i had the distinct pleasure of being in whistler this past weekend
omg – glorious weather!
i am not a fabulous skiier or snowboarder
so i didn’t want to blow the $90 for a lift ticket 2 weeks before i depart for the sun and sand of mexico
and risk injury to more than my pride
so instead, it was a groupon kinda weekend away in winter wonderland
first stop:
we began with a couple of samplers
(and yes, for those following along, i did break my no booze in january policy for this!)
powder mountain lager – a very light, sessionable lager that i found pretty insipid
export lager – european style, reminiscent of a pilsner, but creamier – for a lager i found it alright
then, to begin our tour with,
altitude honey lager – definitely a sweeter lager, drinkable and quite alright for a lager
i love when i get to taste all the different malts
and take big deep wafts of the hops!
whistler brewing company is 21 years old
(guess its legal to drink in the states now…)
it was privately owned and operated out of whistler originally
then big rock bought it and moved operations to kamloops
a consultant bought the company and moved part of it back to whistler in time for the olympics
and ensures that whistler water is sent to kamloops for the rest of the brewing up there
whistler brews are in four states, japan, australia and all the provinces between here and onterrible
in fact, they’re the only bc owned and operated brewery with beer in onterrible
the brewery we toured opened december 2009
all the beer provided to whistler is brewed in whistler
the kamloops brewery brews for export
they currently have four fermenters and 2 bright tanks
they’ll be expanding to 8 fermenters later this month
apparently the whistler market was the hardest to crack
mostly because the brewery had been there and then left
so there was no trust or local pride in the product
but now that the brewery is back in town, its catching on
and you can get it in every pub
they don’t do any large scale bottling out of this location
but they do bottle some of the product to sell in the store to tourists
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| sample glasses are empty… saddening |
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| pretending to refill the sample glasses… gladdening |
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| being served more samplers while on tour… tha bomb! |
next sample
classic pale ale – yay, finally an ale! its alright, quite drinkable
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| i love posing by beautiful copper kettles |
former granville island brewer is now the whistler brewing brewmaster
spent grain is used by pemberton farmers to feed their cattle, who apparently rave about it (the cows to the farmers who in turn tell that to the brewery)
the ales take 2-3 days to ferment
the lagers 5-7 days
the ales take 2-3 weeks from boil to keg
the lagers 5-6 weeks
they are all triple filtered, a process which takes approximately 7 hours
next sample was one of the seasonal taps
they didn’t give it a name, as its kind of an experimental brew
its just the ipa
not a west coast ipa, just a modestly hopped little number
tasted like a citrusy pilsner to me
bridget found it quite caramelly
none of us were fans
moving on
black tusk ale – this brew is dark, but not heavy
we found it nicely malted and quite delicious
of their whole line-up, this is only one i’d be tempted to purchase
and we ended our tasting with the other seasonal tap
winter dunkel (7.5% – everything else was 5%)
the nose is all terry’s chocolate orange
i mean so much so that you’d think for sure it was a terry’s chocolate orange in liquid form
but there’s not so much of that in the actual flavour
the chocolate malt is very heavy, and the orange a bit too much
it is from locally sourced chocolate though, so i can see it being a hit with foodies
me, i wouldn’t have it again
all in all, the tour was fun
and worth buying a groupon for
(we also bought snowmobiling groupons and used those on sunday – yay bargain weekend!!)
Beck's Beer Blog - test 