Central City Brewers & Distillers Wins 2019 Beer of the Year!
The 2019 Canadian Brewing Awards were announced at a gala ceremony in Toronto on Saturday, May 4, 2019, and the big winner from British Columbia was Central City Brewers & Distillers, which won three medals including a gold in the Experimental Beer category for its Red Racer After Hours Pale Ale, which was also named 2019 Beer of the Year for Canada. Central City, which can be found on the New West, Delta, Surrey & Richmond Ale Trail, was previously named Canada’s Brewery of the Year in 2012. The other two awards won by Central City were both bronze medals for its Red Racer Pils and Red Racer Ocean Playground Belgian Tripel.
The Red Racer After Hours Pale Ale is an unusual beer inspired by the classic Old-Fashioned whisky cocktail. The beer is a pale ale blended with Central City’s own Lohin McKinnon single malt whisky and house-made bitters as well as orange peels and cherries.
“Like an Old-Fashioned, expect strong notes of orange peel and orange zest, with a hint of malt sweetness, a kiss of whisky, and garnished with a cherry.”
In total, 36 different craft breweries from British Columbia won a total of 49 medals, representing nearly one-third of the 164 medals awarded — only Ontario won more (57) with Quebec coming in third with 25. This success follows on last year’s results when Dageraad Brewing was named brewery Brewery of the Year.
Gold medals were awarded to 15 beers from British Columbia, and several breweries won two medals, including:
- Strange Fellows Brewing (Vancouver): two Gold medals for Mistral Saison & Mélange à Trois
- Steel & Oak Brewing (New Westminster): Gold for Dark Lager & Silver for Simple Things Pilsner
- Four Winds Brewing (Delta): Gold for Nectarous Dry-Hopped Sour & Bronze for Featherweight IPA
- A-Frame Brewing (Squamish): 2 silver medals for Okanagan Lake Cream Ale & Cup Lake Lemon & Earl Grey Sour
- Russell Brewing (Surrey): 2 silver medals for Barrel Aged Rye Wheat Wine & Wee Angry Scotch Ale
- White Sails Brewing (Nanaimo): 2 silver medals for Bastion Blonde Ale & Snake Island CDA
There were two category sweeps by BC craft breweries:
Herb and Spice Beer
- Gold: Whistler Winter Dunkel – Whistler Brewing (Whistler)
- Silver: Stoked Winter Ale – Mt. Begbie Brewing (Revelstoke)
- Bronze: Coffee Lager – Coal Harbour Brewing (Vancouver)
Flavoured Stout/Porter
- Gold: Nutty Uncle Peanut Butter Stout – Dead Frog Brewery (Langley)
- Silver: Bean Me Up Espresso Milk Stout – Fuggles & Warlock Craftworks (Richmond)
- Bronze: Everything is Awesome – Backcountry Brewing (Squamish)
Another Gold medal winner was Fernie Brewing’s Campout™ West Coast Pale. Fernie can be found on the Kootenay Rockies East Ale Trail.
An important announcement was made during the Canadian Brewing Awards about the formation of a new national Canadian Craft Brewers Association, “representing over 700 craft breweries from every province and territory in Canada.” With a mandate to “promote and protect the interests of small and independent breweries across Canada”, the CCBA-AMBC will be the national voice of this important and growing sector of the Canadian economy. More details are available here.
The other big news in terms of BC craft beer is that next year’s awards will be held in Victoria:
Drum roll please…..2020 CBAC city was just announced at the CBAC. We are heading to Victoria BC! Check it out ! pic.twitter.com/dNAaGjp4NH
— CDN Brewing Awards (@CdnBrewAwards) May 5, 2019
For the full results, visit the website of the Canadian Brewing Awards.
