Spring Craft Beer Meet Up

Spring is in the air and once again we are teaming up with Stoneface Dolly's to bring you a meet up of craft beer lovers and breweries. On Monday, May 5th we will once again take over the restaurant to talk and celebrate all things beer.

New to craft beer? Not so new to craft beer? Want to talk to the brewery reps and find out what beers they have now and maybe in the near future?

This is the perfect event for you! Come hang out with other like-minded people.

No charge to reserve your space all you pay for is what you eat and drink. 

Attendees can arrive anytime after 5:30 pm. We will be having a discussion between 5:30 and 6:30 pm about our favourite springtime beers. After 6:30 pm everyone is encouraged to mingle, talk, eat and try the great craft beer that Stoneface Dolly's has on tap.

Just like last time we will have a raffle of some great prizes but we are also adding beer trivia this time! Come see how well you know beer.

Now for the best part. Come hungry as Stoneface Dolly's has put together this menu just for us for that night. Not sure you want to eat? Trust me, their food is fantastic and if that isn't enough to convince you check out your options:

Appetizers: 

Beef tartare:chive-truffle oil-crostini

                   

Salad: House ranch dressing-pickled jalapeno-blue cheese-apple-crispy chicken skin.

                  

Foccacia: Basil pesto-bruschetta & roasted eggplant, goat cheese spread with caramalized onions and peppers.

Mains:  

 

Burger: House made pretzel bun/ Beau's beer mustard/ smoked cheddar/ bacon/ tomato jam/ house dressed chips

Kichesippi 1855 Brined pork rack: soft polenta/veg/apple mortada

Barley Risotto: Turtle Island Irish Red/spinach/roasted tomato/herbs/grilled mushrooms

Sausage stuffed Cornish game hen: pomme puree/St. Ambroise apricot glazed veg/natural jus

 Ling Cod: veg/"dill pickle" potatoes/dill beurre blanc

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All you have to do to be a part of the fun is click the link and reserve your spot!

https://www.eventbrite.com/e/spring-craft-beer-meet-up-tickets-11174967629

Hope to see you on Monday, May 5th!

It's been a while!

Hello all!

Things have been busy for us here at For Barley or For Wort. With so much to do, places to go and beer to drink we have had so little time to sit down and tell you all about it.

We had an exciting month of February where we went to Portsmouth, New Hampshire for their craft beer week. Upcoming, we will have four (yes four) posts about our nine days away. 

We will have a follow up to our interview with J.P. Fournier about Ottawa's Winterbrewed as well as our take on how this year's festival went.

We have an event in the works to talk Spring beers and what's happening in Ottawa in the coming months in the beer community so stay tuned for those details.

As you can see there are lots of things coming down the pipe from us!

Cheers!

Festibiere d'hiver

Quebec beers are some of the top in the world. The brewers are a decade ahead of Ontario in terms of experimenting and reputation.

I was excited to attend a winter festival that highlighted Quebec beers. The list of breweries and venue had me looking forward to a fun evening.

Upon arrival at the Museum of History I was struck immediately with the beautiful venue and the extremely loud music.  Standing at the top where we turned in our tickets, received our bracelet and bought our sample tickets, the music resounded from the floor below us.

The hall was set up with booths, a cask area, food tables and ticket tables.  Immediately, as I rode the escalator down it was apparent that moving from booth to booth was going to be difficult. The line ups extended and intermingled with each other as well as with the booths across the hall making it difficult to move through.

Upon scanning the sample costs it was easy to see that I was going to need more tickets and that my sheet of 20 tickets for $10 was not going to go far. The first thing to do with that sort of limitation is walk around, note the beers I wanted to try, their costs and see what my budget would account for.

First stop was the cask table where by 7:00 pm (the festival started at 5:00 pm) they still had not tapped any of the casks. The selection was impressive though and I was sure my tickets would be well spent there. Asking the volunteer if they knew when tapping might occur just led to apologies and "I don't know."

As the music blared out its club like bass beat and using hand signals to show that we were moving on we checked out the rest of the set up.

Outside there was a lovely fire and booth which served up a hot beer. Interesting and well worth the trip into the cold.

Inside once more we began our sampling, slowly making our way up the various lines to get the samples and ask questions. It became immediately apparent that everyone working the booths were volunteering and could not tell you about the beers they served.

As the evening went on the crowd grew larger making it very difficult to move around the hall. Communication was borderline impossible.  By 8:30 pm we made our trek back to the cask booth. Once there it was disappointing to find out that they were only tapping two kegs at a time.  It meant that if there was one in particular we wanted we would have to wait it out.

After 11 samples and running out of tickets, unwilling to buy more or wait until 2 am in hopes of getting the casks we wanted, we left the event.

