Best Breweries by Province

Also in Alberta Wellington, Flying Monkey and Amsterdam that is just from memory sure there are more.

 

Thank you for the suggestions - I will be sure to keep my eye out. I've seen Brick (Waterloo), as well. I'm always looking for new ideas!

 

My two cents. Avoid Brick (Waterloo).

 

Agreed on the Brick front - I find their beer drinkable, but little more! I had a good look, and to the best of my knowledge, the other Ontario breweries that are widely available in Alberta include Cameron's, Hockley and Hop City. Based on what I've tried, it doesn't change my original opinion. I've heard great things about Flying Monkeys, but haven't sampled their beer yet.

 

Fresh Rye P A from Cameron's used to be pretty good when I could find it. Otherwise, that's a pretty middling assortment of Ontario breweries.

Send me your address in a BM and I will send you a box of Bellwoods stuff

 

well, Alberta's amusing simply due to the lack of micro that currently exists due to previous provincial laws. same with Manitoba. while i do enjoy Mr Rudge's beer, he pretty much wins by proclamation due to lack of competition (again, no knock on Dave and his beer. more of a comment on lack of Manitoba options).

i have little to no opinion about Alberta's beer. I've had a # of Alley Kat and Wild Rose's beer to label them as unremarkable. Alley Kat tries (quad, barley wine) but it's not an upper tier brewery. therefore, i'd be hard pressed to create a list like this without knowing if i'm truly missing a great brewery.

Unibrou: hard for me to call that micro. it really isn't. and it's very solid. but i'm leaning towards Trou du Diable (La Pitoune is a sensational beer) and, if they got rid of a few SKUs, Dieu du Ciel (solid but not mind blowing).

Ontario is in an insane growth phase. doesn't mean good growth, but it's insane growth. Mill Street is our equivalent of Alley Kat, but less adventurous. brewing a lemon tea beer where the lemon tea and artificial flavours (yep) drown any beer imperfections is not avant guarde. Creemore's owned by Molson, so there's that. and their few SKUs aren't overly great.
Lake of Bays - i had to google them to see what they made b/c other than doing the gimmicky hockey series, they're not known for much. 10 Point IPA's available at the LCBO but i don't know anyone who drinks it.

Muskoka - now you're getting into arguably more respectable territory. i think they're overrated. Mad Tom is a decent IPA that put Ontario into the late 1990s for IPAs. People like Detour and that's great. Winter Beard used to be gross (frozen pea flavour). i think Oddity's a fucking gong show of flavours and i don't like it. but yeah, it's a safe and decent brewery.

Ontario's best would currently be listed as:
Bellwoods
Great Lakes
Amsterdam

Amsterdam's kind of become stagnant. no great bottle releases and their core brands are iffy. some of their one-offs are beautiful, but they seem to have taken a back seat in the past year. Great Lakes has gross core beer other than Canuck and they've gotten smart in the past year and made a push to mass produce their IPAs like Lake Effect, Robohop, Thrust!, Karma Citra, etc etc.
Bellwoods is our brewery that pushes the most boundaries. brett beer, sours, barrel programs, quad, dubel, tripel, berliner. That's creative shit. their dark beer are great. they've started to make lagers. they try and, at worst, their beer is good. never really foul. at best (see: Barn Owl from this month) it is amazing.
Nickelbrook's on the up and up. their barrel-aged stuff is coming along nicely and after they complete their current expansion, they may bump Amsterdam out of the top 3.
Sawdust City's brewery's been open for a year. also another brewery on the rise. some very solid beer as of late and they're gaining popularity. worst beer names ever, but another good one to watch.

other players include Left Field (nice packaging, so-soish beer), Forked River (trying barrel-aging beer right off the bat) and some other guys. we're in a quantity-vs-quality growth period. lots of me-twos and me-threes. so Ontario will really evolve over the next 3 years. some guys will go out of business due to our stupid Beer Store and LCBO shelf space, others will thrive.

i'd also toss a cidery into the mix simply because i think his stuff is brilliant. West Ave cider is some of Canada's best cider. he's in year 2 and his cider's are incredible. look it up. i've been to two beer events today and it's what i've been drinking over beer.

