Best Breweries by Province

Their best beer is part of their rotating series so you only see one or two of them on the shelf at any given time. Sovereign Super Saison will be hitting stores this week (already at Brewery Creek), I'd give that one a try, there's no brett in it incase that's the reason you didn't like Juxtapose.

 

I would be inclined to compare Big Rock to Waterloo/Brick Brewing, at least quality-wise. They're both relatively large, independent 'craft' brewers, and each have the resources to ship their products to opposite sides of the country. But I can't recall ever being genuinely impressed with a product from either company.

 

Sovereign most certainly has brett in it, but a fine beer for sure. Give the new berliner a try, souvenirs. Nectarous will be around soon. It's a hopped sour, very fruity. Then again I love Jux so my taste might not count for much with you. ;-)

 

I've seen the Super Saison in stores, but I decided to try the regular saison first. I think Firefly had the Berliner, but I'd already picked out too much other beer by the time I got to it. So much beer in my fridge right now...

 

You're definitely right on that one, not sure what I was thinking...

Though I did just hear that Juxtapose doesn't actually have any "brett" in it (actually saccharomyces), so maybe my misinformation will get off on a technicality here if it's actually sacch trois too!

 

Back on topic, here's the Top 100 Canadian beers list sorted by province. The numbers in parentheses are where individual beers fall on the list, at least at the present moment.

QC: Dieu du Ciel (1, 2, 9, 10, 13, 39, 56, 62, 67, 68, 76, 78, 83, 91), Unibroue (3, 8, 11, 14, 17, 18, 19, 48, 50, 95, 96, 97), Les Trois Mousquetaires (7, 23, 70), Charlevoix (15, 34, 41, 44, 49, 75, 94), McAuslan (16, 30), Le Castor (20), Trou du Diable (28, 47, 58, 93), Hopfenstark (86)
BC: Driftwood (4, 5, 12, 31, 32, 36, 54, 66, 84), Central City (6, 26, 46, 64), Four Winds (24, 37, 81), Howe Sound (52, 74), Crannog (57), Lighthouse (59, 80), Tofino (77), Phillips (82, 85, 87), Russell (88)
ON: Bellwoods (21, 33, 35, 38, 40, 55, 60, 71, 72, 73), Flying Monkeys (22, 90), Black Oak (25), Great Lakes (27, 29, 53), Muskoka (61), Cameron's (69), Collective Arts (79), Amsterdam (89)
MB: Half Pints (42, 43, 99)
NS: Garrison (45), Propeller (92)
AB: Alley Kat (51, 63, 100)
SK: Paddock Wood (65)
YK: Yukon (98)

The top 20 list has four beers from BC, while the remaining sixteen are from Quebec. The top 25 adds Ontario to our list, and the top 50 adds Manitoba and Nova Scotia. Is it fair to say that Canada's best beers come from Quebec, with BC in second place and Ontario in third?

What about the provinces that didn't make the list? Is there no good beer there, or is it a matter of no distribution?

Are there any breweries that you see in this list that you don't think belong, or ones that you think should be included but aren't? I'm surprised to see Crannog, since I've lived in BC for five years and never heard of them. Also, I'd put Parallel 49 above Central City, Lighthouse, Phillips and Russell. I think Brassneck is better than some of those too, but they don't even bottle, so it's no surprise that they're not included.

And yes, I have too much time on my hands!

 

Yes, they actually just changed the name from Juxtapose Brett IPA to Juxtapose Wild IPA because of that.

 

In some cases (I think of New Brunswick) it is likely a some of the first to start things out, and now the second that is the issue. For the longest time there were only two brewers in NB with any distribution and both had mediocre to decent beer at best. Now there are some really good beers being made in province, but the distribution is limited for them (I think of Grimross as an example). As these new brewers grow, I expect things will change. The growler policy at the provincial liquor authority may help things out as well.

 

Nice summation, thanks. I think two interesting omissions from QC are Brasserie Dunham and, to a lesser extent, Pit Caribou. Dunham's barreling program (is there a more "correcter" term for this) is great. PC's regular line-up may not be top 50 worthy, but again, their wild/Brett ales are really nice.

 

Once the requisite number of people taste and rate La Calvadeuse, I can't imagine it doesn't find itself in the Top 100. Great stuff!

