March Craft Beer Club

Women’s Day Beers

It’s that time of year again!  Every March breweries everywhere take part in producing beers for International Women’s Day.  For the third time, our beer club is featuring four of these beers in one mixed pack for your convenience.  As usual there are some stellar pints here made by the women both in front and behind the scenes of these breweries, and proceeds from these beers are going to support charities such as the Pink Boots Society and Central Alberta Women’s Emergency Shelter.

The beer club releases on the third Saturday every month. There is no sign up for our beer club, just drop by the store any timewere open and pick up a pack!  The price will be between $20-$24

Badass Betty

Haskap & Strawberry Sour

The Grizzly Paw Brewing Compnay

Grizzly Paw is here once again with their tried and true sour formula, this time teaming up with the female run and alberta based business, Haskalife, to get a dose of haskap berry juice into this beer.  What are haskap berries?  They’re similar to blueberries but larger, with an elongated shape.  They’re also higher in antioxidants, anthocyanins, and vitamin C, while being lower in sugar.  All those anthocyanins give this beer a deep magenta colour, and while I can’t speak to all the other health benefits, I certainly didn’t feel worse after drinking this!  Strawberry juice is also added to brighten this beer up slightly, with just a touch of sweetness.  So tasty while supporting two local businesses, and the Pink Boots Society?  Win, win, win.

Kuyt

Historic Wheat Ale

Blindman Brewery

Kuyt, or Kuit, Koyt, Keut, etc. Is a very osbcure Dutch style of beer dating back to the middle ages.  The main point of disctinction with this style is that it utilizes a blend of grains for the malt.  The women of Blindman have opted for a mix of barley, wheat, and oats.  So why the historic style?  Well they wanted to brew something that they felt highlighted the strength and resilience of women both in the past and present by reviving a time-tested beer style.  That triple threat of grains comes through as the driving force of the flavour on this beer.  Whlie pouring light in colour, this beer is full bodied and tastes breadier than a dinner roll.  This definitely seems like the sort of meal supplement beers that farm workers would enjoy after a day in the fields.

Thankfully times have changed and manual labour is not required to enjoy this one.

Future Continuous

West Coast Lager

Annex Ale Project x Born Brewing

Part of the fun of these Women’s day brews is that it is an opportunity for breweries to collaborate.  This is at least the fourth time that the gal’s from Annex and Born have gotten together for a brew.  This time they’ve done up a good ol’ classic lager with a dry hop addition of Chinook and BRU-1 hops.  Both of those hops are noted for their high oil content which makes them ideal for the cooler tempertures involved with lager beers and dry-hopping as it extracts flavour without turning bitter.  This comes through in the beer as a good boost of citrus and a hint of pineapple.  Aside from that there was a sweetness to the malt profile that made me think of animal crackers.  Maybe I’ll have to find a pack of those to go with my next can.

Chelsea Morning

Chamomile & Honey Wheat Ale

The Establishment Brewing Company X Polyrhythm Brewing

Our final entry is another collab, this time between The Establishment and Polyrhythm.  Polyrhythym are quite new to the craft beer scene but have had some real hits, picking up multiple awards in the past year.  Now they’re here collabing with one of Calgary’s best, it’s clear that their head brewer Chelsea has got skill.

Sometimes in the summer I like to brew a mason jar worth of chamomile tea, hit it with a spoonful of honey, and serve it over ice.  Well this is pretty much exactly that, except also a beer.  Sometimes when I have these beers featured in the beer club I’m saddened knowing that they’ll only be one time releases, and this is one of those.

I will need to add a few to the back of my closet for future enjoyment, or yaknow, the soonest sunny day.