Beerstitution Volume 35: THE BYEAR IN REVIEW III

This year’s THE BYEAR IN REVIEW III started with our ‘Awards Ceremony’ and revelling in some truly impressive numbers and culminated in this Byear’s Winner!

Beerstitution Byear in Review III Grand Champion: Beau’s Full Time IPA!

Number of bottles of beers on our wall for Year III: A staggering 180 unique beers tried, tested and trued + Everything at Beau’s Oktoberfest (especially the CraftHaus!)! Wow… All I can say is WOW! Nice work team!
Still banned: St-Arnould
Cal Ripken Jr: KFok
Ironman: KFok
New title for KFok: IronRipkenJr
Rookie of the year: Val, a little bit by default, and a lot more because she was incredibly deserving of it

We started our review with the Bière de Ruelle by L’Espace Public (winner of the Sours beerstitution) presented by Kristen, who told us a timely story about this being her last beer of the summer, and helping her hold on to those last rays of sunshine.

BRSTº Rating: 37.5/55

We then moved on to Thorador by Brasseurs Illimités (winner of the Assemblage beerstitution) presented by Scully. He reflected on how hard it was to find assemblages for that beerstitution, and the blessing that is the new Peluso.

BRSTº Rating: 41/55 – tie for 2nd place

We got a brief interlude of not at all artifically posing for Geneva’s camera, and fawning over the ABSOLUTELY BEST EVER BOTTLE OPENER she got Kristen for her birthday. How it was just lying around at flea market, waiting for Geneva to find it, we’ll never know. It might be the new Beerstitution mascot.

We then were reminded of the taste of King Cogne 2 by Brasserie Kruhnen (whatever we could find that had been presented at John’s King beerstitution), presented by Geneviève, who also needed to be reminded that she had in fact not been in that beerstitution, no matter how much she insisted she was. Although let’s be honest, Gen is always with us in spirit.

BRSTº Rating: 41/55 – tie for 2nd place

I could talk about how much we enjoyed Alive N’ Well by Stone City Ales, which was robbed of the win at Nick’s Surf beerstitution, but let’s face it, this one is all about THE Jeff Gibson. JEFF GIBSON. Guys. The coooooolest guy Nick knows. The Jeff Gibson that Nick loves so much he dyed his hair red to copy his idol touched by fire. We can all touch a bit of Jeff with this beer, which in fact gives lots of head. That or Nick got too excited pouring Jeff’s liquid incarnation. Jeff Gibson.

BRSTº Rating: 37/55 (Nothing against Jeff Gibson, whom we all admire by proxy.)

Second interlude also provided by Geneva, still totally not setting us up for some camera shots, who appropriately put an end to Year III jerk handed scoring system. It’s now a less offensive yet still shakey system, to keep insuring we don’t influence each others’ scores.

We then move on the Wag the Wolf by Beau’s (repping our presence at 2016’s Beau’s Oktoberfest), presented by Corey, who made all the gamut of noises as he sipped it. SO. MUCH. PEAR. We collectively agreed. It was also a great occasion for Alex to practice his dad-ness with some terrible puns, such as “Pear-rier”. We also noticed that this is the third beer in a row we’ve been drinking with hops from down under, for what’s that worth. Let Australia’s contribution not go unnoticed.

BRSTº Rating: 39/55 – tie for 3rd place

The next presentation was mine, which I actually prefaced with a pretty cheesy yet heartfelt speech about how wonderful this group and its members are, and how delightful it’s been part of this bunch. Moving right into an even more heartfelt presentation of the Farmhouse Houblon by Le Castor, winner of the Wheat Free beerstitution, which is probably just an echo of the explanation I gave to introduce it then. It’s a well known favourite of mine, not just because of it’s label with a pretty girl riding across it on a bicycle.

BRSTº Rating: 39/55 – tie for 3rd place

We then had Phil’s Calice from Saint-Bock, representing our Saint-Bock Beerstitution. An awesome night missed by all but four of the beerstitutioners, which we will now only hear legends of. Which is why we thought Phil’s presentation should win the brand new Slow Clap Award. Dave loves the fact that it grants eternal life, and although you might think this would lead us down an Indiana Jones quote-off, we went right the other way, and decided not to go to Camelot, “tis a silly place”. More noted quotes from this tasting:

“It’s not really good, but…” – Anonymous
“Aggressively neutral” – Kristen

BRSTº Rating: 38.5/55

New title to be vied for: Slow Clap Award for Best Beer Presentation… hmmm, food for thought

Next up was the Full Time IPA from Beau’s, repping Dave’s attempt to get an excuse to fill the car with beers during his vacation by hosting the Anything But Quebec beerstitution. He went so far as to say that the Full Time rivals his first love, the Yakima – gasps were heards all round the table. Then we drank, were reminded of the awesome, and gave out scores that would have Beau’s deliver us a Byear in Review winner once again.

BRSTº Rating: 43/55

We then had La Gaspésienne No. 13 from P’it Caribou brought by Dan. It won the P’it Caribou (and the best of La Gaspésie) beerstitution, and that’s as much as we could remember about it. We did, however, go into multiple renditions of Dan’s name in a British accent by a wee girl from Ottawa. It was relevant at the time.

BRSTº Rating: 36/55

Next was the Malédiction from Saint-Bock in honour of the Stout beerstitution. Val couldn’t the winner or any runner ups from that night, which is a shame because we all love saying “Señor Cacaaaaaoooo”. Notable quotes and moments from this tasting:

“This tastes like a coffee slurpee that’s melted” – Geneva
Which prompter Gen and Nick to become Heroes of the Byear by going to get Klondike bars so we could all enjoy Kristen’s award-winning stout concoction.
“Kristen’s glass smells like blood” – me (I’m not a big stout drinker, mind)

BRSTº Rating: 39/55 – tie for 3rd place

We then got to hear from the finder of The Most Fetching of Bottle Openers, Geneva, who had the runner up from the Autumnal Ales aka Basic Bitch Beers beerstitution, La Route des Épices from Dieu du Ciel! The batch we got a bit of an unexpected year-long aging since it was out of season and a bit of small miracle that Geneva could find some. We thought that this might have rendered it less potent than usual. It nevertheless got us talking about the messiness of time travel.

BRSTº Rating: 25.5/55

In our last stretch, we all had the genius idea to rate our drunkenness levels on a scale of 1-5. Some were more truthful than others:

Dave: 3
Phil: 2
Val: 3.5
Corey: 3.5
Gen: 2.5
Kristen: 2.5
Nick: 3
Anna: 3
Geneva: 3.5
Scully: 2.5
Alex: 2

Total Beerstitutioneers Booze Score: 31/55

The final beer in review was brought by Alex, although as a last minute addition it’s slightly hors-compétition since I don’t think it had been brought to a Beerstitution during our past year. But since none of us have ever said no to a brew, we were all happy to taste the Old Ale – Cuvée du Chai from Brasseurs du Monde. That is until some of us practically spat it out (myself and Phil, namely), crying out “whyyyyyyy?!” Not all of us were made with taste buds for such a strong, boozy beer. And quite a few of us reacted with a surprising amount of facial expressions.

BRSTº Rating: 25/55

After this, some of us called it quits, and some of us cleansed our palates with a few bonus bottles of past Byear in Review winners, and a bottle of Beau’s Batch 5000, which although delicious, did not wow us as much as this year’s (much more reasonably priced) winning beer. Although you can pretty much charm the lederhosen off of us most of the time, you can’t win ‘em all, Beau’s!

Now enjoy the true star of the evening, and an award in the making for Geneva: