Beer Cache columnists Michael Kulachkosky & Rachel Finn are avid home brewers who delight in social, trivial and all other non-presumptuous aspects of beer enjoyment.
With not one, but two new editors now in harness at What’s Up Yukon, our loyal readers may be wondering what that means and how their magazine might be changing. To answer those questions, here’s part of a cyber-chat between Meg Walker in Dawson City and Ken Bolton in Whitehorse. It has been edited, of …
Most people know that beer is made from water, barley, hops and yeast. The big four. If you were to glance around the shelves of the local liquor store, you might of course notice that some styles, such as Hefeweizens, are brewed with a fifth ingredient, wheat. But that’s it, right? Just those five? Luckily, …
Hefeweizens are fantastic for a number of reasons, but we would like to start off with what Rachel thinks is the most important: they are riddled with scandal and intrigue. That’s right folks. Remember when we talked about the Bavarian Purity Law maintaining that beer must be made with only hops, barley and water? Well, …
Yeast Wheat (But way cooler if you call it Hefeweizen) Read More »
Want to proudly face your beer bottle label forward at parties this summer? Purchasing an organic beer is one way to do just that. When it comes to the environmental impact of drinking beer, the three biggies are transportation of product and ingredients, water consumption and the production of ingredients. We will hit up the …
Nobody likes a beer snob. Even beer snobs don’t like beer snobs. So, when someone wrinkles their nose at a Bud Light and then reaches for a Chimay Rouge, it’s hard not to get your back up as they start talking about yeast strains and overtones of cinnamon and ripe apricot. To clarify immediately and …
Last weekend, Beer Cache had the amazing opportunity to spend the better part of a day with Trevor Clifford, head brewer at Skagway Brewing Co., Skagway, Alaska. Spring-boarding from an established ribbon-winning homebrewer to the head brewer at a brew pub takes some ingenuity. Clifford has made the most of an incredibly small space and …
Full disclosure: we really wanted to compare two smoked porters for this article, but quite frankly there is so much to say about our first contestant that we don’t have time to talk about what’s behind Door No. 2. Don’t get us wrong, we drank them both, but only one made the word limit. Before …
One of the swell new editors of WUY dropped us an email on the weekend inquiring about the status of our column, and casually mentioned that they were sipping on a Phillips Longboat Chocolate Porter at the time of writing. You know when someone mentions bacon, and all you can think about is … well, …
Now that we have your attention . . . . Let’s pretend that you, our readers, wrote us letters. We imagine one of them would go like this: Dear Beer Cache, I’ve been reading your article for months now, and gee, it’s just wonderful! I never miss an article. What a great addition you are …
”O’ zapft is!” cries the mayor of Munich. Translation: It’s tapped! What is tapped, where it’s tapped, and why it’s tapped is this week’s story. So dig out your lederhosen, dust off that beer stein and ready your arteries for a few links of bratwurst: it’s Oktoberfest! So … what the heck is Oktoberfest, anyway? …
Sausage. Bier. Men in Knee-High Socks. It’s Oktoberfest! Read More »
It’s the season to eat, drink and be merry with friends and love ones. So what if we told you that you could kill two birds with one stone (the ‘eating and drinking’ bit), which would just leave you with the ‘being merry’ part? As our Christmas pressie to you, we have gift-wrapped a wonderful …
This festive season, why not blow the minds of your nearest and dearest by pairing beer – not wine – with your holiday shrimp rings and Christmas desserts? That’s right. The stigma is gone. In fact, there is so much awesome literature out there on pairing beer with food that we have done some initial …
When you really, really like beer, living in a city with its very own microbrewery is a daily kind of ‘pinch me’ phenomena. So when your local brews (yet another) award winning beer … yeah. It boggles the mind. Like Gold, it is hard not to have had a pint of Yukon Red if you …
Who isn’t familiar with the concept of the Lawnmower Beer? This is just the one beer, a cool and refreshing drink, the perfect reward for a salty upper lip and grass-stained shoes. The main purpose of this particular beer is to be thirst quenching, and as Stephen Beaumont from the Beer Connoisseur points out, the …
In light of the 18th Annual Great Alaska Craft Beer and Homebrew Festival, which took place in Haines, Alaska, this past weekend, we thought that we would dedicate this article to defining what exactly a makes a craft beer unique. At its most basic definition, craft beer is an American term defining a style of …
