The 19th Annual Canadian Brewing Awards and Conference took place last weekend in Quebec and winners from across the country are still celebrating their hardware wins for their creative products that have been well received by the industry.
Some unique creations include one from Analog Brewing Company, located in Edmonton and known for being Alberta’s nerdiest brewery since its inception in. They were among the four Edmonton breweries to take home the gold, winning in the Cream Ale category for their Retro Style Pre Prohibition Cream Ale.
“It felt amazing,” said Adam Corsaut, president of Analog Brewing Company. “To get a national award for something that people among our own industry decided from the best of the best throughout the nation they said that in this style, we’re the peak. For a brewery that’s three years old and a small family-owned company … we don’t have the deep pockets that some other breweries have, so to come away with a national title is absolutely amazing.”
“With our retro-styles cream ale, it’s a very traditional beer,” said Corsaut. “The way I usually describe this beer to people, and now I get to say it with a gold medal to back it up, is this beer is the ultimate dad beer. This is the ‘I just want a beer that tastes like beer’, and it’s done very well for us.
“When people come into our taproom and they say that they don’t drink craft beer they tend to drink ‘insert big name beer here’ we say, ‘well, start here’ and I’ve never had anybody say that they’re disappointed with that beer, if they’re coming from that point of view.”
Brandon Boutin, one of the founders and brewers at Town Square Brewing have been award winners for three consecutive years and are also celebrating a gold win in the Fruit Beer category for their Beets sour beer. “Beets is one of our longest running products. It’s a sour beer and it was inspired actually from a kombucha we had on draft at the taphouse. It was a beet kombucha and it had this beautiful colour,” Boutin said, adding the category they won in also includes sub-categories for pumpkin, and vegetable-based beers. “But this beer does have a lot of fruity character that comes from it. A lot of citrus and grapefruit notes and the beets kind of bring more of the earthiness and obviously the deep colour that comes with it.”
“We’re going up against amazing peers nationally that we feel have way better beer than we do. But to know that we’re competing with them and still being recognized as some of the top in Canada, not only just Alberta, is extremely humbling,” said Boutin. Town Square Brewing alao took home silver in the Imperial Stout category with their Liquid Lullaby Imperial Stout, and a bronze in the Smoked Beer category with Prairie Fire Rauchbier.
Other Edmonton winners include Trial & Ale Brewing Company, who took home both gold and silver in the American-style Sour Ale category with their An Equatorial Detour offering, and brunch beer, respectively. Sea Change Brewing Co took two gold medal wins in both the North American Style Blonde or Golden Ale category with their Sea Change Blonde Ale and in the Sweet Stout or Cream Stout category with their Sea Change Turbo Stout.