The Pump House Brewery released Bière de Garde and Stonefire

(Moncton, NB) - The Pump House Brewery has released Bière de Garde, the 2014 Atlantic Canadian Beer Awards Gold Medal Winner. The name Bière de Garde is a bit of a play on words: it is widely purported that this beer was so good people wanted to keep it, but in reality the term “de garde” meant a prolonged maturation time after primary fermentation to French and Belgian brewers. During this maturation time, the yeast has time to reduce unwanted fermentation by-products and taste-inducing esters are produced. This beer is available now and is 6.5% ABV and 15 IBUs.

They also released their 2015 Stonefire Ale in New Brunswick and Nova Scotia. The wort of this ale is heated by immersing hot stones into it that can reach temperatures up to 700°C (roughly 1,300°F). This tremendous heat forces the wort sugars to caramelize to the stones instantly, thus creating a one of a kind taste. A faint hint of smokiness in the background also pays tribute to this medieval brewing technique. This weighs in a 6.5% ABV and 7 IBUs. 

Pump House Brewery drops rocks to celebrate 15th Anniversary

When businesses celebrate anniversaries they mark it with events and look back and forward in regards to their business. On September 3rd Pump House did this, but they looked back hundreds of years to replicate an ancient brewing technique used today by only a handful of companies like Port Brewing to make Stein Bier (literally Stone Beer). 


This was an invitation only event at Pump House's production facility on Mill Road in Moncton where brewmaster Andi Bieger clad in traditional lederhosen and Shaun Fraser, Pump House co-owner, officiated the event. This method dates back to middle ages when brewing was carried out in large wooden vessels that needed to have a boiling wort. Necessity being the mother on invention, someone figured heating rocks and dropping in to the wort would not burn the vessel and get the desired result. Pump House heated rocks, specifically greywacke from the Fredericton area and river stones, to between 700 and 1000 degrees Celsius, loaded into steel cages and lowered into a kettle of wort which brought it to a boil and filled the air with steam and a delicious malty aroma. This was repeated several times during the evening. As the rocks cooled it is evident that the sugars caramelized on them making their surface sticky.


I thoroughly enjoyed this hands on demonstration of of beer making and look forward to the limited 4000 750 ml bottle release of the Stonefire Ale in late October at ANBL and NSLC and at the event there was the ABV was estimated to be between 6 and 6.5%. 

For more pictures of the event you can see them here