beer

The Parallel 49 Brewing interview…plus a Mountie, some gin news, and a groundhog in a bowler hat

My Fellow Inebriates,

Let’s face it, when it comes to remembering stuff, neither of my two neurons exactly has its axon on the answer button. So I’ve been very remiss toward one of my favorite fellow beer reviewers and two very kind booze purveyors:

Beerbecue tweeted me to ask about the legalities of LBHQ Canadian Cream.

Naturally I hadn’t thought about getting busted (nor had I honestly thought of sharing the liqueur, internationally or otherwise; it represents about four good days of blotto). But beerbecue instilled the fear of Mounties with this picture.

Mounties are notoriously honorable and this one is probably no exception. Regarding the Canadian Cream biz, it probably wouldn’t accept a hush bribe, and then I’d end up in jail where someone would forge the orifice I don’t yet have.

♦ ♦ ♦

Julia Gale sent me a lovely newsletter mentioning that BROKER’S GIN has been relisted by the BC liquor authority.

This whole thing has been an absolute odyssey, so much gratitude goes to Julia for listening to my whining. Once we get that delicious hooch back at LBHQ we’ll have our much-threatened Gin Shoot-Out Part Deux.

If this groundhog has a Broker’s Gin bowler hat, I imagine mine must be in the mail.

♦ ♦ ♦

Anthony Frustagli of Parallel 49 Brewing was kind enough to do an interview with me.

Since only house-trained bears are allowed at the brewery, we did our Q&A via email. Be warned, this is a real interview! It contains actual answers and information, which are anomalies for this space.

LB: Thanks for agreeing to talk to us about Parallel 49 Brewing. I’m still reeling from how good LOST SOULS CHOCOLATE PUMPKIN PORTER was. I’ve been tasting SCHADENFREUDE this week—quite bold and spicy. As soon as I bought it, I noticed a ton of other pumpkin beers. I was also surprised to note it’s a lager rather than an ale. Where does SCHADENFREUDE sit on the pumpkin-beer spectrum in terms of flavor profile?
AF: It’s the only pumpkin lager that I know of. We designed it that way because as a lager it has a much lighter body than most of the ales out there, so we didn’t have to spice it as aggressively as some of the other pumpkins. At the same time, the bready malts in Oktoberfests provide a perfect backdrop for the spices.
LB: Do you get a lot of feedback on specialty beers such as SCHADENFREUDE? What would it take for this to become a year-round product?
AF: Feedback on the seasonals has been fantastic. In fact, an article in the Globe and Mail today called SCHADENFREUDE “one of the best pumpkin beers in the country.” Having said that, it is staying as a seasonal beer.
LB: What do you see as your market demographic?
AF: Our demographic is people interested in new, exciting, well-crafted beers.  We’ve only had product in market for about five months, so our demographic hasn’t changed much.
LB: Is craft beer suffering the same doldrums [as macro beer], or is it able to weather the vicissitudes of style/popularity?

AF: Craft beer numbers are soaring, showing double digit growth every year for the past decade. I think macro drinkers are moving over to craft beer more than they are switching to wine or spirits…. Differentiating ourselves from macro beer is not hard at all. Macro beer is amazingly homogeneous in terms of both flavour and image. Convincing macro drinkers to give you a shot is the hard part. In terms of production and planning, “craft” shouldn’t immediately imply “small.” There are many amazing craft breweries in the US that are HUGE (relatively speaking). Small-batch breweries are not necessarily craft, and craft breweries aren’t necessarily small. A brewery’s commitment to the quality of their product is what determines if they can be considered a craft brewery or not.
LB: Is brewing more art or more science? Both?
AF: Very much both. Our top two brewers both have degrees in chemical engineering, and are both avid home brewers. Designing great beers is an art; actually making the beers as designed (and on a large scale) is definitely a LOT of science.
LB: There must be a lot of stories about how everyone at Parallel 49 got into brewing. Is everyone at Parallel 49 passionate about beer?
AF: We all are insanely passionate about craft beer. In fact, we all left relatively secure, well-paying jobs because we wanted to work in a field that was a little closer to our hearts.  
LB: How do you decide what sort of beer to produce and market? Do you ever butt heads?
AF: All five of us, along with our brewers and sales reps, have weekly meetings where we sit down and taste each and every beer in production or testing right now, and ask ourselves how we can improve on those. At the same time, we try to answer the question “what would be really awesome to drink right now that I just can’t find anywhere.” That’s how our beers are born.
LB: Which beer is your personal fave? How much does personal taste play a role in deciding which beers to market?
AF: Our motto is “Driven by thirst.” We brew the kinds of beers that we want to drink. Personal taste is pretty much the most important factor in deciding which beers we bring to market. Do I have personal favourite? Depends on the date, weather, my mood, time of day, alignment of the planets, etc. In other words, no… I don’t have a favourite 🙂
LB: Have you ever produced a beer that just didn’t work out?
AF: Several dozen. They never see the light of day outside the brewery though.
LB: What’s your next new beer? Or is it a secret? How soon can we get a taste?
AF: Our next seasonal is UGLY SWEATER MILK STOUT…and we also have a salted caramel Scotch ale, and a cascading dark ale being released in 650ml bottles in mid-November.

