolate to give this brew a full bodied taste without sitting too heavily on your stomach. The flavors are strong enough though to ensure that it stands up well next to a big juicy steak fresh from the grill.
Sprecher Black
A bit bolder and fuller than the black mentioned above, this beer is stout enough to stand up to anything you can throw at it. Don’t serve this with mild foods like grilled chicken and fish, or the beer may run away with your taste buds, but if you’re serving up sharp, bold flavors on the barbecue, then this is an excellent addition to the menu.
Widmer Brothers Hefeweizen
If you’re doing seafood on the grill, then you want something lighter than the beers above. In that case, this is our recommendation. It’s a wheat ale, light in color and filled with zesty lemon tones that will pair perfectly with your seafood entrees.
Sierra Nevada Summerfest
Crisp, clean and refreshing, this tasty pilsner has just the right amount of zip to go with most anything, but really stands out among lighter fare, in particular chicken dishes and halumi (our vegetarian friends just love barbecues halumi cheese.)
Angry Orchard Apple Ginger Hard Cider
If you like your barbecue Southern Style, then you need a drink that can pair well with that. If that’s where your tastes run, then you’d be hard pressed to find a better match than this hard cider by Angry Orchard. Sweet, tart with a ginger bite that will leave your taste buds begging for more.
Ommegang Abbey Ale
Sometimes, lamb can be a hard meat to pair properly with a beer, but in this case, it’s about as close to a perfect match as you can get. Ruby in hue and Belgian inspired, this beer is great by itself, but it’s even better with some freshly seared lamb flavoured with rosemary.
Try these, and many other great barbecue beers at the Edmonton International Beer Fest next April. now!
As we count down the months until Beer Fest time again a question that might be on your mind is where to stay when you come for next years show. No worries, we’ve got you covered. Below you’ll find a selection of hotels for every budget. Find the one that’s right for you from the list below. We’ve arranged this list from cheapest at the time of writing, to most expensive. There are lots of other options, but these are some of our personal favourites. Prices were accurate as of July 2014.
Chateau Lacombe Hotel
With prices starting at just $98 a night, you won’t find a better value for your money. High speed internet connections in all rooms and three different restaurants on site, plus you’re withing walking distance to the Theater and Arts district. You can’t go wrong with this nice, comfortable spot.
The Westin, Edmonton
This one’s only a bit more, with prices starting at $100 a night, and it has the advantage of being connected to the Shaw Conference center. If you want to book here though, you should probably plan well in advance, as The Westin is likely to fill up fast.
Delta Edmonton Center Suite Hotel
A hotel located in a shopping mall with 140 stores? What could be better, and a good selling point to your partner. Starting at just $102 a night, and just blocks from Sir Winston Churchill Square, you’re only minutes away from all the action that Edmonton offers.
Coast Edmonton Plaza Hotel
Rooms here start at $104 a night. The big draw for this location is the full service spa and the free shuttle service to a number of downtown attractions. A great hotel with some really nice amenities and a good reputation.
Alberta Place Suite Hotel
A little pricier than the rest, starting at $131 per night, you’re right next to public transportation to anywhere you’d care to go, and that’s a big plus when you don’t want to drink and drive. The hotel offers spacious suites with full kitchens!
Edmonton’s got no shortage of quality hotel space, but these are the best of the best, and all conveniently located to where the festival is being held. Be sure to book your hotel well in advance as there won’t be many rooms left come BeerFest time!
It might surprise the casual beer drinker to know it, but there are actually a rather staggering number of different types of beer glasses, each designed with a particular style of beer in mind. For the uninitiated, here are some of the more common ones, and ideas about which beers should go in what glass.
The Pilsner Glass
An evenly tapered glass, with no curvature, the Pilsner glass is used for drinking light beers. Generally smaller than pint glasses, they’re tall, slender and tapered, shaped to reveal the color and carbonation of the beer you are drinking from it.
The Weizen Glass
Used to serve wheat beer, these glasses are narrow at the bottom and slightly wider at the top to better release the beer’s aroma. This shape also allows room for the thick, fluffy heads that this type of beer produces.
The Beer Stein
Traditional beer mugs that may or may not come with hinged lids sporting a thumb lever. Steins typically come in sizes half liter to full liter in size. These were believed to have originated in the Germanic provinces, and as such, it’s acceptable to drink pretty much any German beer from them.
The Tankard
Originating in England, these glasses share most of the features in common with the Germanic Stein, minus the lid and thumb lever. Owing to their English heritage, it is perfectly acceptable to drink any English beer from a Tankard, which in an English pub is often referred to as a jug.