 

Respectfully disagree with you about Alberta especially when you think of a population of 3 and half million we have had a pretty good beer scene. Alley Kat, Wild Rose, Brew Brothers, Big Rock and Brewsters all having their moments for decades before the scene broke open to all the new kids. This is even further accentuated when you consider how open the Alberta market is to out of province products like all the Ontario breweries that are here. Maybe even more Ontario breweries than you can buy in your LCBOs.

 

Thanks for the input - looking forward to trying something new! Cheers!

 

Big Rock is the Unibrou of the west, kind of sort of. just not as good. some of the core beer are good, but beyond the core, i've heard that their newer stuff ain't so hot. we're getting a brewpub in Toronto some time this year and I haven't heard too many beer geeks excited about it. probably considered a notch above 3 Brewers. so some eastern perspective of Big Rock. and i grew up drinking Trad (was the first craft beer we really got back in Winnipeg). so i'd want to embrace Big Rock, but it hasn't given us much in the past decade to get excited about.
Brew Brothers and Brewsters - never had. so who knows.
but 3 out of the 5 you've listed certainly aren't that exciting and may match that previous poster's suggestions of Mill St and Creemore being the best of Ontario

 

why??

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brick_Brewing_Company

 

Ok, ok. I suppose Laker Ice is near the top of the list of Ice beer offerings in the Province... If ever I crave Ice beer, I will definitely "Mak'er a Laker!"

Full disclosure: As a much, much younger man I consumed my fair share of Waterloo Dark. I can't say I've even tasted it in over 15 years. I certainly liked it enough back then though.

 

I agree - they make a few good beers (Red Racer of course) but otherwise nothing special. Driftwood is a solid choice, but I would say that most enthusiasts in BC would agree that Four Winds is currently producing the best BC beers (their special releases, not their regular lineup). They along with other new smaller breweries (ie Yellow Dog) are producing some great beers that do not make it out of the lower mainland for the most part let along the province.

 

this will be my last reply, since i feel like i'm replying too much in this thread.
i haven't had any lately, but i've heard that Red Racer's quality's really dropped. any thoughts on that?

 

I would say that it has not - but the trick is finding a fresh can. If you do then it is still one of the best IPAs in BC, but finding fresh ones can be a bit of a challenge.

 

Alberta is a funny beast. It probably has the best overall liquor retail system in Canada, which has translated into a huge number of quality imports, but that hasn't translated into a flourishing local brewery scene yet. Right now, Alberta is approximately where Ontario was 5 years ago in terms of breweries.....which puts them about 10 years behind many US regions. This is a byproduct of the restrictive minimum production capacity laws that existed until very recently. Hopefully amended laws boost both new start ups and risk taking, but there are currently too many safe gateway beers that fail to stand out or poorly executed/poorly conceived envelope pushers. I haven't tried Dandy, but Wild Rose, Alley Kat, Tool Shed, Village, Brewsters, Vagabond, Big Rock, Grizzly Paw et al. all fall into one of those two (often both) categories. A night of local drinking at the Alibi, Bar Hop, Vices & Versa, Stillwell or Tide & Boar really puts Alberta's conundrum into perspective.

That said, I have a fridge full of new Wild Rose, Big Rock, Village and Grizzly Paw right now. I have no problem eating my words if I'm blown away.

 

Funny you mention that, I recently contacted Central City, as I love their IPA, and the last bottle I had was very clean - no cloudiness like it usually has.

This was the response: "Since then we've been using a centrifuge and polish filter it, so we get the muddier yeast flavours out and you can taste the hops better." To me though, it tasted a little dialled down and more restrained. Still a decent beer but not what it was. Shame.

 

Despite the fact that I live in Alberta, comparing Big Rock to Unibroue is ridiculous. Unibroue is a fantastic brewery, loved possibly even more so in the US than here. Most Big Rock brews that i've had have been uninspired - nothing offensive but lacking character. Until Big Rock makes anything approaching La Fin du Monde or Grand Reserve 17, they aren't even in the same ballpark.

Alberta is a long way behind many other provinces on the beer front. Now that the rules have been relaxed somewhat, hopefully that will change.

 

size-wise, not quality-wise.

 

I see that Four Winds has good ratings, but the one beer I've tried (Juxtapose Brett IPA), I didn't like much. Any recommendations? Also, where do you find their stuff? I've pretty much just seen the standard IPA, maybe pale ale and saison in stores around Vancouver.