LB: Are you getting a lot of traffic in the Parallel 49 tasting room?
AF: Yes, the traffic through the tasting room has exceeded our expectations several fold.
LB: Do you have any advice for tasting-room visitors?
AF: Please bear with us 🙂  Our growler program has exploded beyond our wildest forecasts (we have over 1000 growlers out to market in just over three months) and we only have one growler filling station. We’ve ordered two more, and they will be installed soon.
LB: What do you like best about brewing?
AF: Drinking beer 🙂  And watching people enjoy our beers.
LB: Do you allow bears in the tasting room?
AF: Are they house-trained bears? 🙂

The Parallel 49 brewery and tasting room can be found at:

 1950 Triumph St.

Vancouver, BC, Canada

V5L 1K5

Tel: 604-558-BREW (2739)

FAXE STRONG BEER—Playdate antidote?

It seems some kid in Miss V’s kindergarten class is giving her trouble. Or is she?

MONDAY: “Mummy, H isn’t nice to me. She hitted me.”

TUESDAY: “Mummy, H made a mean look at me.”

WEDNESDAY: “Mummy, H didn’t share the markers.”

THURSDAY: “Mummy, H pushed me into the water fountain.”

FRIDAY: “Mummy, can I have a playdate with H?”

♦ ♦ ♦ WTF? ♦ ♦ ♦

Ahhh, yes, of course we should have that little miscreant over. (Apparently familiarity breeds contempt and then mutual admiration; the kids patched up their differences today.) Mum should stay sober for the playdate duration, of course, so she can prevent V from getting attacked. As for yours truly, I’ll hide. And when the playdate ends and we’ve ejected the psychopathic Miss H from our abode into the arms of her (evil?) parents, we’ll crack a can of FAXE STRONG BEER, a Danish brew my dad found on his weekend liquorstore wanderings.

Pale yellow with white foam, this mildly fizzy liquid emits a hefeweizen-like redolence—grainy and perfumed with fruit. On the tongue it’s slightly herbal, grassy, and mildly alcoholic, which at 8.9% it damn well should be. The carbonation is moderate, the mouthfeel a bit thin considering the horsepower. Interestingly, the fruit that wafts from FAXE dissolves on the front palate, not bothering to stay for the lingering boozy burn. This is how I like fruit if it insists on being in a beer. If a brew is going to feature weird flavors, at least they should behave themselves. Much like five-year-old punks who mess with my little friend V at school and then somehow ingratiate themselves into being invited over for a playdate.

But what the hell, they’re only 5, and V’s pretty good at dishing out abuse in her own right. We’ll see what happens when V and H are hanging out in V’s room. It’ll either work, or it’ll be like cats in a sack.

I dare you to put another cat in this bag.

Note to Dad: Buy more beer.

BAVARIA 8.6 RED—Strong enough for apocalyptic thirst

My Fellow Inebriates,

Our new (old) house is full of silverfish! They scurry across the bathroom and kitchen floors and counters. OMG, they are so gross, people. Do you have silverfish? What the hell is the deal with these little suckers?

My mum didn’t want to talk about them. It takes her 15 minutes to stop shuddering after killing one. So I asked my friend Scarybear.

Scary says silverfish are harbingers of the End of Days. “They and all their fellow Darker Animals are in charge of Priming the World for the post-Apocalypse after all Good Animals such as Bears have lost their Lives in an All-Out Battle with the Dark Forces of Evil.”

“And how long do we have left?” I asked.

“Thirty-six days.”

If this sounds mighty theological, Scary insists it’s not. He’s far too big a Gene Roddenberry fan for that. But he feels just as entitled as Billy Graham to cherry-pick the best (most dramatic) scriptural snippets as apocalyptic fuel. He believes, for instance, that where the silverfish are most numerous there must be a Hell Mouth—probably in one of the bathrooms. Maybe both.

My dad says silverfish like eating cardboard, and that if we ever finish unpacking and get rid of our boxes they’ll go away.

Wikipedia says silverfish actually like the adhesives in cardboard packaging. They’ll also chow down on photos, paper, sugar, coffee, hair, carpet, clothing, and dandruff. If they’re hard up for food they’ll attack furniture, leather, and synthetics, or even eat their own moulted exoskeletons. (According to Scary, “only a Dark Creature would do that.”)

All that starchy food must drive them into wet areas. We all know how thirsty junk food makes people and bears, and presumably these disgusting bugs are no different.

Scary shrugs at this observation; he thinks a Hell Mouth makes the most sense.

One thing is certain. We can’t even discuss thirst without mentioning BAVARIA 8.6 RED. An import from Holland, this marvelous strong red lager is rich and deep—and 7.9% alcohol. The aroma is malty-caramelly with a subtle touch of fruit. Brisk carbonation meets malty sweetness on the palate—not super-complex, just big and satisfying: a boozy belt with a lingering toffee aftertaste.

Our camera charger is still MIA, so I went scoping for a photo of this lager and found one on Beer Advocate, which advised me not to use it (so I didn’t), but while I was there I noticed BAVARIA 8.6 RED had taken a shit-kicking from the good reviewers at BA. It’s probably the lowest-rated beer I’ve ever seen there. This was a big shock. It was like being told there might be a Hell Mouth in the bathroom. One minute you think you live in a normal house whose paranormal activity rates about a 3 or 4 on the freaky scale. Next thing there’s an effing Gateway to Hell spewing out silverfish and other servants of Satan so they can devour hair-dye and sanitary-napkin boxes.

Regardless of Beer Advocate’s damning of BAVARIA 8.6 RED, I stand by this Dutch brew. It’s super-friendly and easy-drinking without being thin or sour or macro-like. Whatever the BA beer geeks are getting from it, I’m not. I LOVE it, people. And not just because one can is enough to get wasted with. I love it for its own sake.