Beer of the Week - Black Bridge Brewery IPA!

Our friend, Shawna, was in town last week from Saskatchewan and surprised me with a four pack of an IPA from Black Bridge Brewery simply called IPA! It's always great getting beers from breweries that we can't get here in Ontario.

Black Bridge Brewery opened just a few months ago in October 2014 in Swift Current Saskatchewan, two and a half hours west of Regina. The name comes from an iconic black bridge that everybody in town knows about, just south of town. It took a year for owners Clayton and Kari Stenson to have the building built from scratch and setup the brewing system. Currently they have three flagship beers, IPA!, Milk Stout and Centennial Rye Ale. The beer became popular quickly and the first shipment of their beers to Alberta sold out.

So, how is the IPA!

The beer pours an amber colour with a white frothy head. I get lots of citrus in the aroma and yes, there are nice lacings down the inside of my glass when I sip.

Because of the distinct citrus aroma, I thought this would be a much more bitter beer than it is and that's not a bad thing. IPA! is a very nicely balanced ale, which starts off with very little of the hop bite but then that nice citrusy bitterness grows as I let the ale linger on my tongue. It finishes very nicely. I sense that even though there is none in this, I do get a bit of pineapple in the finish.

This is a very nicely crafted IPA and I am quite glad that Shawna brought me a four pack. It would have been a shame to just have this one.

Thanks, Shawna. You rock!

Beer of the Week Stats 

Beers Profiled 271
Breweries 241
Countries 47

Beer of the Week - Paddock Wood 606 IPA

A couple of months ago, I remarked to Teena that I have had beers from every province but three ... Newfoundland, P.E.I and Saskatchewan.

A co-worker of hers, Dorothy, had a business trip to Saskatchewan and brought me back some Stubblejumper Pilsener. It was so nice of her and the beer was excellent.

A few weeks later I was at the Beer Store and, lo and behold, there sat six-packs of another Saskatchewan brewery, Paddock Wood IPA. I just have to give this one a try.

I went online and tried to research the brewery to get their story. Not much really out there but here is what I managed to piece together.

Paddock Wood Brewery is Saskatchewan's first and only microbrewery and is located in Saskatoon. The province has some brewpubs but no microbrewery except for this one.

Steve Cavan (to the right) worked as a professor of classics at the University of Saskatchewan. He enjoyed making beer but could not get the proper ingredients to make good-tasting beer so he set up his own company in 1996, not as a microbrewery but as a mail-order homebrew supplier. Later on he turned the operation into a microbrewery and still operates as a homebrew supply company which sells home brew supplies and complete beer kits.

I went back through different news articles and such and the best read I can get as to when he started brewing had to be at least before 2009. I found a news article from February 2009 about the brewery. I figure though they had to be brewing in at least 2007 as "606 India Pale Ale" was awarded the "best label" that year by the Collectors of Canadian Brewery Advertising. If you're not brewing beer, you wouldn't have a label.

Here are some notes on the "606" from the company site: "Featuring a blend of Cascade, Amarillo and Willamette hops on top of a solid malt base. The finish is balanced with rich aromatic hop profile. The ale yeast used in "606 IPA" comes from an old British brewery."

And the beer?

It pours brown in colour with a slight brownish head.

It starts a somewhat sweet and malty then the hops start to come through and stay right through a enjoyably long finish. This is a very nice beer. Not an overpowering hoppy beer but a good beer. It would make an excellent session ale for sure.

This is a beer I would buy again.

Beer of the Week Stats
Beers profiled 117
Countries 23
Breweries 101
Provinces 8

Beer of the Week - Stubblejumper Pilsener

Teena's co-worker, Dorothy who lives in Vancouver, was heading to Saskatchewan on business recently. She had heard from Teena that I have yet to have tried a beer from that province and to my delight brought me back a couple from 2 different breweries.

The first one I tried was a Stubblejumper Pilsener from Bushwakker Brewpub. Yes, it is spelled correctly!

I always hope to be able to find a little of the history of the brewery that made the beer which I am tasting. Sometimes this is hard to do. Not this week. On the Bushwakker website is a history of the brewery, a history of the building (Strathee Building), a history of the person the building was named after, and a short history of the Regina Rifles in World War 2. There is also a 5 chapter history of the company.

Bushwakker Brewpub opened in 1991 and the owner, Bev Robertson, was a pioneer in pushing the province since the mid 1980s to allow for brewpubs or "tied houses" to be opened in Saskatchewan.

Originally a professor at the University of Regina, he was on sabbatical in Germany in 1977 and learned to love the beer there. When he returned to Canada, he could not believe the poor quality of the big brewery beer here. So he decided to learn to brew his own.

After successfully brewing small batches, he thought it would be a good idea to help to form a home brewing club to bring together other small home brewers. The group called themselves ALES (Ale and Lager Enthusiasts of Saskatchewan amateur brewing club). Bev had two friends join him for his Monday night brewing sessions. They brewed 15 different beers during the winter, all in 70 litre batches, and all on a Monday night from the Robertson kitchen. As they were also cross country skiers, they called themselves Bushwacker Brewing. Bushwacker is a term for skiers who blaze their own trails.

In 1986, their Palliser Porter took Best in Show in Toronto at the Canadian Amateur Brewing Association (CABA) competition. The cup hangs proudly over the bar today and it is a regular on the taps.

In 1988 as chairman of the Saskatchewan Health Research Board, reporting directly to the Minister of Health, he made a suggestion to the government that Saskatchewan should not be the last province in the country to allow brewpubs. The government listened and legislation was passed in 1989.

Bev did not win one of the first 4 licenses issued and instead attended meetings of the Craft Brewers Association and sought advice from local business consultants. In 1991, he found the money to open his own brewpub called Bushwakkers. The name was spelled this way to avoid any trademark issues and it does stand out.

Being open for 20 years, needless to say, they have been successful. Bev`s son Scott was hired away from Bushwakkers by a Singapore group to set up breweries and train brewers for craft breweries in Japan. Not bad for a kid from a brewpub in the prairies!

The history on the website is more detailed about the fight to allow brewpubs to exist in Saskatchewan and is definitely worth the read.

And the beer?

Stubblejumper, which is slang for a prairie grain farmer, pours a very light golden colour with a nice white head. It takes a little while for the head to dissipate and leaves behind nice white lacings. The first taste is interesting. It starts with a slight bitter note, then comes a little sweetness for a moment before the hops take over and do their job with a long bitter finish. It is never an overpowering bitterness but one which is just right for a pilsner.

I love pilsners and this is a very excellent pilsner. I would never hesitate to have another of these again. If in Regina, I know the first place I would be hitting!

Thanks, Dorothy! Can't wait to try the next one!