IPA du Lièvre

I did not think that I would be able to get a beer starlet on stage this week, but a strange feeling compelled me to put one up at the very last minute. Mind you, this is a monster of a beer, judging by midget extinguisher standards: The IPA from la Microbrasserie du Lièvre in Mont Laurier, Quebec. On a Sunday evening, with the next work day looming, what stronger force might there be than a 1 l jug of 6% beer to help you start the week in style? And how I adore that swivel top bottle, which would have made a fine addition to my collection of Fischer Bitter bottles that I used back when I was still brewing at home.

Stephen Beaumont reports in the second edition of his great Canadian Beer guide that when this brewery opened for business in January 2000, the first batch was given away for free to the guests at the opening ceremony. That's what you might want to call class! If you go and check out the beers from this brewery, you will also find yet another good example of the fine artwork that we have here in Quebec on our beer bottles. Many of the labels of du Lièvre seem to mix Carlos Castaneda with Tim Burton's the Nightmare before Christmas. IPA, of course, is a beer style that always needs to have that tiny extra kick, a little more alcohol and many little - or big - shovels full of hops to make sure that the beer does not go bad on the long journey to India. Just in case you did not now, both alcohol and hops act as preserving agents in beer, and when sailing around the Cape of Good Hope, no-one wants to fend off scurvy with rotten ale. If the Suez Canal had been dug in earlier times, the world of beer might just have been poorer for the absence of this fabulous style.

The IPA du Lièvre certainly is an IPA typical of those found in Quebec: it is quite malty, loaded with dark caramel and burnt toast notes, and even its appearance makes you think more copper or red ale, than pale ale. The beer does have a lovely floral hop character that balances well with the caramel malts, first by spicing up the sweetness of the front palate and then by rounding out the middle palate with a rich haystack pungency. The back palate is wonderfully clean, with some burnt toast lingering on for a short while. And, there is plenty to have as the evening progresses.

Pale or not, that is the question:

Dancing hare (lièvre) with spear, juiced up on peyote buttons and ready for the Halloween dance with Jack the Pumpkin King.

Skunk-off: Beck's versus Stella Artois

Today, I hosted yet another beer-off: Beck's beer of Bremen in Germany against Stella Artois of Leuven in Belgium. Both beers are the same Northeren Pilsner lager style and both come in the unholy green bottle that can give beer a skunky aroma as a result of chemical compounds in the hops interacting with sunlight. Hence, we call this a skunk-off, and it will be a decathlon. The following disciplines are part of the competition: (1) Serving format; (2) Bottle cap; (3) Label; (4) Skuniness; (5) Malt bubble; (6) Appearance; (7) Head; (8) Malt taste; (9) Hops taste; (10) Lacing. Let the skunkiest beer be the winner! An added twist to this competition is that both brands are owned by AB-Inbev. Stella Artois actually was among the first brands of this now multi-tentacled ungulate conglomerate leviathan back in the 1990s when they were only a Belgian company (not an American-Belgian-Brazilian company) and called Interbrew. Beck's got swallowed up around 2002, after having been owned by Bremen family interests for centuries. How will the two sisters compare? How much do they cannibalize each other's market share?

It is a good thing that both contestants come in mighty 660 ml bottles, as I happened to experience a particularly ferocious thirst today, having played a soccer match in the afternoon and refusing to replenish with water in anticipation of this event. Don't ask why the content of these bottles is 660 ml - it may as well be 666 ml - but oddly enough, the odd quantity of the one is mimicked by the other. Maybe this is so because one source says that Stella Artois is actually bottled at the Beck's brewery in Bremen. Go figure, and this means Tie match!

On to the bottle caps. Stella's cap is covered by the paper neck label, and features its ornate brand design on a white background. Beck's comes out on top here, with a sleek red, black, and silver colour combo and using its well known Key logo to good effect.

