Pine Creek Hek Lager
Big Rock Brewery

Yet another big rock beer brewed exclusively for a chain. This one for the superstore brand of liquor stores.
This one pours golden yellow with scents of grain, corn and a very faint citrus smell. Ice cold, Poured into a pint glass with a virtually no head to speak of.
Not the best beer around but as far as the generic brands brewed by big rock you find in Alberta brewed by big rock (Coop gold, pc lager, river valley etc.) this is one of the better ones in my opinion.

A cheap, somewhat decent beer. Refreshing, it's my lawnmower brew. Sightly more interesting than a glass of water but not very much. It's a decent rotation beer, if you got tired of the usual Kokanee and al.

 

Pine Creek, aka Big Rock, brewed exclusively for Superstore. Can has the look of a fancy imported European beer. Only available in 12 packs of cans.
This beer pours a clear, pale yellow color. Bubbles foam up, the crash down to a thin floating cap. A few bubbles on the glass do not really count as lace.
It smells kind of odd. Sour rain, a bit metallic, musty.
The taste has some of the same sourness and musty yeast, sweet adjuncts. Skunkiness starts coming through by the end of the glass (should have drank it straight from the can I guess).
The carbonation is a bit fizzy, light body, cloying mouth feel.
Although I'm not sold on this one, I am trying to be subjective at look at it for what it is. A low cost alternative, for those who only care about price. They must sell a lot, because there is always a pallet disappearing every time I stop at Superstore.

 

One of Superstore's house brands, brought to us by the Pine Creek Brewing Company, at least here in Alberta, whose other offerings include the Bow Valley value line. Makes sense, since Pine Creek is a 'wholly-owned subsidiary' of Big Rock, a fact that explains why the parent company's name is nowhere on the cans. I should start referring to Pine Creek by their apropos acronym: PCB...

This beer pours a perfectly clear, very pale straw colour, with tons of thin foamy white head, which settles quickly, leaving a few sparse splatters of lace around the glass. It smells of metal, plastic, and skunky grain. Yuk. The taste, just because I have a weird perversion for knowledge, is sweet corny malt, more metallic, 'just microwaved plastic wrap', and some mild slick, sweet phenolic alcohol. The carbonation is actually quite mild, the body light, somewhat cloying, and smooth in the way that peanut butter is smooth. It finishes off-dry, with a tiny bit of real graininess, that is still overwhelmed by the pervasive industrial runoff essence.

When the label proclaims that they use only 'the finest and freshest ingredients', without actually stating what those are, that should be a pretty big clue. Oh well, I'm sure that this stuff - as unappealing as it actually is - sells by the caseload for bbq, cabin blowouts, etc., where style beats the living shit out of substance.