Granville Island Brewing

Grandville Island is one of Vancouver's biggest destinations, for tourists and locals alike. It has a huge market, a harbour, fishermen selling their salmon right off the boat, an arts college, and of course, the Granville Island Brewery. Sunday was a warm, sunny day, so Darrell and I hopped on our bikes for an afternoon of fish and chips, gelato, and shopping at the farmer's market for dinner.

I'd known since my first visit that the Granville Island Brewing taproom was there, and had always meant to visit, but I had never got round to it. Since we were passing by, we decided to talk to the woman under the tent outside the building, and by sheer luck we learned that it was the brewery's Customer Appreciation Week, and they were promoting it with free brewery tours.

Their taproom and retail store
right in the busy part of the island

Spring beers: Howe Sound "Rail Ale" Nut Brown

Spring has sprung, although in Vancouver it doesn't spring so much as gently creep along uphill, with the occasional 20-degree sunny day followed by a week of rain and hailstones. (Apologies to my friends and family in Ontario, who had a blizzard the other day.) Still, the season is here, and as seasons change I find my beer tastes change right along with them.

Spring is a time of transition between winter and summer, and for me, spring beers play that same role. A good spring beer should help drinkers transition between the big, malty flavours of winter (stouts, porters, etc.) and the lighter, more refreshing beers of summer (hefeweizens, light lagers, witbiers, pale ales). So as if by instinct I've lost interest in imperial stouts and spicy pumpkin ales, and find myself loading up my fridge with brown ales, doppelbocks, and flavourful Belgian treats.

I'm trying to acquaint myself with the beers produced in my new home, so I've been making selections from an assortment of regional breweries. And I'll be sharing here anything I particularly like. So, today's selection, from Howe Sound Brewing, is their Rail Ale Nut Brown.

Perspective hides the fact that this bottle
is friggin' enormous.

Storm Brewing

Yesterday my uncle Fred and I visited Storm Brewing ("Get it?"), a tiny, eccentric hand-built microbrewery in the bad part of town. And I do mean eccentric.

Note the rats on top of the fermenter. (They're
not real.) Representing the Black Plague Stout.

A new beginning

These past few months have been a critical mass of new beginnings. It started off in January, when I finally proposed to my longtime girlfriend Darrell on at sunrise on top of Mount Phou Si in Luang Prabang, Laos. (Not as romantic as you might think.) We spent all of February trying to plan two weddings - one in Canada and one in Malaysia - and at the same time, planning to uproot our comfortable lives in Toronto and move to Vancouver. With my contracts finished, I'm having to get serious about the job hunt, and I'm about to start studying for the BJCP certification. Now I'm sitting in my uncle's living room in Coquitlam, a week before we move into our apartment in the city.

I could go on about everything we had to do to get to this point, but this is a beer blog. So it's time to talk beer.

I've been into home brewing and craft beer since 2009, when I started working on my master's degree with no money in the bank, no student loan coming, and thus needing to secure a cheap source of decent beer. Recognizing my passion, Darrell got me a set of brewing equipment for Christmas (probably one of the reasons I'm marrying her now). Once I secured a part-time job and a scholarship, I was free to start exploring commercial brews, and got really into the offerings of Ontario's craft brewers.

I went to quite a few of the Great Lakes Project X events, and I attended the pre-opening at Bellwoods. I visited the LCBO weekly to see what new stuff had come in. I even stood in line for the tiny Westvleteren XII release (twice, before I finally got some of it). For more than three years I got to know Ontario beer intimately, along with everything else the LCBO brought in. I knew which breweries to expect good things from, and which to approach more cautiously. It was easy to walk into a store and see exactly what was new, what was familiar, and what to avoid. This background knowledge is something you come to rely on.

Now I live in BC, and everything's changed.