The labels feature the same colour combination, and so it all comes down to the design of the main logo. Stella's label reflects the heritage of beer from a Belgian brewery called Den Horen (The horn), which is the original name of its producer, Beck's logo is derived from the city symbol of its hometown Bremen. This is a tough call, and while I think the design of Beck's key logo has more aesthetic style, Stella's inclusion of a barley, hops leaf, and a hops cone give it the edge.

Time to open the bottles and stick my gherkin inside, as the skunk notes must be caught immediately after snapping the cap. Beck's wins this competition by a nose hair's breadth. Both beers are quite skunky, but the aroma that belched out of the Beck's bottle was so pungent that the neighbours thought someone had run over a skunk! The next task is to pour and build a nice head for these two contestants. I also compared the malt bubbles that come out of the bottle following the first swig, and Beck's once again has its nose in front here. Stella's bubble did not quite make it out, and giving the bottle a second jig produced a bubble that was not only smaller than the one coming out of the Beck's bottle on first swig, but it also burst much more quickly. What you cannot see is that because of a stiff breeze, the Beck's bubble was actually dancing in the wind when I took its picture.

Stella Artois:

Beck's:

The appearance of both beers is very pale and clear as water - of course we would expect no less of two such reputed brands with great pedigree. Neither has the edge here, but Stella Artois built a far nicer foam with smaller, more uniform bubbles and slightly less fizzing that produced a taller head. Not well documented in the picture above is also the fact that Stella built a much more elegant volcano top.

The taste of the two beers evidences their shared roots in a multinational ogre firm. The malt character of both is disappointing, given their European provenance. Beck's gives us the more adventurous tune here, combining some acidic and floral hops notes with the white bread of malt, whereas Stella Artois offers a stale bread malt character that seems excessively sweet and reminds me of ashtray. Stella's sweetness also lingers in a way that seems a bit awry for a Pilsner style, and while a notable hop bitterness joins the malts and balances well, it does not manage to clean the palate. Beck's has a similar bitterness, but it does clean the palate nicely to a crisp finish. Well done, you town musicians of Bremen!

The last competition is the lacing, and as you might guess by Stella's superior performance on the head, it also wins the lacing comparison, as can be seen below!

Bottom line: Beck's won five competitions, including the two critical taste tests, there were two draws, and Stella won three. Are any of you surprised the German beer won? Prost!

Creemore Springs Lager

This baby has been sitting in my beer fridge for a good month, and every time I went there to get a cold one, I started drooling but nevertheless resisted the temptation to take her out because I wanted to wait for an opportunity to have a photo shoot. Finally, the time had arrived and Creemore Springs lager finally gets her day in the spot light! This beer, brewed in the town of Creemore in Ontario, one also evokes fond memories of my youth, although of the Canadian part. Having come to this country in the early 1980s as a teenager, I found myself stumped by the fact that I left a place where I was able to drink beer almost but not quite legally because nobody really took this matter all too seriously (being one year short of the official drinking age of 16) to arrive in some Puritan backwater wannabe metropolis called Toronto, the legal age for drinking was 19 - older than the legal age for driving, a combination that never made any sense to me whatsoever. On top of that, the situation was truly bleak for an aspiring beer snob - a wasteland of horrible mass-produced beer that all tasted alike and had no discerning flavours whatsoever (think Molson Canadian, Labatt Blue et al.).

It took about 3 or 4 years, until the arrival of Upper Canada Brewing, for the darkness to lift, and Creemore Springs soon followed, having opened its doors in 1987. What a God-send this fine brew was, a beacon of light among the grim and foul-smelling excrement that still dominated the beer stores at that time. And let me point out that the beer store itself was a smudge of scum on the landscape - a monopolizing retailer that made you feel like you were purchasing something with the intention of destroying the moral foundation of society - nothing on display, only a list of products; you place your order, upon which one troglodyte clerk sent that order via intercom to another one back in the stock room, after which your brews would get shoved through a hole in the wall on a roller belt. Anyway, I fondly remember the 500 ml bottle in which Creemore sold their beer in back then. I don't know when they changed to selling primarily in cans, and while I am happy to see they are above the midget extinguisher standard, I do wonder who thought of the 473 ml quantity that deprives me of those precious 27 ml. Clearly this must be some relic of the archaic Imperial measures system (27 ml equals about 1 fluid ounce), which surprisingly still dominates the great backwater we call the USA as I write this.

