Megan's East Coast Challenge

The paddle at Halifax's Garrison Brewery became the
challenge point from young Megan for me to take a
closer look at the East Coast craft brewing scene...

Usually when someone challenges me to do anything regarding beer, it usually starts with the words "I bet you can't..." and almost always ends up with the police becoming involved.

But this challenge was a little different. It came from the east coast and was issued by young Megan. I remember meeting Megs as a teenage girl when she was but a high schooler down the street. The daughter of my coworker, Marie, she used to pop into my Beer Store all the time and I remember the talented teen strumming her guitar and singing with a gaggle of her friends out front of the store during our fund-raising May 24th bottle donation drive some years ago. I'm fairly certain that was our best year for collections ever and its success, I would say, landed squarely on pretty Megan's young shoulders.

Now 21, Megan is out on the east coast - Halifax, to be precisely - living with her Dad. I heartily approve of someone her age seeing as much of this country as possible. Indeed, when I was exactly the same age, I drove off to beautiful Banff, Alberta. From there, some new-found buddies and myself hopped into my rusty old Pinto and headed south-west to Pacific Coast Highway #1 where we continued south until we hit Venice, California. We had the time of our lives.

While busking on the Halifax Pier, Megan
found an attentive audience with someone's
chihuahua.  Beauty will always soothe the
savage beast. And probably chihuahuas too

But back to Megan and her challenge. Posting the above picture on Facebook in early-July with me tagged, Megan said, "Hey, Don, if you ever catch yourself this way, try a sampler from Garrison Brewing. An IIPA so hoppy, there's no stronger way to classify it, the creamy nut brown ale, a raspberry ale fit for an East Coast summer, a cider so sweet you could pour it on your pancakes and my favourite, the blonde ale. The best one, however, was a taste of the (Garrison) Tall Ship (Amber Ale) mixed with the raspberry ale. On top of that, with Garrison and Propellor (Brewing, also out of Halifax) taking over the industry out here, I suggest perhaps an East Coast edition of Brew Ha Ha to shed light on some of the smaller, more beloved brands."

Well, I am not one to shy away from a challenge (particularly one less likely to need police intervention) so I suggested to Megan that since her brothers were out east visiting her and their Dad that, well, maybe she could use one of them as a beer mule and get some of that fancy East Coast beer headed back my way. As always, Megs was game and before long, I found myself in possession of a Garrison Imperial IPA, a Propeller Extra Special Bitter, a Boxing Rock Brewing (Shelburne, NS) The Vicar's Cross Double IPA and... well, this was a surprise, a ShipBuilders (Halifax) Cider.

Here's the stellar line-up that Megan arranged for
me straight from the East Coast. As well as these
four, I added a sixer of Propeller IPA into the mix
as it's one of the few easterners that lands here.

I had to ask since I am not a known fan of ciders. Megan laughed that it was the "wildcard" and that the guy at the store strongly pressured her into including the cider in the mix. It was the first one I had in decades and frankly the first one, I both started and finished. What the hell, life is about trying new things so why not? We'll get to those in a minute. Unless you're a really slow reader or have the attention span of a taco. Then maybe, like, an hour.

But as Megan is sitting happily in the middle of a craft-boom in the east, I asked YellowBelly Brewing's (St. John's, Newfoundland) brewmaster Liam Mckenna how the craft beer scene was progressing out there from his perspective."(Craft beer) growth is great," he told me. "Consumer uptake and participation could not be more enthusiastic. There are consistent, quality producers such as Garrison, Granite (Brewery in Halifax), Propeller, Gahan House (Brewery in Charlottetown, PEI). There are also notable up-and-comers like Big Spruce (Brewing in Nyanza, NS) and we also have the genius of Greg Nash who is about to shock us all again out of our stupor with Unfiltered Brewing (opened this past summer in Halifax with partner Andrew Murphy.)"

So it's time to dip our toes into the Atlantic and look at some of these breweries. And let's start with Garrison Brewing since they and Propeller kicked things off decades ago.

