Inspired by my friend Martin who did something similar last year, I decided to attempt the goal of trying a new beer every week for the whole year! This is a six-month recap of what I’ve tried so far. I’ve had to stick to what’s available in BC of course, so haven’t had a chance to try many American craft beers. There’s lots of local stuff here though!

January:

• Red Racer IPA – The first beer I tried is from the local Central City Brewing Company, and won a few awards in 2010. Easily my favourite IPA and one of the best beers of the year so far overall.
• Red Racer Pale Ale – More bitter than the IPA, not as memorable.
• Red Racer Lager – Has a bite, almost apple taste, not for me.
• Tuborg – Unremarkable, inoffensive but forgettable.

February:

• Bavaria – Don’t remember much about this one, didn’t dislike it but it didn’t stay with me.
• Chimay Blue – I like strong Belgian beers a lot, and this is one of the classics.
• Innis & Gunn Highland Cask – An interesting beer finished in whisky casks. VERY sweet, not my thing really despite the whisky connection!
• Steam Whistle Pilsner – From Ontario, really liked this one, easily available in Vancouver.

March:

• Red Baron – Very forgettable, not great.
• Russell Lager – Ditto!
• Double Decker IPA – From a Victoria brewery, nowhere near as flavourful as the Red Racer.
• Estrella Inedit – Sold in 750ml bottles for $6, I really like it! It’s closest in flavour to a wheat beer and is great for the summer.

April:

All of these were in an “Ontario Craft Beer” multipack I found at the great Legacy Liquor Store in the Olympic Village.

• Wellington SPA – Not bad, nothing special.
• Black Oak Pale Ale – Ditto.
• King Pilsner – Pretty good.
• Stone Hammer Pilsner – Didn’t taste like a pilsner, disappointing.

May:

• Flying Monkey Hoptical Illusion – Wasn’t a fan.
• Cameron’s Cream Ale – Another forgettable entry.
• Flying Dog Tire Bite Golden Ale – Not bad but unlike the name, no bite! Also very expensive.
• Phillips Hefeweizen – I’m not a big fan of the Phillips Brewing Company normally, but this is probably my favourite beer of theirs. It’s a great-tasting wheat ale.

June:

• Efes Pilsner – This was a really good, authentic-tasting pilsner.
• Lighthouse Deckhand Saison – Awesome Belgian-style beer by the Victoria-based Lighthouse.
• Stanley Park Amber Ale – This isn’t normally the kind of beer I like but for some reason I love this one. Lots of flavour yet light and crisp.
• Stanley Park Pilsner – Not as good as the Amber Ale sadly; there are many better pilsners out there.







There’s lots more to come later in the year; I’ve already found some great stuff for July!

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Lots of glasses at the Compass Box Tasting & Blending Course

I first found out about the Victoria Whisky Festival, as is the usual way of things, right after the ticket sales had concluded. I was at a Hopscotch event (the Vancouver whisky festival) when the host mentioned that “the biggest event in Canada is of course in Victoria, but it’s sold out now”. Simultaneously excited and horrified, I emailed the contact address on the website and waited in hope.

I did eventually get in touch with someone, of course, otherwise this would be a short and pointless piece (and thereby differing not at all from my usual output). After a month I got a blessed email from Lawrence, the organizer, telling me that there had been a small number of cancellations, and would I like a couple of tickets? I had to pay a bit more than I’d have liked as the tickets were all packages, but that meant I had an excuse to try more whisky so it wasn’t all bad.

This year the festival was held from January 21st – 23rd. I got the opportunity to try a lot of new and exciting products and attend some great seminars. Here’s how it went. By and large I won’t get into tasting notes of the many whiskies I tried, partly because there were just so many and also because I don’t really believe in the usefulness of a lot of the notes you read – taste is so subjective. I’m no professional and will leave that to people like Jim Murray and the various distillery ambassadors who actually know what they’re talking about!

Compass Box's John Fraser

The Grand Compass Box Tasting and Blending Course

The first event on Friday night was one of the best. John Glaser of Compass Box took us through his company’s products, and then we had the chance to blend our own whisky using up to five ingredients (all cask-strength, and mostly single malts from name-brand distilleries). It was the first time I’d tried any Compass Box stuff, and found that I really liked the Spice Tree. John explained the difference between a “true” blended whisky and a vatted blend (blended uses some grain whisky), and while I didn’t choose to use any grain whisky most people seemed to do so. My blend seemed to turn out well from a sip, but on John’s advice I’m letting it sit for a couple of weeks before trying any more, to let the different flavours blend.