The Pint Glass
These come in a variety of shapes, from straight or slightly tapered sided to conical and nonic pint glasses. Guinness is most commonly consumed from a pint glass, and in fact, they’ve got their very own Pint design for that purpose, but most any beer can be consumed and enjoyed by the Pint.
If all this talk of beer and beer glasses has got you thirsty, you should know that it’s drawing closer to the time of the annual Edmonton International Beer Festival. We will let you know when it’s time to get your tickets though, so come join us and have a pint, or several. Contact us today!
To the casual observer, it may appear that the world of beer is one of the last bastions of male dominated industry. The reality, however, is quite different. Women are not only making great strides in terms of entering the business, they’re also rising to the top. Here are a few women to keep an eye on in the world of beer.
Jill Vaughn and Rebecca Reid
This dynamic duo work for global brewing powerhouse Anheuser-Busch, and are two of their top Brewmasters. Among their creations you can count Shock Top, the Straw-Ber-Rita, and Bud Light Platinum.
Teri Fahrendorf
Teri has been brewing beer since 1989, and when she started her career, there really were very few women in the industry, making her something of a pioneer. Not only is she the head of Road Brewing, but she’s worked in Sieben’s River North Brewpub in Chicago, Golden Gate Brewing, Triple Rock Brewing Company, and others, where she learned her craft. She’s also the President of the Pink Boots Society, which is an international charitable trade organization dedicated to inspiring and empowering women to become professionals in the brewing industry. It is thanks in large part to her ongoing efforts that we have as many women Master Brewers as we do.
Mariah Calagione
As the Vice President in charge of Marketing at Dogfish Head Brewery, Mariah joined the company full time in 1997 and has since become the glue that holds the brewery together as well as the major driving force behind the brand.
Rosemarie Certo
Rosemarie is the cofounder and owner of Dock Street Brewing Company in West Philly. She began the brewery in 1985, and like Teri Fahrendorf, is a true pioneer, blazing the trail for other women to follow. One of the most fearless and innovative women in the industry today.
There are many others, but it’s plain to see from the list above that the beer industry is not as male dominated as you might have thought. If you’d like to meet, learn about, or drink the beer made by these and other female Master Brewers, you should join us at this year’s Edmonton Beer Festival. Get your tickets now, or contact us!
Looking for something new and unusual to treat your taste buds to this summer? If so, then you’re in luck! Below you’ll find six of the most unusual beers I could find, and believe me, I ventured into some fairly dark corners of the web to pull these out. Most of these aren’t for the faint of heart, but if you’ve got a sense of adventure, follow me!
Bilk
What do you do if you live in Japan and have an overproduction of milk? You mix it with beer, of course, and that’s exactly what the Japanese did. When I was in college, we used to crack jokes about putting beer in your cornflakes for breakfast. “Beereal,” we called it. Turns out, you can do exactly that. Is it milk that tastes like beer, or beer that tastes like milk? Try it and see for yourself.
Cave Creek Chili Beer
I know what you’re thinking…chili and beer? Yes! Each bottle comes with a scorching hot pepper inside, and it certainly adds to both the flavor and the heat. There’s not another beer quite like it, and your tongue and taste buds may never be the same again.
Dark Star Espresso Coffee Beer
Well, someone was bound to come up with this combination sooner or later, right? Actually, this is one of my personal favorites. One part beer, one part coffee, it makes the perfect nightcap. If you’re a coffee lover, and even if you’re not overly fond of beers, this one is highly recommended, and by the way, it makes an excellent “float” too!
Mamma Mia Pizza Beer
Everybody knows that pizza and beer go together. It’s the perfect food and drink combination, and now, they’ve actually been combined into one thing. That’s right. You can drink a beer that actually tastes a lot like a pizza, complete with onion, garlic, tomato, basil and oregano flavors. What’s for dinner at your house tonight?
Victory at Sea Coffee Vanilla Imperial Porter
Being a fan of the Dark Star brew mentioned above, I’ve got this one on my “must try” list. A stout drink, 10% by volume, it combines beer, coffee and vanilla. I wasn’t sure they could improve on the basic idea of coffee plus beer, but this strange brew is making me rethink. I can’t wait to get my hands on some.
Smisje Wostyntje Mustard Ale
While this brew doesn’t include any actual finished mustard, it does feature crushed mustard seeds. It’s dark and bitter, but absolutely delicious. Be warned though, this is beer that bites back!
There are hundreds of great beers from all over the world. If you find any of these beers available in Edmonton drop us a line!
We do our best to collect as many kinds of beer in one place every year at the Edmonton Beer Festival. Don’t miss out, see you in 2015!