Creemore is today owned by Molson, who acquired them around 2004 or 2005. I remember once talking to a Creemore rep at a beer festival, who told me that Molson is taking the hands-off approach so as not to destroy the legions of loyal followers. While this seems hard to believe, the quality of the beer has remained relatively unchanged, and only in the past few years have Creemore deviated from their admirable course of sticking to one flagship brand, with one or two seasonal brews. Lately, they have added an Alt to their portfolio, which I have not yet been able to sample but am looking forward to pouring down my thirsty gullet at the first opportunity that presents itself.

The original premium lager is brewed in the Vienna lager style - a copper beer with ample sweet notes and nice caramel flavours. I found it quite interesting that after writing down my tasting notes and comparing them to the description provided on the can, there was an astonishing amount of overlap. For me, the outstanding characteristics of this beer are a slight acidic malt kick that turns into subtle floral hops notes. Overall, the beer is well balanced with a long malt sweetness that gets cut dry by a bitterness that comes and goes in an instant. The mouthfeel could be richer (and perhaps it once was), and I found the bubbles were rather unstable, making it difficult to build a good head - how disappointing. Possibly this is one small piece of evidence of the long austerity arm of Molson reaching into my pint.

The Creemore Spring:

Żywiec

Today I will revert to story telling, as I did a couple of weeks ago when reviewing Erdinger Weissbier. Today's beer is from Poland, is called  Żywiec, and holds with it memories of my trip into Central-Eastern Europe in 1996. This beer is a fine lager, despite the controlling stake that global brewer Heineken has in the brewery today, and it is very typical for central European pilsner style beers. As you may know already, my fondness for German beer predisposes me to liking well-made beers of this style, and this one hits the spot indeed. It has a fine malt flavour that I can best describe as slightly dried but not toasted bread, with plenty of wonderfully rich grain sweetness and a rich velvety mouthfeel. Its bitterness is also very dry, balances well with the malt, and lingers a surprising long time on the back of my palate. That's the way I like my pilsners!

I took this beer to the train tracks, making sure to keep on the right side, to set the right mood for my Żywiec story. I took it there because the one and only time I went to Poland, I entered from the Czech republic via overnight train. Naturally, having just been in Prague, Plzeň, and České Budějovice, I came here also to explore the qualities of what is brewed in this region, where splendor and horror echo history, and where beer was likely one of its few benevolent constants. We were advised to lock the door to our compartment by the official on the train, as this should protect us against burglars who might come in at night and pilfer everything, including the bags hanging around our necks. Good thing I did not drink too much that evening - only a couple of cans I picked up at the train station in Prague - and so I did not have to run to toilet all night long. And then there was our fellow passenger who kept on itching his arm (or was it his leg?), making us wonder what kind of creatures would flake from the scales off his skin and nestle on our clothes for us to take home as pets. Once asleep, I did notice several stoppages throughout the trip, and we were awoken in the middle of the night by Polish border guards with machine guns demanding our "Passaport." The next morning, the official word was that during one of those train stoppages, three "Schwarzeneggers" had climbed on board and tried to rob passengers, but thanks to the good advice of our holy official, they could not open the door to our compartment. Those were tall tales according to a Czech student who traveled in the same compartment and upon arrival in Katowice ate a warmed raw egg out of a cup - to my delight and my wife's disgust. After that, I was thirsty for a beer, so we made haste to find a place to sleep and have our first Polish refreshment, which, as you might guess, was a Żywiec.