The Morrison-Bowmore Distillery Masterclass

Onto the Saturday; I was a bit worried about this event, as the start time was 11.15am! I found that as I got into it though, the earliness of the hour didn’t bother me. Jamie MacKenzie is really entertaining to listen to and the whiskies were really good. This was another distillery I wasn’t too familiar with and I was happy to find out that I really enjoyed all of their samples, especially the Glen Garioch (pronounced “Glen Geery”) 12 year and the Bowmore 15 year. I’ll probably pick up a bottle of both at some point. Later that night at the Consumer Tasting, Jamie had a couple of special bottles literally under the table for masterclass attendees to try; a Bowmore Tempest, and a quite rare Bowmore Maltmen’s Edition which you can only buy directly from the distillery. The Maltmen’s Edition is finished in sherry casks and was particularly good. The class and the bonus drams at the Consumer Tasting were well worth it!

The selection for the Morrision-Bowmore masterclass

Distilled whisky, as it appears before it's finished in casks

The Macallan Distillery Masterclass

J. Wheelock took us through Macallan’s lineup in this educational session. Now, amongst my friends I’ve been quite vocal in the past for my dislike of Macallan’s Fine Oak 10 year; I haven’t changed my mind on that at all. To me it’s bland, with little or no complexity. Whisky is so subjective though, so I’m sure many others have a different opinion. Anyway, the lineup gets much more interesting very quickly! The 18 year is my favourite by far but as it costs $250 for 750ml in BC I’ve never bought myself a bottle, so it was great to get reacquainted with it here. We also tried the 21 year old, the cask strength and like Bowmore, a special treat in the form of a duty-free-only bottle. I managed to leave my notes behind after the session, but I think it was a Whisky Maker’s Edition. I enjoyed it a lot. And J, I’m one of the people who LIKES to try stuff you can’t buy, so please keep bringing it along!

The Amrut Distillery Masterclass

From their appearances at the Hopscotch festival, I knew that I liked what I’d tried of Amrut, and couldn’t wait to experience more. I wasn’t disappointed! Seven top-class whiskies were shown off by Jonathan Bray in a nicely laid-back and friendly presentation. I seriously liked everything we tried in this session, though I admit to feeling a bit of whisky fatigue by this point (a rarely-diagnosed condition). The standouts were the Fusion, the cask strength single malt and the cask strength peated malt, but all of it was great. Like a lot of people, I imagine, as I first got interested in whisky I was very much snobbishly dismissive of anything non-Scottish, but Amrut is one of the distilleries that showed me that great talent, process, passion and ingredients can be found anywhere that people put their mind to it. A great presentation and great, great whisky.

The Amrut collection at the masterclass

The 40 Creek Canadian Whisky Masterclass

Just a quick mention for the Forty Creek masterclass – I didn’t actually attend this as it clashed with Amrut, though Louise did. She said it was great; fantastic whisky and it was inspiring to hear of John Hall’s successes. This was brought home for me at the Consumer Tasting later when I tried the Barrel Select whisky – it’s amazing. I got the chance to chat with John about how it’s made and it was a real highlight of the festival. I liked it so much that when I got home I decided to buy a bottle, and was stunned to find out it’s only $25 here in BC! It’s a STEAL at that price. I encourage everyone to try it – it has a phenomenal smoothness, reminding me even in some ways of a good Irish Cream.

The Consumer Tasting

After attempting to line our stomachs with some dinner in the hotel restaurant, we headed for the main event.

I liked the setup here; it costs quite a bit more than the Hopscotch Grand Tasting, but it’s larger and there’s no need to pay individually for the samples like you have to in Vancouver. I guess in theory you could camp out all night by expensive whiskies and just drink those, but then you’d rob yourself of the amazing quality that you can find everywhere you turn.

The list of whiskies I tried over the available three hours is embarrassingly long:

The under-the-table Bowmore Maltmen's Edition, available only from the distiller

• Johnnie Walker Gold (Blue is so passe)
• Tullibardine Sherry finish
• Highland Park 18 (a perennial favourite)
• Ardbeg Uigedail (this is AMAZING. I love all Ardbeg’s stuff)
• Bowmore Tempest
• Bowmore Maltmen’s Edition
• Nikka 12 (my first Japanese whisky. I liked it but found nothing in the flavour to make it essentially Japanese)
• Nikka “from the barrel” (better than the 12, cask strength)
• Springbank Hazelburn
• Springbank 15
• Sullivan’s Cove cask strength
• Forty Creek Barrel Reserve (amazingly good. My find of the festival as I mention above)
• Forty Creek Confederation Oak
• Finlaggan
• Gentleman Jack
• Balvenie Signature

There were a LOT more that I didn’t get to try; the long, indulgent day had taken its toll and I was wiped out.

