It might be just the beer talking here, but it seems to me that it's the dream of every honest, redblooded man to one day own a brewery.
In fact, the way the craft beer market is exploding here in the Lower Mainland, it feels like maybe every red-blooded man WILL own a brewery by the end of the year. Two breweries - Dollarton Highway neighbours Bridge Brewing and Deep Cove Brewers - opened up on the North Shore in the last two years and a third one called Green Leaf Brewing is scheduled to open shortly at Lonsdale Quay. Opening up a brewery is becoming a popular North Shore tradition right up there with old classics like paying a million dollars for a two bedroom house, or almost crashing your Subaru into a longboarder.
I know I would love to open a brewery but I'm still working on saving money for a down payment on my own tiny, million dollar house. So far I've saved enough for half a closet and three feet of sewer pipe. OK, two feet.
Anywho, an actual brewery is out of reach for most dudes, but many have taken to starting their own little brewery in the basement. Home brew is great stuff for serving to house guests to show them how creative and cheap you are.
Home brewer: "No, that's not dirt - it's sediment. That's a wit ale. It's Belgian. Enjoy!"
Skeptical house guest: "And that?"
Home brewer: "That's a cockroach."
Some folks, however, may not even have the space for that type of basement setup. Maybe they live in the basement. And maybe their baby's crib keeps getting in the way of the bottling machine. Maybe there was a spot of trouble the time their son arrived at daycare with a Dora the Explorer sippy cup full of nut brown ale.
"This is a nut free zone!"
That's why I was intrigued when a pushy PR guy from Ontario called me a couple of months back to see if I wanted to try a unique new product billed as the "world's easiest beermaking kit." Actually, I said no. Then he called back and asked me again and, being a polite Prairie boy, I had no options left except to say yes.
A few days later a big package from Mississauga-based MB Bottle Brew arrived at my office.
Plastered on the box was a picture of a man with three lightning bolts stabbing him in the back. "Lourd!" it said in big block letters, which I believe is French for either "Heavy!" or "Caution! Stabby Lightning!"
It was time to brew. I enlisted the help of a lovely assistant named Robbie to help me get the process going, by which I mean carry the 50-pound box up the stairs to our lunchroom. There we undertook the sacred art of beer making that has been developed, shared and honed throughout the millennia. In this instance we opened a couple of pre-filled two-litre bottles, poured in a tiny vial of yeast, closed the bottles and put them in a closet. Then we went back downstairs and told everyone in the office how hard we were working to make them some beer.
In fact, Robbie went a little overboard in spreading the news and in two weeks, when our wonderful creations were finally ready to come out of the closet, there was genuine excitement around the office. I started to feel the pressure. "You all won't be so happy when we're holding our next staff meeting in the morgue," I thought to myself.
No turning back now though. Robbie and I had the first sips - best that we be the ones to test for yeast poisoning.
Sniff. Gulp. Ahh. Not bad. Pretty darn OK, actually. Given the relatively cheap cost and startlingly easy process, it was a pleasant surprise.
The product actually mimicked a natural party progression. At the top of the bottle the beer was clean, smooth and flavourful. As the day wore on, however, it got a little sloppier. As Robbie and I made our way around the office pouring samples, the brew got cloudier and the reviews got a little stormier. Through a bit of poor planning, our last stop of the day was at the big boss's office.
"Oh no, is there a problem with the toilets?" he said as we entered with a bottle of muddy bottom dregs as well as a ring of unsettling yeast scuzz near top. "Oh, you want me to drink that?" Like a boss, he's a man who knows what he likes.
"That's not bad," he said as he took his first sip. Moments later, he finished it off. "I don't want another glass." Well then.
The consensus was that the beer exceeded expectations, with scores rising even higher if you serve it to people who are already drunk. Check the MB Bottle website to see where it is sold in Vancouver - it's worth a try if you want to add a little science experiment fun to your beer drinking.
Don't forget, however, the many professional B.C. craft brewers who are making hoppy deliciousness the likes of which could never be replicated in a closet.
They still need your love too - just because you own a brewery on the North Shore doesn't mean you can afford a house.
