A couple weekends ago, my SO and I took the bike up into Canada. Hope and princeton BC. Beautiful country for sure. Anyway, went to a liquor stor in Princeton, and was shocked. No good beer. And a 6-pack of MGD was more than $14. YIKES!
As we were walking down to a pub, we noticed a U-Brew place and stopped in. There must have been over 100 carboys on the shelfs fermenting away. In talking to an employee, U-brew is quite popular because of the cost savings. They actually had a little machine to put the beer in cans. It was rather cool.
Anyway, we get down to the “brown Bridge Pub.” I ask for a an IPA. And the bartender says “what’s that?” Very sad day.
I wen into a local pub near me and asked what beer they had and the waitress said “all of them”. Well I started naming off some choice beers to drink and kept getting didn’t have that. So I asked what “Craft” beer they had and she said they never “Heard” of them.
Well, I guess I should be happy I live int he Northwest. Great beer culture here, and more and more places are refusing the BMC beers, and only pouring craft beers. (Of course one did think that Blue Moon was a craft beer, go figure)
As a homebrewer in Canada, I can tell you that there is a craft-beer scene, and it is growing, but it is definitely well behind that of the States. For me, the lack of options up here is one of the reasons I got into the hobby and I think that helps drive the homebrew scene too.
You touched on the other drawback to the Canadian craft beer scene as well, which is the price. Even local craft brewed beer is $7 a pint or more, and imports are even more money (how does $18 for a bomber of Stone Ruination sound?)
I was recently down in Portland, and almost spit out my beer when I overhead somebody say “it’s so expensive here - I’m not paying $5 for a pint!”.
The taxes on alcohlic beverages in Canada are why they cost so much there.
I went into a bar in Orlando a while back and asked what beers they had on tap. The waitress replied, “We have them all, Bud, Bud Light, Michelob, Michelob Light!”
my uncle went fishing up in canada. when he got to the border he had a bunch of beer in his car. the border guard asked him why he was bringing beer in to canada. he said because “i hate your f----ng beer” they didn’t appreciate that and he decided to come back home. :
There are a lot of good craft breweries and craft beer in Canada but I will admit, they are harder to find. A lot of it has to do with the taxation rates as some have mentioned already as well as distribution access in some provinces (I can only speak for Ontario but here you have to get beer through the LCBO or Brewer’s Retail. One is a government run monopoly, the other is a brewery run monopoly and craft brewers have to pay stocking fees to get their beer on the shelves). Also, Canadian beer in general (and I may be out of line here but this has been my experience) falls into either German influenced beers like the light lagers we all know so well (note I said “influenced” not similar), and English influenced beers such as pale ales and bitters. Canadian beer in general has not developed the level of hop assertiveness that you find in the US.
Here in Ontario, you can get great lagers like Steamwhistle, Creemore Springs etc or great craft ales like Cameron’s Auburn Ale, Muskoka Cream Ale etc but you aren’t as likely to find the dominant hop flavours not the alcohol content. The one that may be close would be Hoptical Illusion from Flying Monkey’s craft brewery. But, you’re not likely to find something like Stone Ruination brewed here in Canada today. If you do find someone serving an IPA, chances are it will be a British style IPA, not an AIPA.
I always feel bad when comments like this come up because there are awesome craft beers and fantastic bars that serve them but not all of them do. I can assure you, it’s the same in parts of the US. I really doubt I’d find Sierra Nevada Pale Ale or similar beers in a lot of the little dive bars that I go to when I’m in South Dakota. Just not popular enough with the masses in the area to warrant carrying them. It’s no different here. The Mrs and I are going for supper tonight and we will be going to a bar that carries a great selection of craft beer, not one that just serves BMC. It’s here but unfortunately, you gotta look a bit to find it.
It’s strange to hear this about different parts of the country because, even in the central valley in California, if you head into a “migrant worker” bar where everyone is speaking Spanish and mariachi music is playing, they will usually have Sierra Nevada Pale Ale and maybe Boont Amber or Red Tail on tap.
I’ve got a business trip coming up in a couple of weeks that will bring me to London, ON. If I have the opportunity, where would you recommend we dine if we want to experience some good local beer? I’ll be staying down around Richmond and Oxford streets.
I’m heading to Richmond and Oxford area tonight. I’ll let you know what the bars in the area have available.
Edit: I thought of this place after I put on my first reply. It’s probably at most a 5 minute cab ride from where you’re staying and if you have a nice evening, it would be an easy walk from the area you’re in.
Check out this beer menu and then you can decide if there’s no good beer options in Canada. 2nd page is all Canadian beers and I’ve had about 1/3 of them so I have some living to do… May stop in there tonight and try some. If you ask for an IPA here and they don’t know what you mean, I’ll be amazed.
Hey gmac, I will agree with everything you posted previously. We have some good beer up here, but definitely not the extreme, or ever assertive beer scene that you will find south of the border. It almost makes me think we might be so far behind we are ahead - with the trend seeming to be against the big, crazy, extreme brews nowadays.
That being said, by my standards you have it good in ON, with all the craft breweries out there. Here is SK, I’d say we have 2 decent breweries. One a brewpub and one a micro. And a gov’t regulated liquor store that isn’t too keen on bringing in anything too ‘exotic’. My wife and I took a trip out to Quebec a couple of years ago and had an absolute blast with the beer scene out there. Way different than what we were used to.
Since you asked, I decided to go to Gambrinus last night to see what they have on tap. I had 5 excellent beers
Smashbomb Atomic IPA was very good. 7% AIPA style with assertive hop bitterness and very evident dry hopping. Very nice AIPA you should try if you get there. Too assertive for my wife but I liked it. I should mention that this was cask conditioned as well.
We both also had the Mill Street IPA, not nearly as hoppy and more English in style. Good beer but I should have had it first before the Smashbomb. The bitterness was evident but it wasn’t as hoppy and I’d say relied more on EKG and Fuggles for flavour and aroma.
My wife had the Summer Weisse from Muskoka Brewery. Very good weisse with strong clove overtones and nice colour. Not a style I’m that familiar with so who knows what a weisse purist would think but she liked it.
I also had Mill Gap Bitter at 3.8%. Very nicely balanced for a mild style beer. Obvious English malt character and probably some biscuit malt. This was the beer that my wife actually liked best for the evening. It would be a fantastic session beer.
My friend had some of the same as I did but he got a Tilburg’s Dutch Brown from the Netherland and I didn’t try it but he commented that it was very smooth and drinkable.
Nice patio and good food (I had braised lamb shanks, my wife had the strip loin, our friends had the grilled salmon and mussels and butter chicken). Hope you make it to London and if you do, give this place a try.