Canoeing to the DCMF? You are probably already concerned about the rattling of beer bottles in your canoe (to be safely consumed, of course, by your campfire and not while out on the water). We hear your pain. If drinking from a can doesn’t float your boat (i.e., lack of a good inhale upon drinking …
As you may have noticed already, Whitehorse has some new beer in town. Our friendly neighbours at Yukon Liquor Corp have sourced four offerings from Russell Brewing Company: Blood Alley Bitter, Black Death Porter, Main Street Pilsner, and Wee Angry Scotch Ale. Three of these (all but the Main Street Pils) are part of the …
Attention: New beer in town. OK, so it has been around for a few weeks, but if you haven’t yet tried Delirium Tremens on tap at Tippler’s, we suggest you hightail it over there for a liquid lunch. This fantastic Belgian strong pale ale is brewed by Belgium’s Huyghe Brewery in Melle, East Flanders. Since …
If you read Dennis Zimmermann’s article last week on ice fishing and combined it with the weather in Whitehorse this weekend, you may well have grabbed your auger and hightailed it down to Pumphouse. Or maybe, like us, you still have a freezer full of fish from last summer’s amazing season and got inspired to …
Ever thought about U-brewing? It’s just another brick in the wall of beer enjoyment, and other than the method they use for actually producing the beer (full/partial mash or beer kit), U-Brews everywhere are pretty much the same. The Whitehorse outlet, U-Brew Yukon, guarantees 44 bottles (500ml) per batch. You can purchase plastic bottles and caps …
In case your windows are too iced up to tell, it’s winter outside. For brewers, nothing really says winter like a barleywine: it’s strong, intensely flavoured, and pairs beautifully with a wood fire, an old pair of slippers and a good book. Lord of the Rings trilogy, anyone? (She said: The Girl with the Dragon …
Have a lovely chat with Paul Wheeler of Haines Brewing Company about the origins of the Haines Beer Fest, and you will quickly understand Alaskans’ love of craft beer. The Annual Great Alaskan Craft Beer and Homebrew Festival got its start when a liquor store manager and Paul, a homebrewer at the time, got to …
When I grow up I want to be a cicerone. Sigh. The above statement is true. A cicerone is the sommelier of the beer world. A lucky soul who gets to order beer for fine restaurants, recommend parings to chefs, write lengthy articles for beer connoisseur magazines and work in specialty beer stores giving wonderful …
It’s official: Skagwegians know how to have a good time. We just got back from the second annual Skagway Craft Brew Festival, and it was awesome. First of all, a huge thank you to everyone who made the festival a hit: Trisha Sims at Skagway Development Corporation, White Pass & Yukon Route Railroad, the good folk …
Delight your friends and family with a couple of beer-themed tidbits this week, or just look incredibly smart while getting your growler filled. The world’s oldest recipe? Yeah, it’s for beer. Despite popular opinion, Guinness in not a meal in a glass: It is one of the lowest calorie non-light beers, coming in at 125 …
If you’re 21 years of age and like to kick back in the company of more than 200 beer enthusiasts while tasting a wide variety of exceptionally crafted homebrew, we may have plans for you on April 23. Oh, and did we mention amazing food and live music? That’s right folks: it’s the second annual …
In these dying days of summer, we often turn away from light and refreshing beers and choose to drink something with a bit more oomph. With fall in full swing, there are few more oomph-y beers available from the Whitehorse liquor store than Unibroue’s Maudite. The Name, the Legend, the Label The word maudite is …
We here at Beer Cache have just returned from a three-week brewery tour of the great craft brew state of Alaska. We were lucky enough to stroll around bright tanks, peak into mash tuns, hang out in chilled serving fridges and pull nails from barrels to sample back-room casked ales with the generous owners and …
So this week, Beer Cache is brewing a Marzen. Märzenbier is the beer style that is served at Oktoberfest in Germany. It’s usually begun in March (hence the name) and cold fermented – lagered – all summer, traditionally in ice-packed caves. But it’s not just the chilly temperatures and lengthier fermentation that makes your lager …
For most folk, it’ll be a crisp lager after a hot summer paddle and a full-bodied ale after a ski. So what if someone told you that you could get both … wait for it … in the SAME BOTTLE. Yeah, we know! Proudly wearing the “New Item” badge at Whitehorse Liquor Store, the beer …
