Sunday, November 17, 2019

2019 Atlantic Canadian Brewing Awards Results

(Halifax,NS) - The sixth annual Atlantic Canadian Brewing Awards were held on November 16th in Halifax with a gathering at Hopyard Halifax. The judging of 400 entries from 52 breweries and cideries had taken place previously in Halifax. 

Atlantic breweries and cideries shared the 53 medals awarded in 15 categories as well as eight special awards ( To see full medal counts see Table 1 and category details see Table 2). 

The big winner of the evening was Bogside Brewing taking four medals, including two gold, Brewery of the Year as well as New Brewery of the Year with Moosehead Breweries nabbing Beer of the Year with their Small Batch Rauchbier Smoked Lager.

In the Cider category there was a tie between No Boats On Sunday and Gagetown Distilling and Cidery for New Cider House of the Year and Red Island Cider captured New Cider House of the Year. 

It was another great year for Atlantic craft. 

Table 1 : Medal counts 

Brewery Gold Silver Bronze HM Total
Bogside Brewing 2 1 1 4
Big Spruce Brewing 2 2 4
Nine Locks Brewing 1 1 1 3
Spindrift Brewing  2 2
Copper Bottom Brewing 1 1 2
Graystone Brewing 1 1 2
Tatamagouche Brewing 1 1 1 3
Boxing Rock Brewing 2 1 3
Les Brasseurs du Petit-Sault 1 1 2
Trider’s Craft Beer 1 1 2
Alexander Keith’s Brewery 2 2
Breton Brewing  1 1
Good Robot Brewing 1 1
Upstreet Craft Brewing 1 1 2
Moosehead Breweries 1 1
Landwash Brewery 1 1
No Boats on Sunday 1 1
Gagetown Distilling and Cidery 1 1
Bannerman Brewing  1 1
Grimross Brewing  1 1 2
PEI Brewing 1 1
Quidi Vidi Brewery 1 1
Uncle Leo’s Brewery 1 1
Propeller Brewing 1 1
Lunn’s Mill 1 1
Sober Island Brewing 1 1
Saltbox Brewing 1 1 2
Red Island Cider 1 1
Chain Yard Urban Cidery  1 1
Hill Top Hops’ Brewhouse 1 1
North Brewing 2 2
Roof Hound Brewing 1 1
Riverdale Orchard 1 1

Table 2 : Full Beer and Cider Category Breakdown

North American & European Style Lager
Bronze: Les Brasseurs du Petit-Sault – La Kedgwick
Silver: Bannerman Brewing – Safe Bet
Gold: Spindrift Brewing – Beaufort 10

German Style Specialty Ales
Bronze: Bogside Brewing – Wheat Kings County
Silver: Uncle Leo’s Brewery – Altbier
Gold: Bogside Brewing – Lighthorse Lagered Ale
Honourable Mention: North Brewing – Gus’ 65m Ale

UK Style Specialty Ales
Bronze: Trider’s Craft Beer – Rod’s Red
Silver: Graystone Brewing – Into the Woods Brown Ale
Gold: Breton Brewing – Red Coat 

North American Style Specialty Ales
Bronze: Big Spruce Brewing – Bitter Get’er India
Silver: Copper Bottom Brewing – Centennial Stock
Gold: Tatamagouche Brewing – Giantess Barley Wine
Honourable Mention: Boxing Rock Brewing – Dark as Keji

Belgian Style Specialty Ales
Bronze: Grimross Brewing – Abbey Dubbel
Silver: Les Brassers du Petit Sault – Colonel John Baker
Gold: Upstreet Craft Brewing – FireWorks Farmhouse Saison
Honourable Mention: Upstreet Craft Brewing – De Novo IV

North American Style Amber/Red Ales
Bronze: Boxing Rock Brewing – Temptation Red Ale
Silver: Quidi Vidi Brewing – 1892 Traditional Ale
Gold: Bogside Brewing – Brudenell Brown
Honourable Mention: Hill Top Hops’ Brewhouse – Red Tail Red Ale

Fruit & Field Beer
Bronze: Boxing Rock Brewing – Arnold’s Apricot Wheat Ale
Silver: Nine Locks Brewing – Harvest Pumpkin Ale
Gold: Good Robot Brewing – El Espinazo Del Diablo

Pale Ales
Bronze: PEI Brewing – Vic Park Pale Ale
Silver: Trider’s Craft Beer – Scotian Pale
Gold: Graystone Brewing – Patagonia Pale Ale
Honourable Mention: Roof Hound Brewing – Ear to the Street

Stout / Porter
Bronze: Big Spruce Brewing – Blood Donair
Silver: Big Spruce Brewing – Cereal Killer
Gold: Spindrift Brewing – Out of the Hold - Neat
Honourable Mention: Grimross Brewing – Pugnacious Porter

