Beau’s organic brew hits Brandon

Opinion

Hey there, time traveller!
This article was published 04/08/2016 (2844 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

Beau’s All Natural Brewing has finally arrived in Brandon!

If you aren’t familiar with Beau’s, they are a family owned brewery based out of the small town of Vankleek Hill, Ont., located an hour southeast of Ottawa. It’s Canada’s largest organic brewery and as of this spring, they gave their employees ownership of the operation.

Ever since I was in Montreal in June for Mondial de la bière, the folks at Beau’s have been emailing me and tweeting me … well, breweries do email me once in a while, but usually it’s just media releases.

However, the folks over at Beau’s are extremely engaged with their audience, to the point that Jen Beauchesne — Jen’s father and brother founded the brewery in 2006 — started following me on Twitter because we’re both great friends of the folks at up-and-coming Torque Brewing and I happened to post a picture of Torque’s awesome cast iron bottle opener.

Seeing that Jen is Beau’s media relations rep, I wanted her to tell me some cool tidbits about the brewery that would be interesting to beer drinkers here in Westman.

Beau’s received its organic certification back in 2008 and being an organic brewery, the hardest thing is sourcing the ingredients for the beer. The organic barley malt used for Beau’s beers comes mostly from Germany because it’s difficult to find good beer malt quality organic barley in Canada.

That being said, they recently started to source a small amount of organic barley, oats and rye from Malterie Frontenac out of Quebec whenever possible.

As for wheat, beer grade organic wheat is easier to come by in Canada, so when Beau’s has access to it, they use it in their wheat ales.

Hops is another tricky area for an organic brewery. A few years back, the entire North American beer industry was going through a massive hop shortage, but now that more people are growing hops throughout Canada, Beau’s uses 100 per cent organic locally-based hops whenever they can.

That amounts to 20 per cent of their total hop consumption per year as Ontario and Quebec just aren’t as great a hop-growing zone compared to Oregon, Washington and British Columbia.

For the more botanical beers they bring out seasonally, they source herbs — including bog myrtle for their Bog Water winter beer — through a local forager. Unfortunately he wasn’t certified to be organic, so Beau’s helped him get the needed organic credentials.

All in all, as you can see, that’s a lot of work just to run a brewery — and that doesn’t include the actual production, sales, distribution, marketing and whatnot!

Why did Beau’s go organic in the first place? Jen says it was just the right thing to do … and that it makes a tastier beer.

So, on to the beer.

Beau’s gets a lot of rave reviews by friends who have visited Ottawa — it is essentially “the” Ottawa beer, just like Half Pints is “the” Winnipeg beer and Steam Whistle/Mill Street are “the” Toronto beers.

Lug Tread Lagered Ale is the first Beau’s beer to make it to Manitoba. It is described as a beer with light ale notes complemented by lager-like crispness, with notes of subtle fruit, graham cracker malt and fresh-cut hay.

The first time I ever had Lug Tread was three years ago when one of my buddies from Ottawa raved about it and brought me a bottle for our beercation in Quebec City. My initial thought was it tasted like Half Pints St. James Pale Ale, which is a German-style Kölsch — which I just recently discovered is the exact same style as Lug Tread.

Pouring the beer, it comes out as a light straw-yellow ale with a good amount of carbonation but minimal foam on top — just a light amount of bubbly white film.

The aroma is a “bonfire on the Prairies” beer smell — notes of grainy barley that gives it a bit of a grain bin scent, plus a hint of lemon zest, a sweet graham cracker maltiness, with a hint of toastiness in the malt, and light grassy hops.

For the most part the aroma

is comparable to my go-to summertime bonfire beers, Half Pints St. James Pale Ale and Labatt 50 (don’t judge me!). 

The flavour starts out malt forward as it’s a sweet lagered ale that gives off the flavours of graham crackers again as well as a hint of honey, crusty french bread, a light floral hoppiness that’s similar to fresh-cut grass and a moderate amount of lemon zest that’s perfect for this incredibly hot and humid summer we’ve been having.

“Lagerized ales” aren’t generally a style I review here, but once in a while, I have to review something that I think most of you will like. Many of you have let me know you simply aren’t fans of hoppy, bitter IPAs or rich, roasty chocolate stouts.

Lug Tread is a bit sweeter than Manitoba’s top-selling beers, Bud and Bud Light, but instead of that corn water taste, you get the taste of organic barley. Compared to St. James Pale Ale, this brew is a tad sweeter in the malt category.

Lug Tread is very smooth — and frankly, it’s a bit too easy for me to drink. The upside is that it is incredibly affordable at $4.74 per 600 ml bottle.

I’m happy to see Brasserie Beau’s All Natural Brewing in Manitoba because now some of my friends can quiet down and buy the beer instead of reminiscing about drinking it at Byward Market in Ottawa.

Also, Beau’s has collaborated with B.C.’s Tree Brewing to create a leap year-inspired smoked bock called “Leap Beer”, which can be purchased at local Liquor Marts while supplies last.

You can find Lug Tread at the Liquor Marts in Brandon (10th and Victoria, Corral Centre) as well as in Dauphin — here’s hoping more Liquor Marts pick it up in the near future.

It packs 5.2 per cent ABV.