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Winnipeg Free Press - PRINT EDITION
Beer with us, summer's almost here
New brews ready to hit shelves
Dave Rudge, brewmaster at Half Pints, holds a bottle of their Queer Beer, which is being brewed to mark the annual Winnipeg Pride Festival. (MIKE DEAL / WINNIPEG FREE PRESS) Photo Store
Warm weather, chirping birds and road construction can only mean one thing -- beer-drinking season is upon us.
Breweries are ramping up for the annual May long weekend blitz, when Manitobans return en masse to cottage country, by putting all kinds of new beers on liquor and beer-store shelves.
On the local front, both Half Pints Brewing and Fort Garry Brewing have new recipes for beer lovers. Half Pints is preparing to ship its second annual batch of Queer Beer, a 4.8 per cent pale lager created especially for the June 3 Pride Festival, Winnipeg's celebration in support of the gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender community.
Brewmaster Dave Rudge said he expects the six-packs of Queer to last about three weeks.
"(Pride organizers) approached us about doing something special for the festival, so we created a softer pale lager for them. It's the kind of beer you'd drink in mass quantities at Oktoberfest," he said.
Fort Garry's brewmaster, Matt Wolff, is equally excited about its Kona Imperial Stout, a heavy-bodied beer that comes in a 650-millilitre bottle and has 6.5 per cent alcohol.
"We use coffee in the brew. We've added roasted coffee from Hawaii," he said.
A couple of weeks ago, the owners of Luxalune brought in the first batch of their new beer for taste-testing at the Osborne Street pub. They plan to produce the still-unnamed beer at their estate brewery, which should open in a year or two.
Steam Whistle, one of Canada's most popular microbreweries, has just launched its popular pilsner in Manitoba, too. The 500 ml cans have been available for a couple of weeks, according to Brad Goddard, its manager for Western Canada. Their signature "suitcase" 12-packs will follow in the coming months.
Manitoba wasn't supposed to be on Steam Whistle's radar so quickly, but after the beer it brought into a couple of Winnipeg pubs on a test basis last December flew out of fridges, it was a no-brainer.
"It sold out in 10 days, which was a great indication that we needed to make Manitoba a priority. We shifted gears. We had been looking more actively at Saskatchewan," Goddard said.
Tennent's Lager, the top-selling beer in Scotland -- perhaps best-known for having female models on the sides of its cans for many years -- is the latest entry from WETT Sales & Distribution.
It is also bringing back Twisted Tea, an iced-tea product from the Boston Beer Company, for a second year. President Bill Gould said he believes iced-tea beer could match or surpass the popularity of lime beer over the last couple of years.
"I think it will be of longer duration than the lime craze, which has cooled down quite a bit," he said.
Coors Light recently launched an "Iced T" recipe, too.
Rudge said last winter's mild temperatures helped sustain the demand for beer virtually year-round.
"It's been crazy. There hasn't been much of a slowdown for us this year. It was the winter that never was."
geoff.kirbyson@freepress.mb.ca
Republished from the Winnipeg Free Press print edition May 5, 2012 B2
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