good brews in vancouver

hi there...I'm the mgr responsible for craft brewing at Hastings Liquor Store in East Van, maybe a little too far but we have a great selection and are kinda under-the-radar...Brewery Creek on Main and Legacy are the 2 standard-bearers for stores, imho...my suggestions to buy would be 1) as per SamJory, Phillips Amnesiac DIPA, 2) Howe Sound's "Pothole Filler", big Imperial Stout, 3) while I prefer Tofino's "Hoppin' Cretin" to "Fat Tug" FT is the benchmark for the iconic beer style, IPA, here, 4) something from Montreal's Unibroue, great Quebecois examples of Belgian styles (La Maudite, Fin de Monde, any of the Ephemere line if you like fruit), 5) unfortunately, think Powell Street (local nanobrewey) might be dry but worth going very local with Parallel 49 (great tasting room) - get ur hubby to visit and find a beer HE likes...

 

I'd advise against IPA seasonals like Hopnotist, Hop Therapy, Siren and the like. They're old at this point, especially Hop Therapy. Hopnotist, should he even find it anywhere, might still be drinkable (Hop Therapy most definitely is not), but it's lost a lot of what made it amazing when it first came out.

I'd definitely second Fat Tug and Hoppin' Cretin, as far as IPAs go. Fat Tug has the added advantage of having a bottled date right on the cap, so you can be sure you're actually grabbing a fresh bottle.

Hoppin' Cretin is a bit more of a crapshoot (no date whatsoever). When you have a fresh bottle of it, it's pretty damn awesome. When it's oldish, it's merely ok (same could be said for 95% of the IPAs on the West Coast, I guess).

Other than those, yeah, maybe have him grab some Parallel 49 (Gypsy Tears is a pretty solid choice). Lighthouse Belgian Black is amazing (and something you wouldn't have to worry about being fresh), but I'm not sure he'd be able to find any at this point. Maybe he'll get lucky.

Current seasonal offerings are kind of scant. Driftwood released a couple of Belgians brewed with local malt which are supposedly decent/good, depending on your tolerance for Belgian ales. Lighthouse released a Belgian wit (3 Weeds) brewed with coriander, ginger, rolled oats and pilsner malts. It's surprisingly good, better than what the ingredients would lead you to believe.

There's also some "music ale" fad going around, with breweries releasing beers named after Canadian indie/hipster bands. I've tried three of them (Said the Ale, D.O.Ale and Pink Mountainhops), and the only one that was anywhere close to good was Pink Mountainhops (and I'm not sure that's a compliment). Basically, I'd stay away from any beer proclaiming to be named after a band.

Phillips, meh. I used to really enjoy their Hoperation Tripel Cross but every bottle I've had for the last 5 months has been... off. I don't know if they changed the recipe or if they just had a few batches that were off, but it's not the same beer I used to drink. It's a decent Belgian strong pale nowadays, I guess. Used to be a pretty awesome, hoppy, floral IPA/Belgian hybrid, though. Never been a huge fan of Amnesiac -- very malty, hop profile is really understated and kind of mediocre. I guess if you're a big fan of English IPAs you'll probably enjoy it. Their other beers are fairly forgettable.

Howe Sound is pretty good. Again, not a fan of their IPAs (malty), but their Nut Brown is pretty good, and they just released their King Heffy imperial hefeweizen, which is probably one of the better hefeweizens I've had from a non-European brewery. It's probably worth a shot. Their stouts are also decent to good, depending on what you can find (Pothole Filler is a really good imperial stout, Diamond Head is a decent, sessionable oatmeal stout and Megadestroyer Licorice Imperial Stout is kind of a love it/hate it affair, depending on your thoughts on licorice).

Again, this all depends on your preferred style of beer. If you like IPAs, I'm pretty sure you'll be impressed with Fat Tug and Hoppin' Cretin. If you like Belgians, you'll probably enjoy Driftwood's seasonals that should still be out in the wild. If you like stouts... well, you probably have better access to stouts in NY than what Vancouver has to offer, but you might find a couple that you'd agree are pretty decent.

Another thing BC has is pretty decent distribution of actual Belgian beers, so you'd be able to find some esoteric stuff that's probably not available in NY, maybe.

edit: I also just realized this thread is pretty old, so my post is probably pretty useless at this point.

 

Not useless for me Is the Hopnotist a one-shot or will they be brewing it again? Would love to try that one.

 

It was a one-off, celebrating their one year anniversary. They brewed a couple of batches of it but it was gone insanely quickly. The only other beers I've seen fly off the shelves quicker are the much-coveted Driftwood seasonals (Singularity, Sartori Harvest).

I'm hoping it'll become a seasonal, like most of their other beers at this point.

edit: they had growler fills of Hopnotist available at the tasting room on a couple of different days. They were sold out within hours of tapping it.