Roundtable Barrel Aging Advice Courtesy of Brew Your Own

Barrel aging beer has become increasingly popular amongst home brewers and craft breweries across North America. Here's an interesting 2008 article from Brew Your Own magazine which examines barrel aging programs from several breweries:

http://byo.com/videos/item/1274-professional-barrel-aging

Last Best Brewpub Opening Soon In Calgary

I often talk about how exciting it is to be a beer fan in Alberta at the moment. There seems to be new breweries and beer focused bars opening up all the time all over our province. Just off the top of my head, I know of several new breweries opening soon in Edson, Red Deer, and Edmonton. A little further south, a brand new brewpub is opening up in Calgary called Last Best. It's owned by the Bear Hill chain of brewpubs, which consists of Jasper Brewing, Banff Ave Brewing, and Wood Buffalo Brewing in Fort Mac.

Last Best is not only the newest, and possibly largest, brewpub in the heart of downtown Calgary but it is also a distillery. It's not open yet, but will be soon (as in within the month).... Here's some links to keep up:

http://www.lastbestbrewing.com/

https://www.facebook.com/pages/Last-Best-Brewing-Distilling/579794618783583?sk=timeline&ref=page_internal

https://twitter.com/lastbestbrew

Beer Curious: Edmonton Beer Tour

So, I've been talking about how great it would be for Edmonton or Calgary to have an organized beer tour for a while. Well, here it is. The Edmonton Heritage Council has organized a historic Edmonton beer tour. As far as I know, at the moment it is a one time event happening on April 18th. The $85 five hour tour takes you to Edmonton's past and present beer haunts and comes with samples, food, souvenirs and the opportunity to sample a beer that was specially made for the tour by Alley Kat.

Here's the website for more information and tickets:

http://citymuseumedmonton.ca/events/brew-curious-yegs-brewing-history/

10 Important Advances Made Because Of Beer

Here's a fun little read my sister sent me a little while ago:

http://listverse.com/2015/03/02/10-important-advances-made-because-of-beer/

Alberta Beer Festival Season Is Upon Us!

Yes, the snow is melting, the birds are singing, and Alberta Beer Festivals are coming up on the calender! I have attended and worked several Alberta Beer Festivals and I have seen first hand how they've grown and become more awesome every year! If you've never been, I can assure you that these festivals are not giant beer bashes attended only by frat guys looking to get drunk. Rather, these are a fun and exciting celebration of beer attended by all kinds of people! You don't only get to sample from over 500 different beers but can also attend short seminars on beer and meet the brewers themselves!

Calgary's International Beerfest is coming up in just over a month and Edmonton's Craft Beer Festival is in June. Tickets are on sale and can be purchases on their website here

New Brewery Opening Up in the Yukon this Spring

For a long time, Yukon Brewing has been the only game in town in Whitehorse, however, now there's a brand new nano-brewery popping up called Winterlong. The owners, who are a husband/wife team, are planning on brewing less than 350L a week at the moment and selling it evenings and weekends while keeping their day jobs. They have been homebrewing for over 8 years and have now decided to try their hand at brewing professionally.

Here's the link from CBC:
http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/north/new-whitehorse-nano-brewery-to-open-this-spring-1.2955404

And here's Winterlong's website:
http://winterlongbrewing.com/

Red Deer Advocate - An all-women brew

Here's an article about our Calamity Jane Pale Ale from the Red Deer Advocate:

Red Deer Advocate - An all-women brew