patios

due to a lack of space in the july/august edition of the bc craft beer news
my lengthy article on the best craft beer patios in vancouver got truncated
the whole article is available online
but i’m also copying it here

Summer time and the living is easy… not to mention best enjoyed on a patio!

In a departure from my usual format and just in time for summer 2014, I bring you the very best patios in Vancouver for enjoying craft beer. The list starts with larger patios and beer menus and goes on down to smaller (but no less enjoyable) venues, with smaller beer menus. Only the heat and the hours available to you will limit your time on these patios, so there is no rating system in this round of reviews. Enjoy!

Patio drinking tips: Look for session ales—those tasty lower alcohol beers that enable you to spend a long ‘session’ on a patio. Drink water! Go for a rinse cycle after every beer; your body will love you for it. Keep your drink out of the sunlight—no one likes a beer that goes skunky. Bring sunscreen to reapply as your patio time wears on and the sun moves. Wear sunglasses with UVA and UVB protection—both for your eyes and to hide the fact that you are totally people-watching!

Tap & Barrel (Olympic Village)
1 Athletes Way, Vancouver
604.551.0463
Web tapandbarrel.com
Facebook tapandbarrel
Twitter @tapandbarrel
Monday–Sunday 11 am – midnight
Weekend and holiday brunch 10 am – 3 pm
Taps 23 regular beer taps plus one rotating tap, and there’s also a cider on tap—all from British Columbia.
Size of pour 20 oz for $7/7.50.
Bottles 10 imports, including two gluten-free options.
Session beers available Yes. The current menu includes three beers under 5%.
Patio The patio is enormous! Or should I say patioS? There is a wraparound patio upstairs and a two-level wraparound patio downstairs. With excellent views of False Creek and all the happenings along the Seawall, not to mention a whole menu of BC beers and wines, this is one great place to lose an afternoon. And a great place for sun worshippers, as they don’t really have many umbrellas.

Tap & Barrel (Convention Centre)
1055 Canada Place, Vancouver
604.235.9TAP
Web, Facebook, Twitter As above.
Monday–Sunday 11 am – midnight
Weekend and holiday brunch 10am – 2pm
Taps 29 regular beer taps plus two rotating taps, and there’s both a cider tap and a nitro tap—all from British Columbia.
Size of pour 20 oz for $7/7.50.
Bottles Nine imports, including two gluten-free options.
Session beers available Yes. The current menu includes two beers under 5%.
Patio The patio is large, with lots of shade cover and views of the Burrard Inlet, the Northshore Mountains, and Stanley Park. Watch the float planes take off and land while you pat yourself on the back for drinking locally produced craft beers.

Yaletown Brew Pub
1111 Mainland Street, Vancouver
604.681.BREW (2739)
Web markjamesgroup.com
Facebook YBC Yaletown Brewing Company – Official Page
Twitter @YBC_brewing
Sunday–Wednesday 11:30 am – midnight
Thursday 11:30 am – 1 am
Friday–Saturday 11:30 am – 3 am
Taps They have seven regular beers and two seasonals on tap in both the restaurant and the pub. You can only get YBC beer on-site, and they do growler fills.
Size of pour 16 oz.
Bottles Yes several, but they’re not craft beer.
Session beers available Not generally, but the seasonal may be.
Patio Not just one, but three patios. A small one with communal tables outside the pub, and two large patios that wrap around the restaurant, all perfect for watching the pretty people wander around Yaletown.

Steamworks Brew Pub
375 Water Street, Vancouver
604.689.2739
Web steamworks.com
Facebook Steamworks
Twitter @SteamworksPub
Monday–Sunday From 11:30 am on…
Taps Eight taps of beer brewed in-house, using steam.
Size of pour 16 oz, 20 oz, 24 oz
Bottles No
Session beers available Yes. The Cascadia Golden Ale is 4%.
Patio Right in the hustle and bustle of Gastown. If you are sitting street-side on the patio, you have a great view of all the goings-on. If you are water-side, you can enjoy the sights and sounds of a working harbour. It’s a win-win. Plenty of umbrellas for the shade lovers, and decent sun most of the day for the sun worshippers.