A few more notes on the Consumer Tasting…

The rooms were PACKED with people, more so than Hopscotch. A mixed blessing obviously; you want a large crowd but not too large. I imagine Hopscotch avoids this by holding the event over multiple nights and selling slightly fewer tickets for each individual night.

The food that was supplied was great; in fact had we known it was going to be so good we probably wouldn’t have bothered with dinner.

I kind of wish some of the masterclasses had taken place during the tasting, maybe with the hours extended from 6pm-10pm so as not to lose any time in the main room. They make for a nice break during Hopscotch; the Vancouver seminars are much more informal and low-key though.

And on that note, packing the lion’s share of the festival into one day makes it a little bit of an endurance test if you do more than a couple of classes. It’d be great if there were more to do on the Friday, but I understand most people use that day to arrive, and leave on the Sunday. Not an easy situation for the organizers, I’m sure. It’s a good problem to have though! The sheer number of classes shows how much support the festival has, and it’s easy to see why; it’s amazingly well-run and well-attended.

So overall a fantastic time. I know for the 2012 festival I’ll be sitting refreshing my web browser as I wait for the ticket information to go up! Thanks to Lawrence for being so good as to reply to my seemingly-hopeless email and giving me the chance to attend this world-class event. It was truly a memorable experience!

A very busy Consumer Tasting session

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I’ve been a Muse fan for a couple of years now, getting into them quite late when I found some random Youtube video with a kicking soundtrack that happened to be “Map of the Problematique” from Black Holes and Revelations. Since then I’ve listened to most of their other albums and was super-happy last year when they announced their first Vancouver concert since 2004! Last night was finally time for the gig, and it didn’t disappoint!

We had really good seats, maybe 60 feet from the stage right at ground level in row 1. Pacific Coliseum used to be where the Canucks played, and our seats were actually in one of the the bullpens.

The support band was the Silversun Pickups, who despite a bit of a crappy sound mix I thought were pretty good. After they’d finished their set there almost 45 minutes went by before the headliners finally made their appearance, but when they did it was more than worth the wait. The lights went down and the 40ft tall video towers came on, with a display of figures endlessly climbing stairs. Then the covers around them dropped, “Uprising” kicked in and Muse appeared!

It was an amazing concert, Matt Bellamy especially was on top form and the light show was incredible. During “Plugin Baby” they dropped inflatable eyes from the ceiling; when they popped while people bounced them around, ticker tape and glitter showered out.

All in all, a fantastic show and well worth waiting for (although don’t leave it another 6 years please!). This is the last shot I took all night (on my iPhone, didn’t have another camera with me) while the band were saying their goodbyes.

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We’ve been doing a “Scotch Club” with people from work for a while now. We hold it roughly every other Friday night, and your membership dues are a bottle of Scotch (of your choice) when it’s your turn. It’s a great way to experience a lot of different whiskies for a low investment.

Well, this week was the Vancouver Hopscotch Festival, which is an annual celebration of Scotch (and now other spirits and beer). They have a few events like whisky seminars, hosted dinners, and finally the two big tasting nights. A group of Scotch Club regulars headed down there last night, and it was a TOTAL blast.

Things started off with the most insane cab driver I’ve ever met, this guy deserves a whole post to himself but highlights included his idea of duct-taping tinfoil to his girlfriend so she’d be struck by lightning, having some kind of ray to zap passing cars with that would disintegrate them and allowing him to step in as the savior for now-carless people who’d need a cab, and random insults towards us, his customers (to my bald friend Neil: “hey that guy looks like a penis!”). Mixed in with this hilarity was evidence of a darker side, with random threats to other drivers and his extremely dubious rape jokes. We should have realized that he was insane and/or high when he stopped the cab in the middle of a very busy Seymour Street when we hailed him, almost causing a pileup!

Anyway, we made it there in one piece. General impressions of the festival were very good. It was well-organized, with tons of staff and inconspicuous security (who we saw in action, more on that later).

