Central Alberta beer-makers win big at Canadian Brewing Awards

GOLD – European Style Lager (Pilsner): Snake Lake Brewing – Kinabik Pilsner

GOLD – North American Style – Amber/Red Ale: Snake Lake Brewing – Varsity Hall Red Ale

SILVER – American Style Black Ale – Blond or Golden Ale: Blindman Brewing – Cascadian Dark Ale

SILVER – Barley Wine-style Ale – English/American style: Blindman Brewing: Perepllut Barley Wine

BRONZE – Fruit/Fruit Wheat/Field/Pumpkin Beer: Blindman Brewing – Dwarf Sour Cherry Saison

BRONZE – American Style Sour Ale: Hawk Tail Brewery – Hawk Tail Lemon Kveik Sour

Find the full list of winners HERE.

Much of the credit for Snake Lake’s success, says co-owner Adam Nachbaur, goes to head brewer Octavio Pauley, who’s been with the brewery since opening day in 2018, just like the two winning beers which are part of the brewery’s core lineup.

“The guy’s an artist. We’ve brewed around 240 batches and never dumped a single one,” shares Nachbaur. “That’s the thing about craft beer; you get to put the effort and love into the batches you’re creating until it’s how you want it.”

Snake Lake’s base malts are from Alix, and many of their specialty malts come from Strathmore, he notes. The Varsity Hall red, which is malty, of course, is a west coast style red ale with a sweet twist added to make it stand out.

As for the Kinabik, which also won gold at the 2020 Alberta Beer Awards, they’ve got it down to quite the science.

“We take Germany’s water profile and put the chemicals back into the water to make it region specific. We can create water from Italy, South America, or Australia.” he explains. “Water is your biggest ingredient, and that gets overlooked a lot. You can’t hide anything in a pilsner, so you will pick up any imperfections.”

Up the QEII in Lacombe, co-founder at Blindman Brewing in Lacombe, Hans Doef, tells rdnewsNOW that his team prides itself on not cutting any corners.

“We are diligent and we scrutinize our beer because we want it to be the beer we drink ourselves,” says Doef. “We’re celebrating five years coming up in a couple weeks and we have over 680 brews of different beers under our belt, a lot of those renditions of our core beers. We make very nuanced tweaks continuously that the public likely wouldn’t recognize.”

The Dwarf Sour Cherry Saison was released in fall 2019 after a close to three-year aging process. It is made with cherries from southern Alberta.

“On a beer geek level, that’s one we’re really proud of,” Doef adds.

Kveik, a Norwegian term for a particular strain of yeast, is one piece of Hawk Tail Brewery’s lemon sour’s puzzle, with the flavour emanating from a heavily dry-hopped kettle process.

It was canned just two weeks ago.

Randall Vandenhoven, owner and production manager at the Rimbey-based brewer, says to be recognized at this level is a dream come true.

“When we started, we wanted to be one of the best in Alberta, so this feels really good, and to see other central Alberta breweries hit their stride,” he says. “This is where the barley is made so it’s awesome to start developing recognition for that. Building on B.C.’s wine country, let’s make Alberta beer country.”

The Canadian Brewing Awards are sanctioned by the Beer Judge Certification Program.

For more farm and agriculture-related news coverage, visit www.farmnewsnow.com.

by Josh Hall (Twitter: @Vancan19)

Central Alberta beer-makers win big at Canadian Brewing Awards

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