Tropical delight from P.E.I.

Hey there, time traveller!
This article was published 27/05/2016 (3719 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

The past month has been crazy for new beer releases in Manitoba.

Some great American beers, such as Deschutes Fresh Squeezed Hop IPA and Stone’s Arrogant Bastard Ale, plus two beers by up-and-coming B.C. brewery Fuggles & Warlock, have made it difficult to sample every new brew that’s hit the shelves.

In the next few weeks, the popular Coast to Coaster Beer event will be returning to Liquor Marts and beer vendors throughout Manitoba — just in time for Flatlanders Beer Festival in Winnipeg.

This year’s Coast to Coaster event is going to be more staggered than last year. Instead of releasing an insane number of beers all at once, the releases will come out every few weeks so that people aren’t overwhelmed.

Thanks to Coast to Coaster and MLCC’s desire to bring in new beers from all over Canada, this week we see Prince Edward Island Brewing Company (Gahan House) out of Charlottetown making an appearance in Manitoba.

As of now, every province and territory except for Newfoundland and Labrador, Northwest Territories and Nunavut have had beer featured at Liquor Marts in Manitoba. One day we will see beer from Nunavut in Manitoba as the Nunavut Brewing Company has been approved by its legislature back in the fall.

I’ve tried PEI Brewing before, thanks to a buddy who did a true cross-Canada road trip, visiting breweries and brewpubs in almost every major city in Canada back in 2012.

I was lucky enough to get to try their Gahan Iron Bridge Brown Ale and Sir John A’s Honey Wheat Ale. The Iron Bridge was quite reminiscent to a Fort Garry Dark and the Honey Wheat Ale was a light sweet ale with just a hint of honey.

For the most part, their beers are British style — considering 95 per cent of Canadian breweries prefer to brew American or Belgian style recipes, it’s good to have a traditional British style ale once in a while.

Vic Park Pale Ale is the first PEI Brewing beer to be available in Manitoba. It’s described as a bold, yet easy-drinking American Pale Ale with a silky malt profile, clean bright hop flavours, and just the right amount of bitterness to finish.

As I said, 95 per cent of Canadian breweries brew American or Belgian styles, so of course PEI Brewing isn’t excluded!

Vic Park pours a golden orange ale with an incredibly light amount of snow white foam on top, and a good amount of carbonation inside the beer itself. What surprises me is that this beer has a good deal of sediment, so you can tell that this isn’t a filtered pale ale.

The aroma smells, frankly, delicious. It’s a tropical hoppy scent that has notes of pineapple, grapefruit and lemon that are consistent with the Deschutes’ Fresh Squeezed Hop IPA that I had the other day, and it boasts a surprisingly fresh hop vibe.

The flavour is pretty much a hop forward pale ale — when they described it as an American Pale Ale, they weren’t kidding. The notes of pineapple, grapefruit, lemon and pine are very present. The malt profile in the beer is simply overpowered by the hops, but the malt I do get has a bit of a grassy/grainy prairie barley flavour to it. There’s surprisingly minimal aftertaste — just a hint of pine on the tongue.

For a brewery that I remembered for brewing mostly British-style ales, they know how to make a great American Pale Ale as well. Vic Park is sweet and tropical, with a good presence of pine — perfect for the summer.

Vic Park is available at the 10th and Victoria Liquor Mart for $2.95 per 473 ml can. It will likely be available at the Corral Centre and South End Liquor Marts within the next week. It’s surprisingly only five per cent ABV — I expected 6.5 per cent from the hop presence alone.