Pour me another!

A look at regional beers.

Canada is beer country. Let’s face it–our reputation as quaffers of ample ales and a plethora of pilsners precedes us. You can’t turn the television on during a hockey game, curling match or Bomber game without seeing glistening glasses of bright gold beer sweating for the camera.

A passion for pints

It’s a good thing that we’ve got so many high-quality regional breweries out there to fight the good fight against the blander corporate beers of the world. While wine geeks have smaller wineries and wine-producing regions from which to impress their friends, beer geeks have the impressive array of beers coming from smaller breweries from around the world.

Granted, there’s a time and a place for the more mainstream, run-of-the-mill big beers–a major sporting event or arena concert, for example–but for the most part the interesting brews out there are made by smaller independent operations.

Styles of suds
Technically, most beer falls into one of two categories–lager or ale. The yeast in lager is bottom-fermenting, and is able to process raffinose, a trisaccharide. It all sounds like a chemistry or biology experiment, which in a sense it is. Just know this–lager yeast ferments more sugar into alcohol than ale yeast (which ferments at the top of the vat rather than the bottom), and ales tend to be fermented at warmer temperatures than lagers. This tends to make ales slightly sweeter and fruitier than lagers.

David and Goliath
Many smaller breweries start out as a labour of love, and Winnipeg’s own Half Pints Brewing Company is a perfect example. Owner/brewmaster David Rudge started out making beer in his basement–far more beer, in fact, than he could ever drink. “It got to the point where I was brewing for process–I was making a lot of beer at home, but not drinking it,” Rudge explains.

He decided to take his love of beer to the next level, studying by correspondence and at a working brewery through the American Brewers Guild. Eventually Rudge and family decided to move back to Winnipeg (from Regina, where he was making beer for Bushwakker) and have a go on his own with Half Pints Brewing Company.

While some ales continue to enjoy increased popularity on a larger scale, most of the world’s most popular commercial beers are lagers. Many smaller breweries, on the other hand, produce a greater number of ales than lagers, and as a result have a greater variety of styles in which they produce beer. Ales vary from pale to red to amber in colour, weight and flavor, with dark, chewy stouts weighing in as the most common heavyweight.

Like wineries, the image of the little-guy brewery can sometimes be an illusion. In fact, some craft or boutique breweries (and wineries) aren’t created from passion at all. Some of the most exclusive outfits in both the worlds of beer and wine have been started (or bought) by high-rolling businesspeople looking to dabble in the field. To them, the winery (or, in this case, brewery) is more of a hobby-type investment–set up the right people in the right positions and wait for the money to come rolling in.

“It’s not as interesting for beer geeks–every once in a while they come up with something pretty good or they come up with a really decent brewer,” says Rudge. “It’s the people that have the passion from the outset that actually tend to end up being successful first. The other people will be successful simply because they have deep pockets.”

Dollars and scents
There are other keys to successfully starting your own brewery, only some of which you can control. “The price of stainless steel has shot through the roof,” explains Rudge. “For the basic bunch of equipment that I started with [four years ago], the price has at least tripled.” Add in the rising cost of labour and the instability of grain markets, and the numbers start to add up.

Regardless of whether a brewery is spawned from passion or an investment, there’s rarely a desire to produce beer similar to the big players. However, every once in a while, the big dogs like to sniff around and see what the pups are up to. Red, dark and (most recently) wheat/white beers made by the bigger outfits have started popping up with increasing frequency.

Smaller breweries aren’t keen to duke it out with many of the bigger corporations. Rather, they’re content to keep on truckin’, taking little notice of most attempts by the big breweries to imitate the beer they create. No need for a brew-ha-ha.

Common types of beer and typical flavours (from lightest to heaviest)
Pilsner – pale, crisp, slightly bitter
Wheat beer – soft, creamy wheat/lemon/banana notes
Blonde ale – light gold, fruity (citrus), fairly crisp
Pale/amber ale – medium gold, slightly bitter, medium-bodied
Dark ale – deep copper, caramel/toffee notes
Stout – black, rich, chewy, coffee/chocolate notes