 

Hard to make that conclusion just based on just this in my opinion. DDC and Unibroue have the widest distribution (including in the US) and therefore have a much higher amount of reviews which equates to a stronger score.

Most of the great recent breweries to come out of BC for instance cannot even keep up with local Vancouver demand and are barely distributed outside of Vancouver. Weighted scores will always favour more reviews.

Now the conclusion that it is QC followed by BC may indeed be accurate (I would say that it is quite close) but I wouldn't solely base it on BA reviews.

 

To go just a bit further, how about a point system? If we were to assign points based on those rankings, say, 100 points for #1, 99 points for #2, all the way down to 1 point for #100, we would get the following:

Quebec
759 Dieu du Ciel (14 beers)
736 Unibroue (12)
355 Charlevoix (7)
203 Les Trois Mousquetaires (3)
178 Trou du Diable (4)
156 McAuslan (2)
81 Le Castor (1)
15 Hopfenstark (1)
Total: 2483 points, 44 beers

British Columbia
585 Driftwood (9)
262 Central City (4)
161 Four Winds (3)
76 Howe Sound (2)
63 Lighthouse (2)
49 Phillips (3)
44 Crannog (1)
24 Tofino (1)
13 Russell (1)
Total: 1277 points, 26 beers

Ontario
512 Bellwoods (10 beers)
194 Great Lakes (3)
90 Flying Monkeys (2)
76 Black Oak (1)
40 Muskoka (1)
32 Cameron's (1)
22 Collective Arts (1)
12 Amsterdam (1)
Total: 978 points, 20 beers

Manitoba
119 Half Pints (3)
Total: 119 points, 3 beers

Nova Scotia
56 Garrison (1)
9 Propeller (92)
Total: 65 points, 2 beers

Alberta
89 Alley Kat (3)
Total: 89 points, 3 beers

Saskatchewan
36 Paddock Wood (1)
Total: 36 points, 1 beer

Yukon
3 Yukon (1)
Total: 3 points, 1 beer

You could also make a list of all of the breweries with at least one beer in the top 100, sorted by number of points:

759 Dieu du Ciel
736 Unibroue
585 Driftwood
512 Bellwoods
355 Charlevoix
262 Central City
203 Les Trois Mousquetaires
194 Great Lakes
178 Trou du Diable
161 Four Winds
156 McAuslan
119 Half Pints
90 Flying Monkeys
89 Alley Kat
81 Le Castor
76 Black Oak TIE
76 Howe Sound TIE
63 Lighthouse
56 Garrison
49 Phillips
44 Crannog
40 Muskoka
36 Paddock Wood
32 Cameron's
24 Tofino
22 Collective Arts
15 Hopfenstark
13 Russell
12 Amsterdam
9 Propeller
3 Yukon

(Still got too much time on my hands...)

 

Yep, you can get Unibroue just about anywhere, but where can you get, say, Four Winds? Not to mention the beers that are only available in tasting rooms or on tap at local establishments. I suppose there may well be truly excellent beer only available locally in lots of different parts of the country, but I'd guess the province where it's most true is BC.

 

I honestly don't understand how they managed to do this top 50 beer list? Saison Réserve from Brasserie Dunham is currently rated at 4.05 with 30 ratings and it's not in the list altough it has the 25 ratings minimum. And It's true for many other ratings fom Dunham (Leo's Early Breakfast, 3,89 - 66 ratings ; Black IPA 3,95 - 74 ratings) and I've noticed it from other breweries as well.

Is the Top Beer list ''filtered', by BA? An omission in their database?

 

I hope you at least get to do this at work

 

The system used is explained at the bottom of the list.

 

I know! But even with this system, these beers should be in!

 

By the way, have you tried to apply this formula to a specific beer? I know I'm pretty bad in maths, but it's not working ! Some parenthesis are not at the right place. Tried it on a couple of beers, results makes just no sense...

 

I haven't attempted any of the math, but I do look at the lists fairly often, and there are fairly regular changes, with beers falling out of the list every week or two, and new beers being added as the number of reviews increases.

 

Saison Reserve only has a weighted rank of 3.84, Leo's Early Breakfast has 3.81, and the Black IPA has 3.86. Number 100 on the list has a WR of 3.88 so they're all still a ways off.