Well, for the first beer post here I took a terrible set of photos, drank the beer and threw the bottle out. Then I realized I had terrible beer photos. I'll have to do better than that in the future.
The upside: I found radiobread's Flickr stream, replete with a vast selection of the beers of BC in the photo-cooler. Sweet. Thanks, radiobread. (Hope you don't mind the exposure)
So I figured I would kick the beer front of this blog off with this offering from Fernie Brewing Company, out of Eastern BC. I figured the name of the beer properly celebrates the opening of the bike park at Whistler, recently opened up for a summer's worth of full-suspension, high speed meat-hucking.
I'm kind of fascinated by huckleberries (which don't actually do much hucking) since growing up in Texas, the only huckleberries I had ever really had any contact with were Huckleberry Hound and Johnny Ringo's huckleberry, Doc Holiday, in the movie Tombstone. So...not much. Coming to the Pacific Northwest a few years ago, I realized there were actual huckleberries hiding out in the forests. Since then, after taking a plants class a few years back and learning how to ID them, I've gotten pretty fond of snacking trailside on the tiny red berries of the Lower Mainland's native huckleberry (Vaccinium parvifolium).
En-ee-way, I dig huckleberries. So, when I spotted this particular beer at the beer store last week, I did a double take. Apt name: What the Huck. A huckleberry infused beer? I'm not normally inclined towards drinking fruity beers so I hesitated and then, because I caught myself hesitating, picked it up. What the huck.
Fernie Brewing Company handcrafts all their beers and only uses natural ingredients. Since the brewery is nestled in the Rockies' abundant watershed, I'm assuming they are using that well-advertised ingredient -- the ice-cold water of the Rockies -- too. Sounds like a good foundation for a beer.
True to its ale-ness, it is darker and, true to the label's advertising, with a hint of purple from the huckleberries -- and a nice crisp head to it. The huckleberry flavour is subtle, and adds a slight tartness to the finish. Being a wheat beer, it is pretty smooth with a tiny hint of spice, and while the huckleberry flavour builds over the course of the .5 L bottle, it never gets to the point of being overpowering or overfruity. Fernie sez it pairs well with pork, chicken or seafood dishes.
I hope I sound like I know what I'm talking about. What I'm really thinking is: This is a perfect beer to pair with sunny, summer late afternoons on the West Coast after some trail time, hiking or biking, with friends. Kinda like grown-up beer Kool-Aid, but, you know... really good.
Do I still sound like I know what I'm talking about?
Rating: Good beer, Fernie. 8 out of 9 cogs, eh. ********
