Celebrating BC’s best in craft beer

2020 is almost here (crazy, I know). Before this decade is wrapped, I want to look back at an event that’s circled on BC beer fans’ calendars each year; the BC Beer Awards.

The BC Beer Awards is a favourite event among craft beer fans and industry folk, and for good reason. It’s an awesome time. While the practice of judging beer is sometimes discussed with disdain, it’s difficult to frown at an event that works so hard to celebrate the BC craft beer scene as whole; looking at where the industry started and how far it’s come.

This year was the tenth installment of the BC Beer Awards which only amplified the significance of the evening and the celebration that took place. And with a special anniversary comes special glassware—by far the best I've seen from a beer fest-style event.

Following the theme of their tenth anniversary tagline “Aged 10 Years”, the BCBAs tasked breweries pouring at the awards with making a barrel-aged beer. For fans like me, this was music to my ears, or just amazing beer to my taste buds.

The official BC Beer Awards beer was the ‘Honour Roll’ brut IPA collaboration from BCBA, Brewhall (2018 people’s choice winner), Sooke Brewing Company (2018 rookie of the year), and 33 Acres Brewing Company (2018 brewery of the year).

Honour Roll brut IPA at 2019 BC Beer Awards

I was fortunate to receive a media pass for the awards this year. One of the perks was a guided tasting courtesy of Paul Pyne from DrinkSmarter.ca. He led us to a few different brewery booths to get a sneak peek of what they were pouring that evening. The first stop was at KPU Brewing’s booth to sample their 50/50 hefeweizen, which was awarded third place in the German wheat beer category later in the evening. More to come from KPU in a bit.

We also stopped by Steamworks Brewing to sample their second collaboration beer with Blasted Church Vineyards—a barrel aged brett saison with pinot blanc grape must. It was a delicious beer with the grape must coming through nicely on the finish. Both of their collaborations with Blasted Church have been winners, so hopefully another one is in the works.

Steamworks Brewing collaboration beer with Blasted Church Vineyards

Next we headed over to the (relatively) new kids on the block, House of Funk, to try their Debauchery barrel aged stout. It was dark, rich, boozy perfection, and without a doubt one of the best beers of the night. House of Funk just recently released bottles of Debauchery for sale in their tasting room, so it’s a perfect time to pick a few up for the holidays.

House of Funk Brewing Debauchery barrel aged imperial stout

Next up was the awards portion of the evening. The main event. I could feel the excitement in the air—or maybe that was just the crowd’s collective buzz. Regardless, this is the time for BC breweries to get some much deserved recognition for all of their hard work.

Malcolm aka Seatoskybeerguy busy filming the BC Beer Awards ceremony

Kwantlen Polytechnic University (KPU) Brewing wins Brewery of the Year!

KPU Brewing team with BC Beer Awards trophies

KPU is the starting place for many brewers working in the BC craft beer industry today. Not only are they an an award-winning brew school, they also offer a rotating lineup of student-made beer on Fridays as their Brew Lab. This top honour is without a doubt another strong recruiting tool for their program. In addition to being dubbed BC’s top brewery in 2019, KPU Brewing took home four beer-specific awards (one gold, two silver, one bronze). Program instructor, Nancy More, was also awarded with a Legend Award for her contribution to the industry. Congrats KPU!

A pilsner wins Best in Show

The ‘Fug Life’ is real. The team from Fuggles & Warlocks Craftworks took home this year’s top beer award for their Pixel Pils. Was this unexpected? Yes. Is this a sign that the BC beer scene has come full circle? Maybe! You might be asking yourself, “Shouldn’t a double dry-hopped hopped hazy milkshake IPA have won?!” Truth be told, high quality lagers and pilsners take longer to make than many other beer styles. They’re also easy to get wrong. With such a clean, minimal flavour profile it’s hard to hide any mistakes. Over the last year or so an increasing amount of breweries are making a pilsner or lager part of their core lineup. Many are even brewing limited releases of this style. When a local brewery produces a delicious, crushable pilsner it’s a not a sign that they’re boring or uninventive. Fuggles & Warlock are anything but that. It’s proof that they are experts at their craft.

Dageraad Sweeps the Strong Belgian Ale category

Is this really a surprise? Dageraad has set the gold standard in Canada for Belgian-style beers, and are consistently knocking it out of the park with their unique recipes. This year’s awards landed them bronze for their Blonde, silver for Rosetta, and gold for 10 Degree. They’re basically in a league of their own in this category.

Dageraad Brewing displays BC Beer Awards trophies

The Dageraad team also won gold and bronze in the Saison category (almost had the double sweep!) and gold in the Belgian ale category for their flagship beer, Burnabarian. If you haven’t visited their tasting room at the base of Burnaby Mountain, you’re missing out.

If you thought Dageraad’s beer was the only thing about the brewery worth celebrating, guess again. They also took home two design awards thanks to their eye-pleasing work with Quebec-based design agency, Fivethousand Fingers. Their Norweigen farmhouse session ale collab beer with 2 Crows Brewing, Murder City, won best can label design and their Antwerpen Abbey Style Tripel won best bottle label design.

Insane number of Hazy IPA and Specialty IPA entries

This year’s BC Beer Awards saw 91 entries in both the hazy IPA and specialty IPA categories. That’s a lot of IPAs. It’s cool to see that breweries are continuing to push the boundaries of the IPA style. Hazy, milkshake, session, sour, wild, you name it.

Top Honours for the hazy IPA category went to 33 Brewing Experiment for their ‘Exp.003.Mkvi–Fluffy Cloud IPA’. Beer fans have been raving about this one via social media, so it was no surprise that 33 Acres’ younger sibling took the win here. On the wilder side of things, Yellow Dog brought a gold medal back to Brewers Row with their Ferocious Wild IPA.

A FEW MORE QUICK HIGHLIGHTS

Four Winds Brewing Cherryoperis at 2019 BC Beer Awards

Four Winds Brewing took home the Brewers Challenge Award for their Cherryoperis brett saison with sour cherries. This beer is complex, funky, and tart. It was one of my first pours after the awards portion of the evening concluded, and I wish I’d gone back for seconds. If you’d like to try it yourself, Four Winds just released bottles of the 2019/2020 vintage in their tasting room. It’s definitely worth picking one up one for now and one to cellar for future enjoyment.
Best Packaging Design went to Vancouver Island Brewing for their Pod Pack. You’d think this would be a really hard category to judge given the amount of creativity we’ve seen in beer packaging as of late, but the Pod Pack raised the bar. If you haven’t checked out our review of VIB’s special release, read it here.
île Sauvage won Rookie of the Year in what was surely a close race with House of Funk Brewing. The young sour-beer-focused brewery in Victoria has created a lot of buzz this year, and rightly so. I visited them in November and was quite impressed by their diverse lineup of sours, and laid back vibe of their tasting room. Keep up the great work Ile Sauvage!

The full list of 2019 award winners is here. A huge thanks to the BC Beer Awards team for providing me with a complimentary media pass. This was another amazing year for craft beer in BC and I can’t wait to see what breweries are cooking up for 2020.

Connect with Vanpours

Get in touch! Are you a local brewery? Craft beer enthusiast? Event planner? Media savvy blog guru? Give us a shout, we’d love to hear from you. Shoot us a message on our contact page!