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!
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!
The market for beer is going through a remarkable period of transition right now. All across Europe, the consumption of beer is in decline. It’s barely growing in America. The good news though, is that in several parts of the world where there are booming, developing economies, people are seeing an increase in discretionary income, and it’s these areas that are driving market growth.
Tastes and preferences vary from culture to culture of course, so what sells well in Germany many not sell well in South America or India. Also, master brewers are getting increasingly imaginative in coming up with new products to expand the reach of beer into other demographic groups. These two trends are shaping the new beers hitting the market today, and those that will be hitting the market in the decades ahead.
The two biggest trends are the push to combine beer with fruit and juice flavors to create a refreshing hybrid. This has seen an enormous growth in popularity in recent years, especially in Eastern Europe and Central and South America, although you can certainly find examples in Western Europe and the US. Redd’s Apple Ale, Raspberry Redemption, and Tangerine Wheat are all examples of these.
The last of those, Tangerine Wheat, is interesting because the microbrewery was founded by a pair of women, and it underscores the point that not only are the emerging markets of different cultures driving some of the new flavors, but women themselves are closely involved. Companies are responding by creating and crafting beers that cater specifically to women, getting them more engaged in the market. That trend will continue as breweries continue to look for ways of expanding their market share.
It doesn’t stop with fruits and juices, however. Brewers are experimenting with combining beer with chocolate and a variety of other tasty treats, and that’s the hallmark of what we can expect to see in the years to come. The increased innovation might means that your taste buds get insulted by a dud now and again, but more often than not, it will mean pleasant surprises in store.
Want to come and sample some of these exciting beers, and others like them? Then why not join us at our annual Edmonton Beer Festival 2015!
Since the advent of major breweries, there has always been tension between mainstream beers and those which are produced by local brewers. While major brewers have the benefit of providing consistent prices and brews, there is a distinct lack of choice in beer selection resulting from this homogenization. In fact, one of the leading sites for collecting information about the Canadian beer industry estimates that as little as four percent of all beer produced in Canada is brewed by independent craft beer breweries.
This is troublesome for a nation that is famed for its love of drinking and producing beers of every kind. The problem, by and large, is that many of the larger companies buy out the small breweries. The effect of these actions is that there are many fewer choices in the beer that is being consumed throughout the country. While each province has shown itself capable of producing distinct flavors to reflect their geography and culture, the craft beers are being diluted by the heavy influence of the major brewing industry.
However, this is still some hope left to keep a variety of choices available in Canadian craft beers due to initiatives such as the Ontario Microbrewery Strategy. This initiative provides government support to microbreweries that are trying to explore different marketing strategies, while simultaneously allowing them to hire more workers so that they can keep their breweries running smoothly. As a result, they will be able to keep providing liquor sellers with a wide selection of beers that are not simply copies of one another.
Having the choice to drink and enjoy a distinct flavor of beer is a necessity to anyone who enjoys drinking, and this choice can be maintained by supporting local breweries, buying craft beers, and embracing microbreweries all throughout the provinces and country as a whole.