Rogue Kitchen and Wetbar (Gastown)
601 W Cordova Street, Vancouver
(inside Waterfront Station)
604.678.8000
Web roguewetbar.com
Facebook RogueWetbar
Twitter @roguewetbar
Sunday–Thursday 11:30 am – midnight
Friday and Saturday 11:30 am – 1 am
Taps Rotating taps of 14 craft beers and one cider, in a mixture of local and imported brews.
Size of pour Five 4 oz tasters for $7.99; 16 oz sleeves and 20 oz pints, as well as pitchers, for varying prices.
Bottles Three import bottles, including one gluten-free offering, plus four macro-brewed bottles.
Session beers available Currently there are four beers below 5% on the rotating menu.
Patio Located right at Waterfront Station, the patio boasts a great view of all the Cordova Street action, so it’s a great people watching spot. The downside of this is that you will be approached by panhandlers if you are sitting on the outside of the patio. The crazy craned umbrellas move at any angle imaginable, so if you crave shade, you’ll be happy all afternoon and evening long.

Local Public Eatery
2210 Cornwall Avenue, Vancouver
604.734.3589
Web localkits.com
Facebook Local Public Eatery Kitsilano
Twitter @LOCALKits
Monday–Thursday 11 am – 1 am
Friday 11 am – 2 am
Saturday 10 am – 2 am
Sunday 10 am – 1 am
Taps Rotating taps of craft beers, four permanently serving craft beer and one serving cider (six permanently serving non-craft beers).
Size of pour Sleeves and pitchers.
Bottles Yes, but only one (of eight) is a craft beer.
Session beers available Depending on the rotational tap, there could be
Patio Right out on Cornwall Avenue, this is a great people watching spot. You have to be early to snag a seat on this very popular patio, though!

Chill Winston
3 Alexander Street, Vancouver
604.288.9575
Web chillwinston.com
Facebook Chill Winston
Twitter @chillwinston
Monday–Sunday 11 am – 1 am
Taps Six craft beers, two ciders
Bottles 18 bottles of local and imported beers, mostly craft, including two gluten-free choices.
Session beers available Currently a couple on the menu.
Patio A good-sized patio, right in Gastown where three roads meet (sounds very Oedipal). It is a really great peoplewatching spot, and very popular—so best to call ahead for a reservation.

St. Augustine’s
2360 Commercial Drive, Vancouver
604.569.1911
Web staugustinesvancouver.com
Facebook St. Augustine’s
Twitter @StAugustinesVan
Sunday–Thursday 11 am – 1 am
Friday and Saturday 11 am – 3 am
Brunch Weekends and holidays 11 am – 3 pm
Taps 60+ rotating taps of local and imported craft beers and ciders. See their live tap list for a current listing (and how much is left in the keg).
Size of pour 14 oz for $5.75-$8, taster paddles of four 5 oz glasses.
Bottles No.
Session beers available Currently 10 beers below 5% on the rotating menu.
Patio It’s not a large patio. In fact you’d be hard pressed to fit more than two people at all but one of the tables. But what it lacks in size it makes up for in sheer choice of beers on tap. And if you are a fan of the Skytrain, you can watch one go by approximately every two minutes.

BierCraft Tap and Tapas (Commercial Drive)
1191 Commercial Drive, Vancouver
604.254.2437
Web biercraft.com
Facebook BierCraft
Twitter @biercraft
Monday–Tuesday 11 am – 11:30 pm
Wednesday–Thursday 11 am – 12 am
Friday 11 am – 1 am
Saturday 10 am – 1 am
Sunday 10 am – 11:30 pm
Taps Over 20 taps of local and imported craft beers.
Size of pour Up to 20 oz, depending on the beer.
Bottles Over 100 bottles of mostly imported Belgian beers.
Session beers available Currently two taps and several bottles are under 5%.
Patio A long, narrow patio down the south side of the restaurant, so only the first few tables offer an interactive view of Commercial Drive. But then, not everyone wants to be watched while they slurp up beer after beer!