India Pale Ales
Bronze: Lunn’s Mill Beer – Purple Grain
Silver: Propeller Brewing – Galaxy
Gold: Copper Bottom Brewing – Parkman Ave

Experimental Beers
Bronze: Alexander Keith’s Brewery – Bisset’s Fancy
Silver: Bogside Brewing – Pitcher in the Rye
Gold: Moosehead Breweries – Small Batch Rauchbier
Honourable Mention: Tatamagouche Brewing – Feronia

Wood & Barrel-Aged Beer
Bronze: Nine Locks Brewing – Russian Imperial Stout
Silver: Big Spruce Brewing – Ra Ra Rasputin
Gold: Nine Locks Brewing – Barley Wine

Sour Beer 
Bronze: Alexander Keith’s Brewery – Backyards
Silver: Tatamagouche Brewing – Spring
Gold: Landwash Brewery – Brackish
Honourable Mention: North Brewing – Breakwater Mango Sour

Standard Cider & Perry
Bronze: Saltbox Brewing – Old Orchard Cider
Silver: Sober Island Brewing – Army Cider
Gold: No Boats on Sunday – Original Cider
Honourable Mention: Riverdale Orchard – 2 Scots 3 Apples

Specialty Cider & Perry
Bronze: Chain Yard Urban Cidery – Hopped Up
Silver: Red Island Cider – Ghost Ship Wild Briar
Gold: Gagetown Distilling and Cidery – Hopped Cider
Honourable Mention: Saltbox Brewing – Haskap Cider

Beer of the Year
Bronze: Spindrift Brewing - Out of the Hold - Neat
Silver: Upstreet Craft Brewing – FireWorks Farmhouse Saison
Gold: Moosehead Breweries – Small Batch Rauchbier

Tuesday, August 27, 2019

Craft Beer Shines as NSLC Announces 2019 Q1 Results


(Halifax, NS) - NSLC Announced Q1 results for April 1st to June 30th and saw sales rise to $174.9 million an increase of $18.1 million or 11.5% primarily due to cannabis. Beverage alcohol sales were $158.8 million and recreational cannabis sales were $16.1 million.
Nova Scotia ready-to-drink products had a strong quarter with sales increasing by 107.7% to $3.3 million with this strong growth primarily driven by coolers and ciders. Beer over all decreased 2.6% to $70.5M or 40.3% of sales over all with Nova Scotia craft beer sales growing by 17.8% to $4.9 million. The Ns craft beer sales now attribute to 6.95% of the beer category. The NSLC now lists products from 30 local breweries, about half of the breweries now open, up from six breweries just six years ago.

Thursday, August 22, 2019

Boxing Rock Brewing Opens New Taproom in Shelburne

(Shelburne, NS) - Boxing Rock Brewing opens its newest location today at 218 Water Street in Shelburne. The original location on Ohio Road will remain dedicated to production and packaging and the Test Kitchen in Halifax will remain brewing small batch projects. 
The new taproom will have about 70 seats inside and another 30 on the patio. The 10 taps at the bar will have one cider and one guest tap in addition to their own line up. 
Production onsite will be dedicated to expanding Boxing Rock's barrel program as well as their product line. Kitchen to open later this fall but until then food provided by the Finest Kind mobile kitchen, who have been at the Ohio Road brewery since 2017. The new tap room will also have a space for live music.

Tuesday, August 6, 2019

Cross Creek Brewing Announces Opening


(Oak Mountain, NB) - Cross Creek Brewing (CCB) has announced they have crossed, no pun intended, their final regulatory hurdle and will have their first beers available to the public by August 12th. 
CCB consists of  Patrick Sullivan ( technical, sales, government contact) who is originally from Saint John and now lives in Fredericton. Tom Neal ( main brewer ) who was originally from Woodstock area, but grew up in Montreal and now lives at Oak Mountain. Neal Brewer & Helena (retail experience, business, accounting and book keeping) from Stanley area and now also 
lives in Fredericton.
Patrick says "Like a lot of beer fans I tried the extract kits many years ago. Had mixed results, but I had a couple friends who were really good at it, so I realized home made beer could be pretty good. My friend Tom Neal and I talked about all grain brewing several years ago and he decided to try it and did quite well. And about two years ago he really got serious by building a larger home-built brewing system and made even more excellent beer.  That's when the plan for Cross Creek starting incubating". 
The brewery will start with a 2 BBL brewhouse but producing 1 BBL batches for now as they ease into it. CCB beer will initially be going into  kegs for bars and festivals and later bottling for ANBL later and ultimately their own tap room. They are also excited to attend Woodstock's First Town Craft Beer Festival next month. 
Patrick says they like to make ale that they like to drink,  but they expect to branch into other styles and maybe lagers eventually. Five ales they will launch with are Two Divas Blonde Ale, Cross Creek Pale Ale, Copperhead Amber Ale, Headpond Cream Ale, and Blueneck Kentucky Common Ale.
CCB will be testing the market for a while and if it's positive they will open a taproom somewhere, probably Woodstock NB. 