 I like the refractions of pebble and logs through the amber nectar in these pics:

A detail from the label shown two dancers in what I assume is traditional Polish folk dress. One has to wonder, though, what is missing in the beer - it can't be water, and there is clearly hops in there, as is malt, so perhaps they created alcohol through immaculate decoction, rather than with yeast.

Sein Desprit by Broadway Shawinigan

How sad it is to conclude that such a passion as writing about beer has to play second fiddle to the grind of daily work and the immediate demands one one's employer - I suppose all this could change if one works for a brewery, but few people are so lucky. This is just to say that my entries in the months to come will be less frequent and less elaborate, although I do think that once the winter months arrive, which I normally dread like the plague, new opportunities will arise to take interesting photos of beers.

Today I tried a Dunkelweizen from a brewery in Shawinigan called Broadway Pub. I have previously tried a few beers of this brewery at the Festival Bières et Saveurs and what I had there was quite pleasing to the palate. This beer intrigued me because it is ostensibly brewed in the Bavarian tradition of Schneider Weisse and others. Those of you who have seen the term Dunkel in beer names should know that this is a German word simply meaning "dark" and a specific style of beer in Germany, not surprisingly, designating a dark lager. But a Weizen is wheat beer, which are ales, and so this style is a dark wheat beer and yet another variation that makes the world of beer so intriguing. The name of the beer entirely befuddles me. Sein mean breast or womb in French, and the only thing I can make of Desprit is that it is a concatenation of d'esprit, and so the name of the beer would translate as mind breast??!!! Or it could be a play on words for the French expression saine d'esprit, meaning sound of mind, but then I do not get what the play is supposed to symbolize. There is a brewpub in Montreal called L'Amère à boire, which literally could be translated as "drinkable bitterness" or "drinking the bitter stuff" and which is a play on the French expression "ce n'est pas la mer à boire - literally "you don't have to drink the sea" and figuratively "it's not a big deal". Clearly, that one works well for a brewery. But the sein desprit is the kind of name that escapes me entirely and I fear that if you are not born and raised in Quebec, you're not going to get it.

The beer itself is not bad, but nothing special. The elaborate description of flavours on the label - which include fried banana, vanilla, and clove - seems over the top to me. I could not discern any of those notes in the beer, and my first impression was that it tasted like one of those fine homebrews I used to make some 15 years ago as a graduate student. There are plenty acidic yeast flavours, mixed in with toast, toffee, and dark malt acidity. A mouthfeel that clearly invokes the richness of malted wheat makes this a beer that will go down with a fair dose of satisfaction on a hot day. The beer is also well balanced overall, with some subtle hops notes that complement the acidic grain and yeast flavours. But still, at the end, I would say that if you buy me another one, I will gratefully drink it, but don't ask me to pay for it myself!


A nice head on this beer, a slightly cloudy appearance, and plenty of dark - dunkel - malts! The label is disappointing though, especially for Quebec standards.

A lovely double-bubble came out of this bottle.

Hoptathlon Part 2

The last two events of the hoptathlon are also the most intrinsically enjoyable and the only thirst extinguishing ones of this beer-off. Finally I get to taste and savour what the three competitors can do as they drench my palate to make it tingle and let my tongue roll around in my mouth. I have divvied up the tasting competition into two parts, one focusing on malt and the other on hop flavours, although any beer connoisseur will readily recognize that one cannot, nor should one, taste either one in isolation. But I am only following the rules and will have to cheat like a judge at Figure Skating or a similar competition, where some discretion is possible in the assessment, to bring in some elements of balance to each separate event as necessary. This should put off a few of you and make the rest become slightly bewildered, but it's your own fault for reading this dribble. Still, in order to pacify most if not all of you, I intend to write a future post elaborating on and explaining my conceptualization of tasting and describing beer flavours.