Brian Titus, founder of Garrison Brewing in
Halifax, decided that the east coast needed a
flavour infusion back in 1997 and opened up
shop. He said the east coast was the last to
embrace craft beers but that has changed.
Turns out they're not allergic to hops, after all

Megan wasn't far off stating the two breweries were taking over the industry but even more accurately, they basically launched the East Coast craft beer industry. Both began operations in 1997 and are believed to be the craft pioneers of the east. According to a 2009 interview in the Canadian Business Journal, Brian Titus, the founder of Garrison, was a diving officer in the Canadian Navy before deciding to take a different kind of plunge into craft brewing. Knowing that heavyweight Alexander Keith's virtually had the east coast locked up, he decided to move in a different direction. "We were't chasing the light beer crowd," Titus told the CBJ, "(so) we identified a niche that wasn't being served by any of the big breweries. Garrison doesn't try to be all things to all people. When you get into the craft-brewing world, 95 per cent of all beer fits within the Labatt/Molson's category. So right off the bat, we were turning our backs on the mass market, focussing in on the remaining five per cent." To that end, he kicked off with their Irish Red Ale and the ball just started rolling from there. The Imperial IPA (initially called the Imperial Pale Ale, causing confusion) won Beer of the Year at the Canadian Brewing Awards in 2007-2008 and followed that with gold medals at the 2009-2010 World Beer Championships.

John Allen, the founder of Propeller Brewing, stands
beside one of the many brewing kettles in his Halifax
brewery. They sell over 140 growlers of beer daily.

The IIPA was launched "and enthusiastically recieved" at the first annual Halifax Seaport Beer Fest in 2007 and lays claims to being "the hoppiest beer in Atlantic Canada!" The brewery itself, located in the Halifax Seaport District, saw a significant expansion in 2006.

Like Titus, John Allen, the founder of Propeller Brewing, also has his pre-brewing ties to things aquatic, having been an inspector for the Department of Fisheries and Oceans in the 1980s. From there, he became a prop master for the television and film industry before deciding in 1996 that he needed to try something new. According to an interview he gave the Halifax Chronicle-Herald in 2014. the workload in those early years (when he still had one foot in the prop industry, just in case) was "a shocker". But the time he was interviewed last year, Propeller had gone from struggling upstart to producing a million litres of beer annually - a huge jump from the humble beginnings in a former strip club on Gottingen Street where they began. In fact, they have opened a second facility in Dartmouth to keep up with the demand. But Allen told the paper that he was more interested in things running efficiently and keeping costs down than continued growth.

Greg Nash, the founder of Unfiltered Brewing,
which opened this past Summer, is looking to
smother east-coast drinkers with hops very soon.
Even his t-shirt features a distinctive hop bomb.

"Life should be simpler as you go along. At the very least, if you don't make an attempt to do that, it will get hopelessly complicated." Like the Garrison IIPA Megan shipped me, the Propeller ESB is a multiple-award winner, having won three gold medals at the World Beer Championships 2006 through 2008.

But what of these brash newcomers that my man Liam Mckenna mentioned? Well, Greg Nash's Unfiltered Brewing lives up to it name - nothing is filtered. "To me, it's an unnatural process that's not required," he told The Coast newspaper in an interview prior to their opening. "I want my beer raw; I want people to have it in the raw." (Challenge... accepted!! Wait, he does mean drinking naked, right?)  Called "Nova Scotia's undisputed king of hops," it seems a safe bet that won't change with him owning his own place. When he was asked what to expect, he snorted, "A lot of fuckin' hops... I'm most well-known for hops obviously so most of the stuff I make is probably gonna be hoppy." At just 1,200-square-feet, it's one of the province's tinier breweries but Nash said he made maximum use of the limited space at their 6041 North Street location through the use of a lot of specialized brewing equipment.

My only contribution to this East Coast Extravaganza
was the Propellor IPA because frankly, it was the
only East Coast beer I could find at the liquor store!

"I'm skeptical you'll find a brewery as highly-customized in eastern Canada. I'm setting it up to put an awful lot of fluid through here." And after a couple decades of working with other breweries and brewpubs, how does he feel about being his own boss? "The day we open, I'm gonna be prepared for a big fuckin' line-up. It's been a long-time source of frustration for me, working for other people. Well now, I'm doing it fuckin' my way." If the brewer drops hop bombs the way he drops F-bombs, Halifax is in for a treat. The brewery hasn't started bottling yet - just growler fills and a separate tap-room to quaff beers - so "if you want my fucking beer, you're coming to me!" (I try not to swear in this blog, in case my young son, David, reads it some day but I'm not about to censor a brewer that does. Hey, you work around scalding hot wort all day and see if the F-bombs don't fly fast and furious.)

Well, Megan, look at what you started. While I feel I'm giving short shrift to the East Coast scene with these Reader's Digest looks at a few breweries, hopefully we're all getting the sense that while the east was lagging behind the rest of the country, they have now picked up the bat, the ball... and are starting to crank out the dingers.

