Thanks to the good people at Canmore’s Grizzly Paw Brewing Co., your tastebuds can take part in tradition and a once in a lifetime opportunity that was over a year in the making.
The local craft beer brewery held a reception on Dec. 30 to celebrate the release of its Grizzly Paw Barley Wine. Brewed in 2014 at the original downtown brewpub location, it has been awaiting release since then.
The 8.7 per cent alcohol by volume and 61 IBU is a big, luscious ale with flavours of apricot, plum and black currant mingling with a rich maltiness, balanced by a spicy hop bitterness and alcohol warmth which will continue to mellow with age.
“We wanted to incorporate the Three Sisters into the background because that’s obviously part of what makes us who we are, and we talked about wax dipping the tops and were even able to find the right wax and same detail of our logo yellow,” said Grizzly Paw CEO Robert Flatt on the eye-catching bottle design. “It turned out, and it compliments what you’ll find inside the bottle, great beer and we want to make sure we grab people’s attention to give it a try.”
The company brewed it last December and knew they were going to cellar it for a year before bringing it out to the public. Grizzly Paw brewmaster Fred Orndorff encourages the idea to purchase two bottles, so you can drink one now and drink one next year to witness the changes the beer will go through during cellaring.
“It’s going to change and even get better for at least another year. It’s a big, complex beer and not something we’re going to do all the time because it does take more time,” Orndorff said.
The craft beer consumer market in Alberta is continuing to broaden. In the province right now there are 21 craft breweries, five years ago there was about five, and by the end of next June there will be 25.
“With the barley wine they’ve still only met .01 per cent of the market,” said Grizzly Paw owner Niall Fraser. “Now that craft beer is growing, there is much more of an appetite for these kinds of products. It’s always been around but just so small and niche. People 10 years ago said, ‘what is that?’ Now they say, ‘where is your barley wine?’ They’re asking for new products constantly.”
The local brewery also recently made an Alpenglow Winter Ale, which was also met with great fanfare. “It’s pretty much gone, what’s in the fridge is all that’s left, and that’s two and a half weeks,” Fraser said.
“What’s great for the craft beer business and drinkers is the constant change, but what challenges us is you have to keep coming up with something cool and great because all the brewers in Alberta are making great beer.”
Fraser added 10 to 15 years ago there was more of a margin of quality in what craft breweries were producing, but now all the competition is turning out great product. “It ups the ante for Fred and his team for brewing beer – it has to be consistently good all the time and it has to be innovative,” Fraser said.
Orndorff says a typical barley wine used to be eight to 12 per cent abv, but can now be found from eight to 15 per cent today.
“There’s always someone who’s going to push it, but this is similar to an English barley wine,” Orndorff said. “Its very malt driven, a lot of complex dark fruit flavours, there’s toffee flavours that come from the malt and then we hop it considerably when brewing it because we know it’s going to fade considerably as it sits, so the hops will come down in the balance a year later.”
Orndorff added once this batch of barley wine is gone, you’ll never see the exact same product again.
“Next year we’ll go in a totally different direction, and every year we’ll sort of change up what barley wine we’re making and reserve some back every year so we can do comparisons through the years,” Orndorff said.
Grizzly Paw recommends bold food to pair with it, such as blue cheese, a spicy salad, spiced peanuts, pork belly – food needing to be just as bold, with notes of sweet, sour, spicy and bitter – and Flatt, Fraser and Orndorff agree you could have a fun and delicious time braising some meat with the Barley Wine as well.
Barley Wine is available at Grizzly Paw Brewing Co. and restaurant, and is available in 650 ml bottles for $13 and refillable growlers for $22. Stay up to date with what Grizzly Paw Brewing Co. is creating through its Twitter and Facebook page.