Who should be devoured first? I will start with the Hophead because it is the lightest in colour of the three. Overall, this beer has a lovely dark toast malt character, somewhat bread-like, turning into burnt toast that finishes very dry. The hops aromas are scintillating and fresh - lot's of cascade and other aromatic hops notes fly out of the glass to mesmerize your olfactory senses. The hop palate provides very subtle floral flavours and is best described as grapefruit slices served on dark toast - cutting all sweetness dry like a bone with peach pit poison.

Second, I taste the Hopitcal Illusion. Its malt flavours are burnt toast all the way - dry and acidic, with very little sweetness up front. The floral hop aromas are very slight, while floral flavours are missing in action. This beer also has a grapefruit character, although less so than the Hophead, and one that lasts along the entire palate. Some of the acidic/bitter grains combine well with the hops bitterness to draw your back palate clean, and a hop belch followed soon after.

Last, we arrive at the Oxymor - will it put me over the edge? The aromas are strong and pungent, reminiscent of aged hops, a smell that combines wet old hay with urine. I learned about this smell when I once kept some hop cones for an extended time in order to make a Halloween costume. In the end, I had to ditch the idea and go to Plan B because the stench of my costume would have produced swaths of dead flies, moths, vampires, and other nocturnal creatures in my wake wherever I would have gone. Once I cleared my nose, I was hit my a wall of dark malt, mixed with some yeast fruit flavours and alcohol warmth that balanced quite well. The ensuing and overwhelming taste of toast and molasses did not leave much room for the hops to make an impact, which perhaps was a blessing in disguise (and I don't mean my Halloween costume).

One last view of the competitors in action:

The final tally of the Hoptathlon:

Serving format: (1) Oxymor; (2) Hoptical Illusion; (3) Hophead
Label: (Tied 1) Hoptical Illusion; Oxymor; (3) Hophead
Bottle Cap: (1) Hoptical Illusion; (2) Hophead; (3) Oxymor
Appearance: (1) Hoptical Illusion; (2) Hophead; (3) Oxymor
Foam: Three-way tie
Malt flavours: (1) Hophead; (2) Oxymor; (3) Hoptical Illusion
Hops flavours: (1) Hophead; (2) Hoptical Illusion; (3) Oxymor

If I weigh all competitions equally, the winner is Hoptical Illusion, but if I give a slightly stronger weight to the last two, which are arguably the most important competitions, the Hophead is our winner. Or maybe I won because I got to drink three fine beers. You be the judge, even if it is a synchronized swimming judge!

I'll leave you with another detail from the Hoptical Illusion label that provides an uncanny likeness of me during the hoptathlon:

A beer-off: Hoptathlon Part 1

A beer-off – we have already had one of those a few weeks ago during the Olympics, and it certainly is the kind of competition any beer lover would spill a few litres of something better than swill to be a part of. What are the rules? Let me make some up that fit the bill, which will be a HOP-tathlon. Rule #1: All competitors must self-declare by label description some form of legitimate affiliation to hummulus lupulus. Rule #2: There must be seven different competitions; Rule #3: The competitors must each be of a different beer style; Rule #4: Competitors must have a different provenance; Rule #5: All competitors must be beers - innovative ciders and wines, malt beverages, coolers made with hops, or urine do not qualify as a legitimate entries.

This beer-off involves a field of rather unequal competitors. I realize this may not necessarily the best set-up to the purist, but other purists will agree that a selection of beers with very different talents makes for some adventurous competition. Besides, today’s choice of entries resulted from a fine buzz. We have, therefore, a self-declared IPA from British Columbia – the Hophead by Tree Brewing in Kelowna; a self-declared Almost Pale Ale from Ontario – the Hoptical Illusion by Flying Monkeys Brewery in Barrie; and, the most exotic and strangest entrant, a self-declared strong IPA from Quebec – the Oxymor by la Microbrasserie Pit Caribou in Anse-à-Beaufils. A level playing field could be said to exist because none of these beers come from a large or well-known urban centre and none are from outside of Canada. Otherwise, the three have very little in common other than the fact that they claim to hop - perfect for the craziness of the hop-off! The competition will involve the following dimensions of performance: Serving format, label, bottle cap, appearance, foam, hops flavours, and malt flavours.