BierCraft Bistro (Cambie Street)
3305 Cambie Street, Vancouver
604.874.6900
Web, Facebook, Twitter As above.
Monday–Thursday 11:30 am – 12 am
Friday 11:30 am – 1 pm
Saturday 10 am – 1 pm
Sunday 10 am – 12 am
Taps 22 taps of local and imported craft beer.
Bottles Over 100 bottles of mostly imported Belgian beers.
Session beers available Currently three taps and several bottles under 5%.
Patio Just a few tables big, this is a really cute patio. Right on Cambie Street, it offers people watching opportunities without being too overwhelmingly traffic-noisy.

The Whip Gallery Cafe
209 East 6th Avenue,Vancouver
604.874.4687
Web thewhiprestaurant.com
Facebook The Whip Gallery Restaurant
Twitter @WhipRestaurant
Monday–Thursday 10 am – 1 am
Friday 10 am – 2 am
Saturday 9 am – 2 am
Sunday 9 am – 1 am
Taps Six regular taps of local craft beers, one rotating tap, and one rotating cask.
Size of pour 16 oz for $5.50, 20 oz for $6.50, and pitchers for $19.50.
Bottles Regularly on the menu are 10 canned beers, 19 bottles, and 9 share bottles of local and imported beers.
Session beers available Two beers under 5% on the regular menu.
Patio It ain’t large, but it’s pretty. Just off Main Street, the people watching is still enjoyable without the traffic noise. And there are hops growing on the patio—I love that!

Tangent Cafe
2095 Commercial Drive, Vancouver
604.558.4641
Web tangentcafe.ca
Facebook facebook.com/pages/Tangent-Cafe/420386921358640
Twitter @TangentCafe
Monday and Tuesday 8 am – 3 pm
Wednesday and Thursday 8 am – 12 am
Friday and Saturday 8 am – 1 am
Sunday 8 am – 10 pm
Taps 10 rotating craft beer taps.
Size of pour 16 oz (smaller for high-alcohol beers).
Bottles Quite a decent list of local and Belgian beers (including a cider and a gluten-free beer).
Session beers available It is a rotating menu and not available on-line, so you will just have to try your luck! They do love their Belgian beers though, so expect to find one or two.
Patio Quite a small patio, but it’s south facing, so it gets plenty of sun. An excellent place for brunch—you might just want to have brunch run into lupper and spend the whole day quaffing Belgian beers in the sunshine.

Falconetti’s East Side Grill
1812 Commercial Drive, Vancouver
604.251.7287
Web falconettis.com
Facebook Falconettis
Twitter @Falconettis
Monday–Thursday 11:30 am – 1 am
Friday and Saturday 11:30 am – 2 am
Sunday 11:30 am – 1 am
Taps 10 taps of local craft beer.
Size of pour Sleeves and pitchers.
Bottles 18 bottles of craft and macro beers, plus Strongbow cider.
Session beers available Not currently, but there are several choices sitting right at 5%.
Patio It’s a second storey patio overlooking Commercial Drive—so it’s more of a ‘see’ than a ‘be seen’ kind of place. The heightened elevation means that you get the late afternoon and evening sun a little longer. Alas, from May through September they do not accept reservations for the patio.

Alibi Room
157 Alexander Street Vancouver
604.623.3383
Web alibi.ca
Twitter @alibiroom
Monday–Thursday 5 pm – 11:30 pm
Friday 5 pm – 12:30 am
Saturday 10 am – 12:30 am (brunch 10 am – 2:45 pm)
Sunday 10 am – 11:30 pm (brunch 10 am – 2:45 pm)
Taps 50, and if you’re lucky one of them is a ‘one-off’ keg Nigel managed to score, sourced from across BC and the US.
Size of pour 6 oz, 10 oz, 16-20 oz depending on ABV. Flight of four 6 oz tasters.
Bottles No.
Session beers available The menu is constantly rotating, so there just may be.
Patio Very small, but joined with garage doors that open up into the main area so it feels like you’re outside even if you aren’t quite. The Alibi is not in a bustling part of town, so the people watching is better inside the bar than on the street. But really, with a beer list as long and delicious as the Alibi’s, your attention will be riveted by what you are drinking.

