Hello from Nova Scotia

Eric, welcome to BA!

In 2018 my wife and I vacationed in Nova Scotia. Mostly on Cape Breton but also Halifax. I was happy at that time to see there was a burgeoning craft beer scene there. Whilst in Cape Breton I enjoyed our visit, and the beers, at Big Spruce Brewing and Breton Brewing.

During our stay in Halifax the marketing was there were more pubs per area in Halifax then anywhere else. I am uncertain of this claim but there were indeed a lot of craft beer bars in that city. I was especially a fan of Stillwell Beer Bar.

I look forward to reading your posts about the beer scene in Nova Scotia in 2023.

Cheers!

 

Welcome to the BA site, Eric. I found some leads to Schwarzbiers in Nova Scotia for you.

One of the great things about this site is the Places feature on the main menu. https://www.beeradvocate.com/place/ If you travel a lot you can use Places to find good beer businesses at your destination (or along your route), i.e. Breweries, good beer Bars, Eateries with a good beer list, good beer Stores, and Homebrew supply stores.

You can invent other uses for Places too. I did a search for all Breweries in Nova Scotia, and a link to the resulting list of 51 of them is below. I then looked at the beers/styles at each brewery and found 5 that have a Schwarzbier in their active beer list. Links to each of those breweries are also below. Also, I noticed many other breweries that have German styles in their active lists, so they may also be a source for Schwarzbiers but their list just isn't up to date. (This site uses member-based sourcing for info in the database, so you can add them when you find them.)

https://www.beeradvocate.com/place/...=&city=&s_id=NS&c_id=&submit=Search&brewery=Y

Propeller Brewery: https://www.beeradvocate.com/beer/profile/1878/

Spindrift Brewing: https://www.beeradvocate.com/beer/profile/43005/

Tatamagouche Brewing: https://www.beeradvocate.com/beer/profile/35518/

Uncle Leo's Brewery: https://www.beeradvocate.com/beer/profile/33033/

Unfiltered Brewing: https://www.beeradvocate.com/beer/profile/42634/

 

Welcome Eric, I have had some very very good beers from Canada courtesy of @Coronaeus, in fact some of the most memorable ones I've had in a while. From well established older Canadian craft breweries.

I also had a schwarzbier last night as my beer of choice while watching the Leafs, play horribly unfortunately, in a Leafs glass sent to me by @Coronaeus

If you really want to get to know some of us and talk beer I suggest you join us over in the new beer weekend thread, it will get posted Saturday. If there is any corner of BA that is all about just loving beer and talking about it, then you won't find a better place.

On a side note, I think it would be really neat to visit Nova Scotia one day...it always looks beautiful any time I've seen pictures from people who have been.

 

Yup, it is indeed beautiful.

And if you even make it up to Cape Breton during your visit I would encourage you to visit Big Spruce Brewing and enjoy some beers sitting on the Adirondack Chairs overlooking Bras d'Or Lake:



Cheers!

 

Come on, stop...here I am on a beer forum sitting watching a bunch of high school kids during my duty period. But hey, at least its Friday

Your picture is exactly what I mean, just so much green and blue. I bet the summer temps are perfect too, warm and then cool at night???

 

Welcome Eric! The active Canadian community on BA is small at the moment but good. It’s a great place to review beers in a more lengthy format than the structure of Untappd allows. I’m assuming by your handle here, you like to review. It would be great to see some more Maritimes beers with reviews. Nova Scotia has some great breweries.

If you are interested in trading, I can suggest keeping an eye on the Canadian forums for announcements of the CANBIF blind trades run by @Electros . These are a great way to send and receive boxes of beer from across the country. I got my start in trading with that group here about 10 years ago now and have never been disappointed.

Similarly, as @jonphisher mentions, and if you like to write up reviews, the New Beer Weekend group is great. It’s a nice way to share your experience of a beer new to you with a larger, interested group. If you want to do some international trading, there is a trade group associated with this that is excellent as well. If you’ve never traded internationally before, I can offer up a few pointers.

If you want to make a trade for some beers from your old stomping grounds in Ontario, let me know. I’m usually up for something. Godspeed in Toronto makes a fantastic Czech Dark Lager (very similar to a Schwartzbier) that I can’t recommend enough.

Cheers!

 

Funny you should say that. We were there the very end of June and beginning of July and the first few days it was actually cold during the day (and evening). Luckily we thought to bring some warm jackets (and I brought a sweatshirt) to wear. For the latter portion of the visit it was as you described: warm during the day and cool(er) at night.

During our stay, in Cape Breton they had a music event they label as Kitchenfest:

https://kitchenfest.ca/

Nova Scotia was settled by Scottish immigrants and they would socialize by visiting each other's homes and play music (e.g., violin/fiddle based) in their kitchens, they would call this 'party' a ceilidh. The Kitchenfest ceilidh events were spaced rather widely over Cape Breton Island. We attended a number of them including one at a Canadian Legion hall where I drank draft pints of Moosehead beer.

We had no idea of Kitchenfest when we decided to visit, just a happy coincidence for us.

Slàinte Mhath!

 

Fortunately I don’t think that there are a lot of Défenseurs Bière reading these forums!

 

You might be interested to know that some of the street signs in Cape Breton are both in English and Gaelic:



Slàinte Mhath!