When Garrison Brewing launched their Klingon Warnog Roggen Dunkel
Ale in November 2014, the brewery got a special intergalactic visit from
the planet, Klingon. The ambassadors all gave the dark beer a thumbs up

So it's time to look at these East Coast gifts and see what was in the prize-bag. We will start exactly where you knew I was gonna start - the Garrison Imperial IPA. At 8% and 81 IBUs (international bitterness units), this has a strong backbone, using four malts while the Cascade and particularly the Amarillo hops (the most noble of the hops) give it a nice jolt. Citrus and grapefruit on the nose slides into some pine on the tongue. It is, precisely as advertised, a dandy hop-loaded treat.

The Boxing Rock Brewing's The Vicar's Cross Double IPA was a step down from that. I'll be honest - it doesn't taste like a double. That said, it would be a decent single IPA, even at 8.5% and 80+ IBUs.

The huge vat with the cannon painted on
outside Garrison Brewing leaves little
doubt as to what's being made inside...

Pouring a cloudy copper, the aroma is a touch too sweet and there's a bit more caramel on the tongue than a double-IPA should have. I mean, it's a good outing, just not an outstanding one. That said, I would love a shot at their Temptation Red Ale as I'm guessing that would be in my wheelhouse.

Okay, while I bought some Propeller IPA for this blog, it totally got hijacked by the Propeller ESB that Megan shipped. Using three malts including a noticeable (on the nose) chocolate one, the 5% brew is lightly hopped to just 30 IBU and is an excellent example of an English style bitter. I would plunk this down in front of any British pub patron and happily say, "Have at it." An outstanding ESB. Their IPA didn't knock me over and is, in fact, somewhat plain. Granted, having it after the Garrison IIPA likely hurt it. At 6.5% and 68 IBU, it too is a bit too malty and sweet on the nose with no real staying power on the tongue. However, I hear they dumped a truckload of Pacific Northwest hops into their Imperial IPA so that's definitely on my wish-list.

And that takes us to the ShipBuilders Cider.

The problem with taking your grandfather to the Propeller
Brewery is that he's likely to say, "Hey, I remember when
this place was a strip club years ago. Oh, me and the boys
had some wild times here. Don't tell your grandmother!"

I wasn't sure what to do with a cider so Beer Bro Stevil St Evil piped in with a suggestion. "Drink it on the patio at Donny's Bar and Grill on a super hot day. You'll find it's actually a nice break from the beers." So that's precisely what I did. And you know what? It was pretty good - crisp, refreshing and well, very apple-y. I'd never buy one but at least I can say I tried a cider and didn't commit hari-kari. Although it must have looked around my fridge and thought, "What the hell am I doing in here?"

So that's my East Coast Challenge all wrapped up in a pretty little bow though now that I've been introduced to their wares, I suspect an east coast visit is in the cards. Why not? All my nieces and nephews are out there, as is Megan and brewmaster Liam, so it would be a helluva party!

"Hey, Blog Boy! Don't you think it's about
time you wrote about some east coast
beers??" Uhhh, okay, Megan, I will...

Well, I started this blog with sweet, young Megan so why not finish it that way too. The eagle-eyed, social media savvy lass recently noticed that Facebook has started publishing "Three years ago today" updates on the users' walls. So she decided to jump ahead of the curve and the other day, she left herself a message for "2018 Megan" which I thought was damn clever. It read:
"Dear 2018 Megan: If you haven't already gone out and made a difference in the world, start today. You have no more time to lose. You can do great things if you set your mind to it and if anyone tells you that you can't, prove them wrong. There is no such thing as a dream too big and other people in the world prove that to us each and every day. Sincerely, 2015 Megan."

And cool things like that are precisely why I am so fond of this young lady. And also inspired to the point that I'm going to do this too!
"Dear 2018 Don: I can't believe you're still alive. Seriously, how is that possible? I hope whatever gutter you've crashed in has Wifi so you can read this! Do you still like beer? Hah, trick question! Buy all the Grade-A plutonium you can find. I'll explain later. By the way, you've been walking around all day with your fly down and your wangle-dangle hanging out. Nice Batman underwear. Smooth move, loser. Sincerely, 2015 Don."
There will be more East Coast in my future so I better start planning a trip. But guys and dolls, that's it, that's all and I am outta here! Until next time, I remain...