FIRST DRAUGHT — Taking a look at Manitoba lagers, pilsners

Hey there, time traveller!
This article was published 08/03/2019 (2610 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

Hey, fellow beer geeks. If you happen to be visiting Winnipeg on Saturday, Sookram’s Brewing is having its brewery grand opening at their Osborne Village location at 479-B Warsaw Ave., only a few blocks from Confusion Corner! I wish I could go, but I’m stuck here in Brandon.

In this week’s edition of First Draught, I will be reviewing a variety of my least favourite style of beers in the world — lagers/pilsners. In the five years I’ve been writing First Draught, I’ve gotten comments like “I love your column, but I only like to drink OV” to “I dislike craft beer” from the time they tried a Rickard’s White (by Molson) in 2009.

Lagers are not only a tough style to brew for craft breweries as they take longer to make than an IPA, but they’re also not typically well received by craft beer drinkers as lagers and pilsners are typically considered “bland,” “too light” and “watery.”

One thing I’ve been noticing in the past two years is that craft lagers and pilsners are actually becoming a trend with craft breweries, since they’re typically beers that take a lot of work to replicate, breweries see it as a challenge to create the best lager they possibly can and since breweries love a challenge — Minnesota-based Summit Brewing is using an experimental variety of barley from a farm in North Dakota for their Dakota Soul Pilsner and it tasted pretty decent.

This week, I’ll be taking a look at four craft lagers and pilsners by four breweries located right here in Manitoba.

• Farmery Estate Brewery’s Farmery Premium Lager — $3.15/475mL can or $23.79 per 475mL eight-pack — Farmery was the first brewery to open up in western Manitoba since Brandon’s Empire Brewing closed in the 1930s, so it made sense to feature this local favourite first.

Farmery’s Premium Lager was the first non-Fort Garry/Big Rock craft beer I ever had at a restaurant or bar in rural Manitoba.

The lager pours a crisp blonde straw body with a light amount of carbonation and a light amount of white head on top. The aroma gives off a presence of straw, crisp and slightly toasted barley malt, grassy hop presence and a very faint hint of sweetness. The taste has a light sweetness from the lightly toasted barley malt, notes of straw, a light amount of bitterness from the hops and a crisp presence all around. Crisp, fairly light, dry on the palate and sweet but not overly sweet — those notes are what I expect from a lager brewed out of the Prairies.

If you happen to be in the Neepawa area, you’ll need to check out the brewery on Highway 5 in Neepawa, as well as their hop and barley field just south of Arden at the junction of Highway 16 and Manitoba 352. Farmery’s one of the only breweries I know of that grows their own hops and barley for their own beer, so it’s great to see beer made in Manitoba completely sourced on their own farm! Farmery’s Premium Lager should be available at the brewery in Neepawa, as well as beer vendors throughout Western Manitoba, and of course at Liquor Marts in Brandon, Killarney, Minnedosa, Neepawa, and Virden. 3.5/5 Pints

• Winnipeg Brew Werks’ Pils — $3.40/475mL can or $12.76 per 475 four-pack — Winnipeg Brew Werks was founded last year by Darren and Zoe Wanless and Bernhard Wieland. You may know Wieland as the former head brewer at Lake of the Woods as well as Little Brown Jug.

WBW’s Pils is a German-style Pilsner is brewed with Canadian Pilsner malt, traditional German lager yeast, US Magnum, German Pearle and Canadian Triple Perle Hops.

The beer pours a clear golden straw with a moderate amount of carbonation and fairly light white head on top. The aroma is sweet, slightly biscuity, a light crisp malt presence and a hint of honey for sweetness. The taste starts off with notes of straw, followed by a bit of honey, a bit of a grassy hop presence, very easy to drink and very smooth and moderately dry for mouthfeel.

I had a “German lager” phase several years ago and “Pils” is a great take on the style, it’s not overly sweet like some German lagers and you won’t get any skunkiness from this beer either compared to some of the most popular German lagers in green bottles. This is light on the palate yet still flavourful enough to savour while watching curling on TV or after shovelling snow.

