Pacific NorthWest Trip: Vancouver

After a good start to our trip in Seattle, we headed a few hours north to the city of Vancouver, located in 'Beautiful British Columbia' (that's the tagline on the license plates there).  One of us (Jen) had never been to Canada, and we heard the beer scene here was up and coming, so we had a lot of things we were looking to do.

On our first day in town, we did some sightseeing, but then headed off to check out a few breweries on Granville Island.  The first of them, Granville Island Brewing, had just a tasting room only, and was a fairly small spot, but with plenty of seating.  Our sampler included all of their house brews, which were pretty much basic styles - a pale ale, a couple of lagers, a raspberry ale, IPA and a cream ale.  The one thing we learned quickly is that Canada doesn't do bitter beer.  As we were ordering the sampler, our server mentioned their IPA was "pretty bitter."  We checked the specs and saw the IBU's in the range of 40-45 (we know, that's not always a reliable indicator, but we could compare it to other IPA's we knew), and rasied an eyebrow.  Sure enough, when we tasted it, we had a hard time believing they considered this beer to be bitter.  We immediately thought, "If they think this is bitter, we should bring them some of the 3 Floyds IPA's!"

Beers from Granville Island Brewing in Vancouver

Another odd thing that our server at Granville explained was that because of the way this particular establishment was licensed (as a brewery, not a bar), they were only permitted to serve each person 12 ounces of beer.  Yep, you read that right.  12 ounces ONLY.  So, if you wanted to have a couple of after work beers, you'd be out of luck.  You could have one, but you'd be done there.  We later asked a bar operator about this and he immediately figured we were talking about Granville Island Brewery and confirmed it had to do with the limited license they must have.

After attempting to patronize another brewery on Granville Island, Dockside Brewing Company,  we learned it was more of a dinner spot that happened to serve the Dockside brews, as opposed to a taproom, so we moved on.  We ended up at Yaletown Brewing Company, which satisfied our need for more hearty food, and some local brews.  Yaletown also seemed to stick to basic styles but we learned they also liked to experiment a bit too - they tap a new beer on cask each Thursday - this week's release, which we would miss due the length of our stay was an ESB with basil.  Sounded interesting at least. For the time that we were there, we tried the following: Brick and Beam IPA, Helmcken Black and Tan, Mainland Lager, Nagila Pale Ale, Downtown brown, Warehouse Stout, Hills Special Wheat, ESB.

Beer flight at Yaletown Brewing Company

That night, the Beer Chicks wandered out in search of more beer, but our first spot turned out to be closed (it was a bbq and beer joint so we had our fingers crossed).  Not having gotten our bearings just yet, we walked back to our hotel and settled on the bar/restaurant right across the street, called the Back Forty.  From the sound of things, the building itself had been there for some time, but recently changed names and brought in a new chef with a new bbq inspired menu.  We didn't sample any food this night, but we did partake in some of the beer they had on tap from Big Rock Brewing company, based in Calgary, Alberta.  The bar had a nightly special with large mugs of Big Rock beer for just under $8, which was a great deal, considering the price of a single beer was usually close to $6.  So we tried the Big Rock IPA and Big Rock Traditional Ale. The mugs were also made by Big Rock and were some of the more creative ones we've seen. Check out Megan showing off her mug below.

Big Rock brewing mustache mug

The following day, after spending the morning at the Vancouver Aquarium, we checked out Steamworks Brewing Company.

Again, even the IPA's didn't register on our bitter scale, but regardless, the lineup of beer was solid.  Jen found herself drawn to the Nirvana nut brown ale (and not because of the band).  The space was also ginormous - we scoped out a cool, pool hall type room with a bar, that was located in the basement, and was probably the place to be on a weekend.

Lots of styles represented at Steamworks

Beer lineup at Steamworks

On what would then be our longest night out while in Vancouver, we ended up making it to three different bars in the Gastown neighborhood, which was characterized as an "up and coming" area of town that was traditionally home to low income housing.  We were told though, not too feel unsafe, as Vancouver in general, was a very safe place.  We figured it might be similar to some of what we knew from Chicago, so we weren't too worried.

Our first stop was to The Cambie, which we had read was a favorite "dive bar" for locals, and most importantly, had cheap drinks. We found out it was a pub actually attached to a hostel of the same name, and as a result the place was packed (with mostly who we assumed were college age kids), even for a Tuesday.  Russell Brewing Company out of Victoria, B.C. made a few of their house beers, such as The Cambie Pale Ale, Cambie Lager, Cambie IP'Eh, and Cambie Honey Blonde. All of the beers were around $4 per mug, which as very reasonable and they have many different specials throughout the week. Definitely a place to stop for travelers looking for something fun and interesting to do.

We then moved onto Six Acres, a cozy gastropub(?) located just a few blocks away.  It came highly recommended by one of our servers at Yaletown Brewing, and was also mentioned in a few Vancouver travel books.  They had a pretty impressive draft and bottle list for being such a small place, and also had a small menu of mostly sharing plates.  We ordered up some garlic butter and romano cheese popcorn, and some sweet and spicy chicken wings to soak up our chosen beverages: Megan started with Echt Kriekenbier (cherry sour) and Jen had a draft pour of Driftwood Fat Tug.  We decided to split one last brew, The Seed Spitter, a watermelon ale from a new local brewery named Parallel 49.

Lastly, we made our way to the Alibi Room, another recommended spot for having the best tap list in town.  We arrived pretty late in the night, so we didn't have a ton of time before it was going to be last call.  After all, it was only Wednesday!  Apparently, they were fresh off some kind of IPA or hop-themed event, so they had a lot of hoppy beers on tap.  Remember how we said Canada didn't seem to do hoppy beers?  Well, check out the menu to the right, which was specially marked with little hop cones to signify the hoppiness of each beer.  The more cones, the more hops.  It was kind of fitting (if not a little humorous) that they had to code the beers this way.

Either way, we were ready to sample some of Canada's finest: After the Nut Brown, aka Brother Thelonius... by North Coast, Hopparazzi--Parallel 49, Seed Spitter (Watermelon)--Parallel 49, Gypsy Tears--Parallel 49, Hoppin Cretin---Tofino, Iain Hall--Yaletown "oud Bruin", Phillips IPA Amarillo Single Hopped, and Batterhead English Bitter--Tariq Khan.

This is only half the tap list at Alibi Room

(Dark) interior of Alibi Room

On our final day in Vancouver, knowing that we'd be getting up pretty early the next day to drive back to Portland, we kept things pretty low key.  We headed back to the Back Forty, but this time had some grub (which was pretty darn good), plus a few beers...from Big Rock of course.

After the fairly straightforward and mild beers we encountered in Canada, we weren't sure our palates were ready for what was to come in Portland.  Sour beers, ipa's and fruit beers...oh my!