Tuesday, July 16, 2019

New Maritime Beer Company Sails into Miramichi

(Miramichi, NB) - New Maritime Beer Company will be opening in the former Speedy Glass location at 55 Newcastle Blvd in Miramichi this summer. They will be Miramichi’s first full scale craft brewery with an on-site taproom. The location will contain a 15 BBL brewhouse,  taproom and retail shop. 
New Maritime Beer announced recently that their head brewer is David Draper who most recently was brewmaster at Falcon Brewing in Ontario and won a gold CBAB in 2018 for Salem Stout. They say "He brews a wide range of beers, and has a love of all things hops. With many years of experience in brewing, David is looking forward to continuing to design great beers, for a whole new audience." 
New Maritime Beer have brewed and kegged their first large scale batch of beer at Four Rivers Brewing Co. and it will be available on select taps in Miramichi next weekend. The beer is Rising Tides Citra IPA and is described as bright and fresh like a coastal sunrise, Rising Tides Citra IPA is a single hop American-style IPA that uses only Citra Hops for a bold and smooth citrus flavour, bursting with bright and juicy tropical tones with a hint of bitterness at the finish.

Friday, July 12, 2019

Smokehouse Nano Brewery Opens In Berwick


(Berwick, NS) - Husband and wife, Mike and Shelley Peters, have opened Smokehouse Nano Brewery (SNB) in the heart of the Annapolis Valley. Their official opening was in May with the first commercial tap in late June.

Mike is the brewer and has been an active all grain brewer since around 1992. He started out doing kit beers until one day they went to a private beer judging at Sea Level Brewing's owner Randy Lawrence’s place in Canning. Randy immediately had Mike hooked on all grain brewing. Around the same time he and his two brothers, Gerald and Tim, decided to register their first brew club. The Fellowship Against Repulsive Tasting Suds was registered with the American Homebrewers Association. Over the course of several years they had a dozen or so club members that would meet regularly to compare their latest brews. Several brews were sent off to various competitions with several awards being won among the 3 of the brothers. Unfortunately life became busy and the club activities diminished, but they all still continued to brew whenever they could. With the recent interest in Craft beer over the past five years and having more time Mike decided to get serious about it again.

The brewery is in Berwick on the property that Mike and Shelley have lived at for the past 23 years. Prior to them purchasing the property it was a long standing icon in the town as a meat shop and smokehouse. Attached to the main house is a large smokehouse that was built in 1958 to smoke all of the products being produced by the original owner Gordon Graham. 

The current set up is a 1 BBL all electric system that uses the HERMS process to regulate the precise mashing temperatures. There are 3 1 BBL Fermenters that are glycol looped for accurate fermenting temperature control.
All of the control process equipment is custom made on site by either Mike or Gerald who has an extensive electrical background in process controls.

SNB is currently on tap at the Union Street Cafe in Berwick and are looking to add bars and restaurants in the area. They currently only offer 20 L kegs at this time but are working on being able to provide cans and refillable bottles in the near future.

In the near future they are hoping to offer both brewery tours and on site sales as they work out the details. All of our current beers are listed with descriptions on their Facebook page.

Wednesday, April 3, 2019

King Street Beer Company announces official opening May 3rd

Andrew Tanner, President of the King Street Beer Company, announced today that the new location will officially open May 3.
“We are very excited to be on King Street. We believe it has a great future and it is obviously attracting major interest from people looking to invest in a growing Town on the South Shore” He cited three factors contributing to his optimism. “First, the Town has made a major investment to upgrade services along King Street and the waterfront. Second, the Planning Department is demonstrating a willingness to work with investors to get development plans moving forward. Finally, the population of the Town is growing. These are all important contributing factors to the future success of the street”, said Tanner. 
King Street Beer Company will occupy the old Bavarian Restaurant near the corner of Dufferin and King Street. It will feature a brewing area, tap room, and outdoor patio and sidewalk seating area. The plan is to encourage home brewers to show their talents by brewing LaHave River Beer on site. Saltbox Beers and Ciders will also be available on tap. Saltbox owners are major investors in King Street. There will also be a variety of specialized guest beers on tap. Tanner said, “In total, we will be offering 16 different beer and cider selections to our customers”
The building is nearing completion and Tanner cited the tremendous cooperation the Company has received from Jane and Peter Berrigan, the building owners, in getting a state of the art facility built in record time. Travis Bruhm is the contractor on site.