Overall impressions? Well I won't go again but I am glad I went to experience it just once. It is a great way to experience Quebec craft beer if you have never had the opportunity before.  Be prepared for a large crowd and loud music. There are volunteers at the booths, not brewery people, so don't expect them to be able to answer your questions or tell you anything about the beer. Go with the understanding that you will have to pick and choose what you want to try based on your budget, same goes for the food.  Ideally if crowds don't bother you and you can be patient waiting in line as well as have the budget for it go both nights. It is about the only way that you can get a chance to sample everything you might want to try.

I was impressed by the selection, disappointed with how the casks were done as well as how much of my time was spent working my way through the crowd.

My enjoyment of the venue and selection was overshadowed by the feeling of being in a nightclub that just happened to serve really good beer.

Beerlympics-The Pre-Game

Logo Courtesy of Brett Jeacle

Craft beer lovers love to talk about beer. The things they taste or smell. The styles they like and don't like. They love to discuss and debate with other beer lovers. It is just in our nature.

This love of discussion and debate, this love of breaking down beer is going to be exploited on Friday, February 7th.

In the spirit of competition and the  Olympics we are hosting the first Ottawa #Beerlympics!

Coming Friday, February 7th

Rules:
All suggestions must be beers available in the LCBO or Beer Store.

Suggestions are open to both Microbreweries and Macrobreweries. All bets are off.

Beers will be served in flights of 3 in a blind tasting. Tasters will not know what beers they are being served.

Each taster will taste the beers and rank each. Scores will be given in ranks of 1-10 with full and half scores possible.

Highest and lowest score of each will be dropped.

Highest overall score after all the flights will be awarded gold, second will be awarded silver and third will be given bronze.

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So this is how it is going to work.

Brett Jeacle, Katy Watts, Sasha Dunfield, Matt Petitpas, Dave Price, Dave Evans, Brian Papineau and Ryan Bellerive and I are going to be the judges.  

The 15 different beers are the competitors.

Chuck, the Wort to my Barley is going to be doing all the purchasing of the beer. The list he makes will come from the judges and from you. (more on that in a minute) He will be preparing five blind tasting flights for each judge.

Each flight will have three beers at an approx 2 oz sample in a styrofoam cup marked one, two and three.  We, the tasters sip each and figure skating judge style give each a score between 1-10 (ex. great beer might be 9.5, bad might be a 1)  The highest and lowest score for each beer will be dropped and the rest averaged out.  We then move on to flight 2 and so on and so forth till the end (apprx 5 flights with breaks in between to clean palates and have water)

At the end the beer that scored. The highest overall will be awarded gold, second silver and third bronze.  We will then reveal the names of the winners.

The score tallies and all arbitration will be handled by Ottawa's very own Brew Donkey, Brad Campeau.

Where do you come in?  Well simple. Starting on Saturday, February 1st we are going to be asking for beer suggestions. We will give a style and you get to flood us with your ideas of what beers we should have go head to head against each other.

Keep watch on twitter for the #Beerlympics or comment here on the blog. Either way all suggestions will get added to the list and will be considered for competition.  Remember micros and macros are allowed as long as they can be purchased in the LCBO or Beer Store.

As for the judges, well the smack talk has already started with Brian decreeing "Go Pilsners!" and Brett throwing down the gauntlet with "Go Stouts!"

When the day arrives keep watch on twitter for the live updates and the final results. In the meantime don't hold back on suggestions.

Which beer will come away with gold? Which will rank lowest in score?  We will find out on Feb. 7th at the #Beerlympics!

Tap Takeover-Corner

What are the two things that you can count on from a tap takeover involving one of the oldest and one of the most creative breweries in Ottawa? Interesting beers and a big crowd.

Both were present on Saturday at The Corner Bar and Grill in Westboro.

Beau's Brewery and Beyond the Pale took over their taps to serve patrons some great beer.  An overall great selection with BTP bringing Pink Fuzz, Imperial Super Guy, The Darkness, Party Animal and the new Bigamy. Beau's presented the crowd with Lugtread, Bog Water, Bottle Imp, Hogan's Goat and Barrel Aged Burnt Rock.

The event kicked off at 6:00 pm though people showed up early to enjoy dinner. By 7:00 the place was full and by 8:30 there was a line up waiting for tables. Many chose to grab a beer at the bar while Beau's Tim Duncan and BTP's Shane Clarke moved about the room talking to people who had questions about the beer or who just wanted to compliment the brews.

What about the beers?

Well, as expected they were very good. We tried Bigamy (very nice hop flavours) and Barrel Aged Burnt Rock (like a vanilla creme chocolate) We also happened to be there when they tapped a cask of BTP's Breaking Bitter. This beer is good off draught but on cask it was perfect.

A special mention to Turtle Island whose cask of Black Forest we also got to try and it lived up to its name. If you like black forest cake, with the chocolate and cherry combo than this beer is for you.

We got to try the beers we wanted and with the steadily building crowd choose to leave early to give room for the newcomers to enjoy the offerings as much as we did.

Congrats on a successful tap takeover to Beau's and Beyond the Pale!