Barley Mowat 

In what is becoming a regular feature here, I will now perform my every-2-or-3 week count of LDB advertisements on their website, and then proceed to point out that there are lots of interesting beers in the LDB inventory to talk about. So, let’s get on it.

As of right this moment, there are a fairly normal seven ads on the LDB website. These contribute to our ongoing ad count as follows:

Liquor: 2
Corporate: 2
Wine: 3
Beer: 0

This brings our running total to:

Liquor: 6 (+2)
Corporate: 7 (+2)
Wine: 15 (+3)
Beer: 0 (+0)

At this rate, I suspect we’ll see an ad for pruno before we see an ad for beer. Now on to the second part of these posts, were I highly some great beers that the LDB inexplicably stocks but doesn’t advertise.

Beer 1: Green Flash West Coast IPA

Considered by some to be one of the best IPAs on the planet, and I can’t say that I disagree. Ratebeer.com cialis in tampa a 99 overall and a 100 in style, meaning it’s not just one of the best IPAs, but it’s one of the best beers on the planet period. How this wound up in the LDB is a mystery that will likely never be resolved.

Listing: http://bcliquorstores.com/product/737338
Price: $10.99 for 4x355ml
Availability: Limited

Beer 2: St. Sylvestre 3 Monts

A beer with a cork in it! At the LDB!?! Maybe they ordered this thinking it was a bottle of wine? Sure, the listing has no picture, and doesn’t mention the brewery. And sure, it’s likely crammed in the back of the “misfits” shelf in the craft beer section (you know the one), but they have it, and at $6.99 it doesn’t get much better than this.

A great example of a high-test French table beer, this guy is all about the yeast, the nose, and the high carbonation. Open a bottle and remember what summer once felt like.

Listing: tadalafil brand names
Price: $6.99 for 750ml
Availability: Widely Available

Beer 3: Lagunitas Lucky 13

Okay, it’s listed as “Lagunitas Seasonal” but the picture is Lucky 13, which is a malt-forward red (ish) ale. Brewed to celebrate their 13th aniversary, this beer was so popular with the staff that they decided “fuck it” and began brewing it each and every year. That was 6 years ago.

Listing: http://bcliquorstores.com/product/888149
Price: $5.99 for 650ml
Availability: Fairly Widely Available

In honour of election day south of the border, I figured I’d be a pageview whore and throw up a meaningless poll. Go ahead, friends, and waste 5 seconds of your work day voting in this here poll for best beer in BC. Consider the comments section to be a write-in ballot. If enough folk nominate a new beer, I might just add it.

This poll closes… whenever I feel like, but likely sometime today.

Rules for consideration:

• One entry per brewery, max
• Must be a regular beer. No seasonals.
• Initial list was populated by pulling from the Top 25 Beers in BC, according to RateBeer.
• Plus Steamworks Pilsner… because that didn’t make the top 25, despite winning “Best in BC” recently.

Update: It’s over! Driftwood walks away with the crown, despite a late rally by Cannery Brewing in favour of their Maple Stout. Final Tally:

Driftwood Fat Tug: 45%
Central City IPA: 25%
Cannery Maple Stout: 13%
Crannog Backhand of God: 11%
Phillips Amnesiac DIPA: 5%
Steamworks Pilsner: 1%

Total Votes: 64

• What I'm Drinking:Whatever wins.

It’s three, three, three craft beer releases in one! A lot of local breweries put out special releases for BC Craft Beer Month. Some of those were special one-offs, and some where regular releases that just happened to fall in the month of October.

Phillips decided to one-up them all by doing a bit of both, and releasing three beers in one whack. The three beers represent wildly different styles, so there’s no real theme here. But how are they? Might as well dive in.

First up, the “Eric Jourdan” Northwest Style Amber Ale. This is the latest beer in the growing category of “beer recipes devised by home brewers but produced by commercial breweries.” As with all the others, there was a competition at some point, and the winner is awarded a phat contract with a local brewer to have their dreams fulfilled. If this sounds familiar, it should. Yup, it’s basically the same concept as reality TV, only with beer. Canada’s Kidz Got Brewing, if you will.

For those not in the know, putting “Northwest” in the title of a beer is basically code for “fucktonne of hops,” and boy is it accurate in this case. Whoa. You can’t solve all your problems by throwing new-world hops at it. This was likely a decent amber ale, but then someone decide to quadruple the C-hops component. Or at least that’s my theory, there’s no way to tell as there’s nothing left of that theoretically nice amber ale in this beer. Yes, I said it’s too hoppy. Deal with it.

Next up is the Green Reaper, Phillips take on a fresh-hopped IPA. It even comes with a great little video on how it was made, complete with the staff of Phillips giving themselves what must have been severe cases of hop-burn (use gloves next time, guys).

How does it taste? Fresh hops over medium body, but not so much as to hide the malt. Could be hoppier and more aromatic, but overall not a bad take on the subject matter. The freshness of the hops shine through here, but it needs to decide if it’s an IPA or a pale ale. This one kinda ends up in the middle. Since it says on the label that it’s an IPA I’ll say on the blog that it’s a bit disappointing.

Lastly, rounding out the pack is The Puzzler. This beer is a collaboration between Phillips and Great Lakes Brewing from back east, and is described as a “Belgian Black IPA.” Yup, that’s three styles all in one there. With so much going on, this will be a very hard beer to get right. The hops are going to fight with the heavy malt of the black IPA while the Belgian funk will hanging out around the edges. This beer by all reasonable means should be a hot mess without any real direction, but it’s not.

Each component comes through nicely balanced. You can taste the heavy malt, Belgian yeast and hops individually as well as together, making for a surprisingly interesting brew. I’m not sold on the style overall, but this is a great beer none-the-less.

As a side note, does anyone else notice a solidly metallic tang to all of Phillips’ beers? It’s got to be either the yeast or their piping, but it’s there and it makes these beers stand out in a negative way.

Coles notes:

One out of three ain’t bad.