Alright folks, so I picked up the Brews Brothers 12 beer collaboration pack.  12 beers from 12 breweries.  I’m going to do my best to try and write up a review on all of them.  I can’t promise it will be daily, my day job is keeping me nice and busy these days, but I will do my darnedest.

So, what is this Brews Brothers Collaboration pack anyway? Well, Parallel 49 Brewing out of Vancouver has brought together 12 BC breweries to create a boxed set of 12 blues inspired collaborative beers. Bringing together 12 breweries from BC’s booming craft beer industry was likely a hard challenge. Deciding who to collaborate with and what beers each would make.  The breweries participating in this Blues themed mixer pack are:  Townsite, Steel & Oak, Firehall, Bomber, Persephone, Storm, Rossland, Dageraad, Moon Under Water, Brassneck, Yellow Dog and Powell Street

Parallel 49 is a brewery that spawned out of three friends love for good beer.  Mike, Nick and Anthony all grew up about 10 minutes away from where the brewery now stands. Having been avid home brewers and lovers of good craft beer, these three friends quit their day jobs in 2008 and opened a restaurant which quickly became known as a mecca for good craft beer in Vancouver. Wanting to put their money where their mouth was and stop talking and start brewing, they partnered with Graham With, a respected Home Brewer, and Michael Tod, a friend who had the business savvy and experience in the Vancouver craft beer industry, the Parallel 49 brewing team was born.

This particular collaboration is done in conjunction with Bomber Brewing.  This small mico-brewery opened in February of 2014 after three good friends put their love of hockey and beer into practice forming a committed crew together to make good beer.  Don Farion, an award winning home brewer, brought not only that talent but 20 years in the hospitality industry together with Cam Andrews’ 20 years of design and marketing experience to create a brand that was unique and stood out from the boom of the craft breweries opening in Vancouver.  The head brewer Blair Calibaba brings experience working with Ambleside Brewing as well as 11 years of experience running a brewery to the table as well as his knack to create accessible and approachable beers.

Together these two breweries have created Little Red Rooster, a Red India Session Ale.  Session ales are essentially any beer that contains no higher than 5% ABV and features a balance between the hop and malt characteristics and, typically, has a clean finish.  According to Beer Advocate the term session likely referred to one of two allowable drinking periods in England that were imposed on shell production workers during World War 1.  The fact that they were highly drinkable allowed for these workers to consume multiples during their allotted time period.  Today, sessions used to refer to beers that meet the criteria but could come from a variety of different styles.

This one, for example, is an American IPA.  Different from a standard IPA and more flavourful than a British IPA it ranges in colour from pale golden to reddish amber.  The hops can tend to have a big herbal flavor or citric notes with a good malty backbone.  This one, as a red session, is the amber in colour and brings some nice herbal and citrus notes in the hop with a smooth balanced malt at the end which eliminates any lingering bitterness.

Onto the review!

Rating: 81/100

Appearance:  Cloudy reddish amber color with a 1” head that dissipates quickly leaving a lingering foam.
Smell: Citrus and some herbal smell which I can’t distinguish but is almost like spruce or pine.
Taste: Good citrus on the front with a refreshing bitterness that doesn’t linger long. Fading at the finish into the malty sweetness with only a slight lingering taste of tannins making for a dry finish.
Mouth feel: Light carbonation, smooth drink, dry finish.
Overall: Very nice.  Good balance of the hops and malt.  More hops would likely showcase the style of beer more but given the accessibility and approachability that bomber goes for that wouldn’t be in their style of brewing. The lower alcohol content is offset by the good hop/malt balance making for decent, if not delicious beer.
Do I like it: I do like it.  It was a good beer to start with and I think that if this is a sign of things to come that this will be a very good collaboration pack.  To be fair, this isn’t anything to write home about.  Falling within my Good range, it was good and I’d certainly be happy drinking it again.

Thanks for continuing to follow along with my blog.  I’ve got an interview with Matt Wolff at Fort Garry scheduled so looking forward to getting that up in the next couple of weeks!  Keep checking back, I’ll be trying to post more about the Brews Brothers mixer pack.