NEAROF

I’m not sure how common these are outside of Alberta, but in the past few months, I’ve seen a couple new growler bars freshly installed at liquor stores in this province. I found one at the massive new Wine and Beyond liquor store in south Edmonton last fall, and the newly renovated Liquor Depot in [...]

“Waaaaarm up with an ice-cold beeeer!” hollered a tray-carrying vendor at a particularly chilly autumn CFL football game I attended last year, if memory serves. I loved his pitch, mostly because it’s so perfectly outlandish you can’t help but laugh, but also because some beers are designed as winter warmers, even if not in the [...]

While I don’t mind a glass of sweet iced tea from time to time, occasionally spiked with a wee bit of vodka for weekend sipping, it’s not typically a drink I reach for on a regular basis. But an intriguing offer is hard to resist. When American Vintage Hard Iced Tea offered NEAROF! a three-can [...]

I’d heard great things about Red Racer India Pale Ale from beer-loving friends, but my first sip of the stuff was at Bottlescrew Bill’s, a great Calgary watering hole that caters to the seriously beer-obsessed. How good was it? Here’s a tweet from my experience at the time: “Finally got around to trying Red Racer [...]

During the winter months, I gravitate toward big, heavy, complicated beers, with lots of roasty, toasty, malty flavour. It’s the liquid equivalent of curling up under a nice, comfortable blanket with a good book while a roaring fire blazes on your TV. But in the summer? Sometimes I just want something simple, delicious and yummy, [...]

When toasting the new year, the easy choice is a sparkling wine. It’s traditional, it’s a zazzy crowd-pleaser and it’s the simple thing to pick. But maybe others don’t like the whole champagne at midnight thing? Maybe they’d like another form of bubbly goodness? If you’re going to toast with beer, you’d might as well [...]

When it opened in the mid 1980s, Alberta’s Big Rock Brewery was an upstart little brewery daring to do things differently in an industry dominated by the likes of Molson and Labatt’s. Since then, it’s grown a whole lot, evolving from a feisty microbrewery to a mainstream craft brewery that has found a mass market [...]

Newcastle Brown Ale is one of my favourite beers. I love its amazing caramel notes, the crisp carbonation, the mineral profile, the balanced hops, the roasted malt, the light sweetness. On the rare occasions I watch soccer games on TV (a.k.a. football on the telly), it’s the default beer I reach for. And yet, I’d [...]