driftwood sartori

bc craft beer month is in full swing!
the belle of the ball so far is driftwood’s sartori harvest ale, a fresh-hopped ipa
sold out of stores the same day it arrived in them
it is the star of several cask nights around vancouver
and one beer-pairing dinner

st. augustine’s had a cask of the elusive sartori that sold out in 24 minutes
that was monday
tuesday there was a cask at the cascade room
thursday there was a cask at the alibi room
neither of those casks beat the 24 minute record, but neither lasted very long either

missed out on the sartori both in the bottle and on cask?
well, you’ve got three more opportunities that i am aware of to get yourself some:

if you’re a camra member and you have a ticket for the now sold out harvest fest / bc beer awards at chapel arts on saturday the 13th, you can have some of the members only cask that will be available there

the whip has a cask of sartori on sunday the 14th
tapping at 4, i expect this one will be gone in very short order

the sartori is also one of the driftwood beers being paired with food at biercraft cambie’s beer-pairing dinner on october 25th
as of tuesday there were still a couple of tickets available for this event

me, i managed to get two bottles of this ambrosia
one of which i enjoyed on the air on cbc on tuesday evening
and i got some of the alibi cask last night
(thank you nigel for dealing with the slam of people last night with such grace and making sure everyone got some of the cask!)

i plan to be at the whip on the 14th for more
because i just can’t get enough of this limited release
it is not a hop monster, even though it weighs in at 75 ibus
the wet-hopping leaves it smooth rather than bitter
and just so very drinkable

when i’m going to crack my second bottle, i’m not sure
its not a beer you want to keep, it needs to be drunk fresh
but i think i’d like to make an occasion out it!

beer geekery

casks

tried two casks at two venues last night
i love vancouver!

first up, it was rail ale at the railway club
featuring central city’s red racer vanilla chai stout
fortunately for me, there wasn’t much vanilla in it at all
instead it was a delicately spiced easy drinking stout
i liked it, but not enough to have two…

next up i went to the whip
the cask wasn’t tapped when i first got there so i had to suffer through a fat tug…
my life is hard!

the cask of r&b black water wheat got tapped around 10 p.m.
after fat tugging it up to that point i just got me a taster of the cask
you know, to be able to say i’d tried it!
it was interesting…
very banana on the nose, wheaty on the tongue, but not as robust as a hefe
and what is black water?
fortunately it is not waste water, its fulvic mineral water, phew!
i don’t have a chemistry degree, heck i didn’t even take it in high school, so i have no idea what this lovely mineral water offers to a beer
aren’t you glad i blogged about it?
don’t you feel very informed now?
you’re welcome, all part of the service

cheers!

the whip posted this on facebook today
i had forgotten where i had stolen it from
thanks to the whip i can now properly attribute the theory to cheers!

‎’Well you see, Norm, it’s like this . . . A herd of buffalo can only move as fast as the slowest buffalo. And when the heard is hunted, it is the slowest and weakest ones at the back that are killed first. This natural selection is good for the herd as a whole, because the general speed and health of the whole group keeps improving by the regular killing of the weakest members. In much the same way, the human brain can only operate as fast as the slowest brain cells. Now, as we know, excessive intake of alcohol kills brain cells. But naturally, it attacks the slowest and weakest brain cells first. In this way, regular consumption of beer eliminates the weaker brain cells, making the brain a faster and more efficient machine. And that, Norm, is why you always feel smarter after a few beers.’

camra vancouver

from the camra vancouver newsletter:

