“Do I ever buy beer based on the label? Oh yeah I do,” says Ron Bishop, beer merchant at Premier Wine and Spirits. Shelf after shelf, we are given overwhelming choices. Want a simple stout? There are 15 that range from a mass-produced import to a secret recipe from the nearby craft brewery. When it […]
Beer Guide
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Brew looks like a lady
“For most of recorded human history, women have been responsible for supplying the world’s beer.” That’s the Oxford Companion to Beer talking, so you know it’s legit. Known as brewsters, female brewers of the English Anglo-Saxon period often brewed beer between baking bread and servicing their husbands, while women who brewed in commercial breweries were […]
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Beginners’ drunk
I have a confession to make: I, Simon Thibault, a 37-year-old maritimer, did not drink beer until last year. Ever since I was legally old enough to buy the stuff, I always passed by it in the liquor store. I didn’t get the appeal of drinking something that tasted bitter, yeasty and questionably palatable. But […]
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Mommy beerest
I used to love beer, like really love beer. Then 14 months ago something devastating happened to my relationship with this most coveted of beverages: I got pregnant. After nine months of abstaining from drinking, I was excited to have a taste of my precious Garrison but something had changed, I had decided to exclusively […]
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Stillwell’s raising the bar
If someone had told me this time last year that a beer bar would open where I’d want to spend nearly every waking moment, I would have cry-laughed into my tiny bottle of Duchesse De Bourgogne, daydreaming of a place where Lambics and Saisons, smoked porters and cask ales all lived in perfect harmony. Last […]
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Homebrew’s where the heart is
“It can be impossible to drink a bourbon barrel-aged Russian Imperial Stout in Nova Scotia unless you brew it yourself, and that’s the crowd I am firmly planted in,” says Chris MacDonald of the Brewnosers Homebrew and Beer Appreciation Club. He, like many of the group’s 200 active members, has been preparing over the past […]
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It’s the firkin weekend
Ever since infamous Halifax brewmaster Greg Nash (of Hart and Thistle) took over brewing duties the Rockbottom Brewpub, things have been hoppin’. Each Saturday, the experimental brewer taps a firkin (a small cask, about 41 litres) at noon. It can last as long as early evening, or run out as quickly as 3pm. The most […]
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Try a little temperance
It’s the oft-touted folktale of boastful pub crawlers that Halifax has the most bars per capita of any city in the history of the universe. True or not, it certainly isn’t hard to find a pint in the downtown. These streets weren’t always so sudsy, though. Prohibition, the 1920s American movement designed to supply a […]
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Cider report
Lately, hard cider is kind of a big deal in the beverage world. But don’t call it a comeback. As long as there’ve been apples blossoming in the Annapolis Valley— so for, you know, hundreds of years—Nova Scotians have been making and drinking the sweet stuff. Now we’re simply catching on to the UK way […]
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Battle of the Belg
It is difficult to tell whether the immense popularity of Halifax’s newest craft brewery, Bridge Brewing Company, is due simply to its newness, or to the fact that it specializes in Belgian-style beer. But one is tempted to conclude that the enigmatic nature of Belgian ale is the carrot. Since opening in January, Bridge has […]
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Brewery tours de force
There are five large-scale breweries operating in Halifax—one brewery for every 77,000 people—producing brews ranging from mass-market lager to niche-market barley wine. There is something for everyone. Three local breweries welcome the public inside for tasting’s and, in two cases, education about brewing. Here’s all you need to know to choose the right tour for […]
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The friendliest holiday
Tom Dobbyne just bought himself a green bowler hat. Now he’s on the hunt for a green suit to match. Actually, any old suit will do. He says he can “go to Value Village, and just spray paint a suit green.” After all, if you are going to start St. Patrick’s Day with breakfast and […]