 

Right from the start we know that the Oxymor has the first competition in the bag – it is the only one not in Midget Extinguisher format, coming in a respectable 500 ml bottle. Indeed, the Hophead comes in last at only 330 ml, even smaller than the standard Canadian Midget Extinguisher of 341 ml. Hoptical Illusion comes in slightly above that sad standard, with 355 ml (this would be a European Midget Extinguisher size – how odd for a beer from otherwise white bread and Hamburger oriented Ontario cottage country). At 7% alcohol/vol. the Oxymor also packs more punch than the Hophead, which comes in second at 5.6% and Hoptical Illusion at a mere 5%.

The line-up:

 

Next, we look at the labels. As I have mentioned before, beers from Quebec have some very interesting artwork on their labels, and the Oxymor is no exception. What a fine image – presaging a strong brew that will make the taste buds of the average Molson or Labatt drinker peel off his tongue in fright. But Hoptical Illusion also has intriguing and almost whimsical label artwork, featuring a number of playful design elements and colours that make you want to walk on the ceiling from all the acid on the floor. The Hophead has no main label, only a neck label showing some deliciously green hop cones. The results of this round are that Hoptical Illusion and Oxymor share first place, with Hophead coming in third. While I could give credit to the unique proprietary bottle design of the Hophead, I wonder how practical it is and how much resources Tree Brewing has to put into having enough bottles at hand at any given point in time.

Flying Monkey Hoptical Illusion - wouldn't you like to check out Pete's Beer Emporium?

This must be the Brew House in Barrie

Drinking an Almost Pale Ale feels like flying through a rainbow in a truck.

The Oxymor label reminds me of the album cover of No Mean City by Nazareth

Nice hop cones, but otherwise less spectacular.

Our third event examines the bottle caps. This one is a no-brainer – particularly suitable for all of you who have no brains left because of excessive beer consumption. Oxymor comes in last because the cap has … well nothing to show. The judge even contemplates deducting marks for this performance, but . The Hophead bottle is sealed by a cap evocative of the Brewery name, with an elegant design and appealing colours. Finally, Hoptical Illusion’s bottle cap comes in on top in this competition, with a label that exemplifies craft brewing zaniness. The cap also has colours that well match the label and evokes the brewery’s name. 

 My head is spinning just looking at this cap - The doors of Beer-perception!

 Nice tree!

 Ho-hum, at best!

Moving on to the more exciting parts of the competition, I start pouring each beer into a glass, trying to build a nice head. This will serve as the basis for the next two hoppy disciplines: Appearance and foam. Oxymore and Hoptical Illusion both have a darker hue than the Hophead, indicating the use of more pale malts in the latter and validating its IPA style. Hoptical Illusion is the clearest of the three brews, with Hophead showing some opaqueness and Oximor being almost cloudy. Together, we have to give the edge to Hoptical Illusion here because it is an “Almost Pale Ale” with superior clarity. Oxymor comes in last because unlike its claim, it is not very pale and makes one wonder about excessive yeast residue (the empty bottle was clear, so we can be somewhat reassured). 

The position of the three competitors below is the same as in the above line-up picture.

Examining the three heads (always better than just one), the cap on the Oxymor is quite impressive, showing remarkable stability, fine miniscule bubbles, and a fascinating volcano shape. The other two contestants are equal to the task, each building a fine mount of creamy suds with a tempting mountainous peak. How I’d love to fall into one of those never to be seen again. A three-way tie is probably the fairest judgment here, but Oxymor gets a hop-notch ahead because of its wonderful shape.

Oxymore from the top:
 

Hoptical Illusion:

 

Hophead's head:

  
Part 2 to follow soon, with the grande finale and total scores - who will be the winner?