My current favourite single malt - Lagavulin 16

• Some of the more rare/expensive whiskies run out fairly quickly so get there as early as you can and start with the good stuff! The Ardbeg Uigedail and Johnnie Walker Blue Label both ran out in the first hour or so, luckily I was able to try both. The food was almost all gone a couple of hours in as well.
• The music sucked. It was just a standard lounge band and was way too loud in the main hall (the stage was off in the food tent and they piped the music into the main area). I’d have preferred something more in keeping with the theme of the show, which is of course mostly Scotch whiskies, and Dr Hook covers don’t really seem to fit. The pipe band they had walk around at one point was fantastic though.
• I love beer too. I felt that merging beer and whisky tastings into one night isn’t a good idea. I would have loved to walk around tasting all the different beers but only have enough money and alcohol tolerance to stick with one thing. It would be amazing if they did whiskies and spirits one week, and beer the next.
• Security, like I said before, was discreet and when we saw them intervene they handled the (minor) situation very well. Some guy was drunk off his face and started trying to conduct the aforementioned pipe band, and a security guy appeared from nowhere and very gently got him to back off. It ended up with an awesome drunken high-five (which Ryan got on video!) so even he seemed to appreciate it!
• That dude’s the exception to the rule, you don’t get that drunk at these things. Don’t plan on driving or anything, but the amounts they give you are pretty small and by the end of the night I think I’d had the equivalent of 4 or 5 full-size shots of whisky, spread over 4+ hours.
• Take a camera! I can’t believe I forgot one.

Tastings

Ah yes, the whisky Here are my impressions. Keep in mind I know nothing. If this list looks a bit pedestrian, it’s because there are still some famous and basic whiskies that I wanted to try before I jump into the lesser-known and foreign drinks.

Highland Park 18 years old – The first one I tried was one of my favourites of the night. Very smooth, with a delicious almost creamy scent. Extremely classy. Later on in the evening I tried the Highland Park 15 years old as well, and it was nearly as good. I’d never tried Highland Park before but they’re one of my favourites now.

Macallan 18 years old – My first ever bottle of Scotch whisky was a Macallan 10 and I found (and still find) it to be extremely bland and flavourless, basically it’s just a bottle of alcohol to me. Macallan has such a huge reputation though that sometimes I find myself really WANTING to like it (ah, the power of marketing!), so I made sure to try the 18 year which has probably the best reviews of their lineup. And again I was disappointed… it’s SO light, more flavour than the 10 year for sure but just too insubstantial for me.

Johnnie Walker Gold Label and Blue Label – I only tried my first JW (green label) recently and really liked it, so was looking forward to trying the more expensive varieties. They’re both wonderful, with their own characters. I think if I’m honest I might have enjoyed the gold label a bit more than the blue.

Ardbeg Uigedail – Strong medicinal scent to this one, didn’t really come through in the taste though happily. Has a big impact when swallowed! Very good.

Glenmorangie Quinta Ruban -Quite sweet and fruity, a little too sweet for me I think.

Bruichladdich Waves – A surprise, one of my favourites of the night! Peaty with a strong flavour and very spicy. I liked this one a lot.

Bruichladdich PC7 -A lot like Waves, just turned up a notch. Very good, but difficult to find and expensive; Waves gives you most of what the PC7 does for half the price, and there’s no old guy in a baseball cap on the packaging as an extra benefit!

Connemara – The only Irish whisky I tried. I didn’t like it; it had an underlying hard-to-identify unpleasant taste that I found got in the way of the other flavours.

Ileach Cask Strength – This was good stuff! I added a few drops of water (the only time I added water to anything for the whole evening) on the advice of the kilted chap behind the desk who poured it for me, and it was very good; hot and spicy with a strong kick to it as you’d expect.

Amrut Indian Peated Single Malt – I’ll be honest and say I don’t recall much about the Amrut; I remember thinking it was flavourful without standing out so much from the crowd.

Glenkinchie 12 years old – This was a freebie in the entertaining seminar given by Michael Nicolson at the end of the night, and this was a nice surprise too! I guess it shouldn’t have been, this is one of the “classic six” after all and after tasting, it’s reputation is well-deserved. Light in flavour but with a hot finish, I liked this one a lot.

Whiskies I wanted to try but ran out of time/money/capacity: BenRiach Curiositas, BenRiach Tawny Port Finish, Bowmore 18Yr Islay malt, Miyagikyo 12YO, Oban 14YO, The Tyrconnell, any of the Isle of Arran scotches.

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I added some photos to the blackened halibut post, as we did it again last weekend. Tasty!

Original post is here.

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The irony! After making a jokey post about how I was slacking already, I then go 9 days without posting. I’ve been sick though. Winter is totally kicking my ass this year; not only have I just had the flu, but in early January I fell over hard on some ice on my way into work one day, at around 6.30am in pitch blackness and (obviously) freezing conditions. I had a huge bruise on my right hip which is only now almost gone. I still can’t lie on my right side in bed.

Anyway enough complaining, onto a real post!

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