Hello everyone,

2011 is coming to a close in a few days, but what a great year it’s been for craft beer and real ale in Vancouver and the Lower Mainland! More and more liquor stores, pubs, and restaurants are beginning to carry a wide selection of craft beer, and it’s even creating quite the buzz in the mainstream. It’s not just beer bloggers typing away about the great beers in BC because we saw business magazines, to major newspapers, etc publish plenty of articles about the local craft beer scene. Vancouver Craft Beer Week was jam packed with events this year, and we even had BC Craft Beer Month! Last but not least there’s been some great collaborations between brewers and breweries as well.
As far as real ale goes, this year we saw more establishments on board with the weekly/monthly cask program. But what’s really exciting is that we now have 6 different restaurants that serve real ale on a daily basis! This year The Whip, both Biercraft locations, and The Cascade Room hooked up a cask engine. It seems like as the craft beer scene began to establish itself, the future for real ale in Vancouver began to look quite promising. There were plenty of cask festivals this year, and for a lot of us, they were the most memorable moments of 2011.
2011 was a fantastic year, and 2012 is looking even brighter by the way things are coming along. We have new breweries expecting to open up in the new year, as well as craft beer forward pubs and liquor stores. We will definitely keep you posted about that.
As for CAMRA Vancouver, it was also a very good year for us, and we now have 558 members! Our goals are still the same however our approach will be a little different next year focusing more on education. Members make sure to keep Sunday January 22nd free, and join us at Smiley’s Public House for the CAMRA Vancouver AGM! Have you RSVP’d yet?
Just a reminder that on New Year’s eve The New Oxford and Central City Brewing will have casks at their celebration. Also, Pumphouse Pub and Beerthirst will be hosting a 7 course beer dinner.
As always, please drink responsibly, know your limit, plan ahead, and don’t drink and drive.
Cheers,
Leo Nomoto
Editor, CAMRA Vancouver

camra vancouver news

from camra vancouver’s lasted newsletter:

There used to be a time when craft beer enthusiasts in Vancouver would celebrate every time Nigel switched up the tap list. But the list began to change so frequently, we decided to give our livers a break and only celebrate the big numbers. Well, it’s that time again. In a few more weeks it’s going to be the Alibi Room’s 300th beer list! On December 12, 13, and 14, the Alibi Room will be serving some special beers in a 10oz glass for $3. It’s first come first serve, and the fun starts each day at 3pm.

The wait is almost over. Russell Brewing and Storm Brewing’s Collaboration Brew, The Big Smoke will be debuting Sunday December 4th at The Whip. The cask will tap at 4pm, and bottles of this smoky, wee heavy style ale will be available at select independent liquor stores.

If you’re excited about all the changes Trevor Kallies has made to many of the Donnelly Group locations, you have something to look forward to. The Bimini in Kisilano will be reopening to the public soon, and there’s going to be 24 craft beers on tap! We’ll keep you posted on the grand opening.

Last but certainly not least, on December 13th, it’s the Eat Local / Drink Local craft dinner series at Darby’s Pub. It will be a 4 course dinner paired with Red Racer beer.

driftwood sartori

in case you haven’t yet had your fill of the fresh-hopped sartori
get your ass down to the whip for the penultimate vancouver cask
tapping at 4 today!

the new oxford one tapped out in an hour… just sayin’

oh, and its dockside’s 10th anniversary party tonight
(at dockside of course!)

sartori

the driftwood sartori cask at the new oxford last night was awesome!
there were a whole gaggle of beer geeks there
not so patiently waiting for 5:30 and the tapping
thanks ian!!

alas, the service at new oxford left a lot to be desired
amanda thankfully took it upon herself to fetch us all our glasses of cask
as ian endeavoured to get it poured as quickly and foam-free as possible

on the upside, ian says that there will be another cask of the sartori at the whip
he’s not sure when they’ll be tapping it
and… another cask coming to vancouver
no word yet on who will get it or when they will tap it, but keep yer ears peeled if you’re a sartori lover
(and if you’re not, what’s wrong with you???)

cask night

Tonight is Rail Ale Tuesday at The Railway Club. They will be tapping a cask of Bumbleberry East Side Bitter, from R & B Brewung. Here’s what the folks at R&B have to say about it: A mix of blueberries, blackberries and raspberries stuffed into a a cask full of ESB that has been dry hopped in the conditioning tank and again with the berries in the cask. Tapped @ 5pm

and facebook suggests i have a beer at 5:00 for jack layton
sounds like a plan is born
 
i had the r&b pale ale cask at the whip on sunday afternoon
dry-hopped with czech hops
it tasted kinda like iced tea
which on a hot and muggy afternoon was a very good thing!
just had the one pint though