Winnipeg Brew Werks is currently brewing out of Torque Brewing’s facility, but plans on opening a standalone brewery once they find a suitable location. Expect to see the folks over at Winnipeg Brew Werks at Brandon Beer Festival in April, they have plans to be sampling a beer that’s not available for purchase yet!

Pils is available at the Keystone Motor Inn as well as the South End and 10th & Victoria Liquor Marts. 4/5 Pints

• Torque Brewing’s What the Helles Lager — $3.41/475mL can or $22.17 per 355 12-pack — I had a very hard time deciding between this beer or else Torque’s brand new beer Torque Blonde Ale.

Torque’s Blonde Ale has only been available for a few weeks now and been selling like hotcakes but since I was reviewing lagers and not ales this week, it didn’t make sense to review an ale in a sea of lagers (but I did review it at my blog over at BeerCrank.ca).

I love the German Helles-style of lager, it’s always crisp, easy to drink and they tend to have a nice hop profile to it. It’s the only style of lager I’ll typically buy if a craft brewery brings a new beer to Manitoba (such as Surly for Surly Hell Lager). I still remember when this beer was getting commercially made for the first time — since lagers take longer to produce than ales, the beer wasn’t fermenting as fast as they were hoping, so I wouldn’t be surprised if their Witty Belgian ended up getting canned before this beer back in 2016.

What the Helles pours a crisp blonde straw body with a light amount of carbonation to it. The head on the beer starts off with the thick and frothy snow white head on top but gradually diminishes to a slim amount of film on top. The aroma is sweet with notes of straw, a bit of honey, grassy hop profile and a slight pine bitterness at the end. The tasting profile has a medley of the malt and hop right at first sip, it’s mostly the malt coming out giving off a presence of sweet straw and honey. It’s fairly dry on the palate but there’s a decent amount of bitterness for aftertaste from the hops.

What the Helles is available at Keystone Motor Inn as well as Liquor Marts in Brandon, Minnedosa and Virden. 3.5/5 Pints

• Trans Canada’s Portager Pilsner — $2.44/355mL bottle — If you happen to be spending a bit too much time at IKEA while in Winnipeg, Trans Canada Brewing is only a two-minute drive away if you’re wanting to re-think your decision about buying that “build-your-own-kitchen” kit. Trans Canada currently has three staple beers available at Liquor Marts, with Portager Pilsner being their closest beer to a lager.

I spoke to Trans Canada’s brewery owner on why they used shortish-necked 355mL brown bottles that are more common in the U.S. and Newfoundland and Labrador, but not so much in Canada — the reasoning is to give the brewery a “retro” sort of feel. I suggested that they should have used stubbies but at the time only Molson was using stubbies regularly again, and even then — stubbies have already gone out of style.

Portager pours a very pale clear lemon yellow with a lot of carbonation to it, in fact this beer is the closest beer in carbonation that I’m used to for Labatt/Molson beers from the past. The head is a half finger’s worth of snow white and not going anywhere.

Since this beer is in brown glass, I have no idea how long this beer has been on the shelf for, so it gives off a good deal of the typical skunky aroma you would get from a European lager or a green bottled beer. I would generally give this an unfavourable review because of the skunkiness, but I find a lot of people feel more welcoming to a beer if it has that presence, so if you’re a Heineken/green bottle beer fan — this is for you!

The taste presence starts off immediately with the taste of lemon peel followed by a hint of Euro-lager taste, it definitely has a pilsner vibe to it, but more of a Euro pilsner presence. There’s a moderate bitterness from the hops used to give it a floral and somewhat piney taste that you would get from something such as Heineken, but with a much fresher presence to it. I’ve had Heineken in Jamaica where it was fresh from the brewery before and this is what it reminds me of — if you are a fan of the taste of Heineken and other beers of similar style, you will absolutely love this, but if you are wanting less of a bitter hop presence, you may not enjoy this.

Available at Liquor Marts in the south end and 10th & Victoria Liquor Marts. 3/5 Pints

Check these out for St Patrick’s Day:

• Jameson’s Irish Whiskey Stout Edition — $40.99 per 750mL bottle

• Innis & Gunn Kindred Spirits Tullamore Dew Irish Whiskey Stout — TBA

• Beau’s Strong Patrick Irish Red Ale — $7.82 per 600mL bottle