Sup Western Canada?

About to go all the way west of my native country for the first time. Arriving in Vancouver on Saturday, staying for 3 days then gradually driving to Calgary over the next two weeks, stopping for a lot of rock climbing on the way. Will definitely be looking at the places section but what are the places with the best beer (not necessarily interested in a pub with 16 different swills on tap, 4 varieties of tasty IPA in cans for takeaway will work fine). What are the up and coming things you’ve heard about but haven’t had a chance to visit yet? Still building our itinerary so quite flexible, could be available to share a pint if you’re up for it!

Cheers and thanks for the tips!

Hi Julien,
as you may have noticed, almost nobody from the area uses the forum anymore…

Best IPA/IIPA producers (you can trust almost everything from these guys):

  • Superflux: they client brew, so you can find 1 or 2 of their beers in the best bars, but there’s no taproom;
  • Backcountry: they are out of town, chances are you may drive through Squamish, then you have to stop there;
  • Boombox: they contract brew at Parallel 49, so a couple of beers may be on tap there, and one or 2 available in cans to go;
  • Beere: they are in North Vancouver, easy to reach with the seabus, but a few beers are also on tap around town, and 2-3 of their cans are available;
  • Twin Sails: a short train ride to the East (or 30 minutes drive from downtown Vancouver); they changed brewer 3 months ago and they have been less impressive, they started brewing more beers with shit in it (rather than straight pure beers); still worth trying out.

Fuggles & Warlock can brew some good IPA, but they belong to the school that still adds shit to beer believing that that’s creativity; Four Winds have fallen down a lot, they mostly brew lame saisons and fruit sours, but still their Vexillum when in season is the best West Coast IIPA of BC; Yellow Dog brew good beers, but their selection is usually very limited, still it’s a fun stop if you are also visiting Twin Sails nextdoor…

Decent mentions: Brassneck, 33 Acres, Powell, Parallel 49 (30-40 beers on tap, mainly theirs), Luppolo.

Breweries where you shouldn’t waste time: Main Street, Red Truck, Brewhall, Electric Bicycle, Big Rock Urban, Faculty, R&B, Granville Island, Yaletown, Callister, Andina, Doan’s, Storm, Bomber, Off the Rail, East Van, Strange Fellows; Parkside, Moody Ales

Best beer bars: Alibi Room (nice atmosphere, large taplist, very expensive); Darby’s Gastown (moderate taplist, but they often have some highlight or tap takeover); St. Augustine’s (chaotic sportbar, but they have the longest taplist in town).

Almost every brewery and main bar has a comprehensive taplist online, let me know if you don’t find them (for example, Parallel 49 calls “taproom” the growler station, and “street kitchen” the taproom, fuck, but the info is there).

STORES: Legacy has the best “single cans” selection in town; Denman is quite good too in that sense, probably on par with The Gull, in North Vancouver; High Point has the better prices but very few single cans.
Avoid these; no matter the selection, they are vampires: Brewery Creek, Firefly, Viti’s.

Classic hoppy beers just released this week: Persephone Amarillo Pilsner; Driftwood Raised by Wolves.

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Message me on the old system;
bring me some IPA, IIPA, Imperial Stout and I will have something in exchange, including Superflux Superfluosness that is no longer available (released in June, still very fresh).

flagging this to reply later.

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Wow, mega thanks Alex for this list! Unfortunately I won’t have any room for beer this trip (climbing+camping gear sucks to fly with). I’ll work on my itinerary off of this!

I have fewer suggestions than I thought :wink: What route are you taking from Vancouver to Calgary? We had a nice dinner at Truffle Pigs in Field, BC. Limited beer selection but a couple of decent mainstream to mid level craft options. Yoho NP was gorgeous, so were most of the other parks. :slight_smile: If you are buying groceries try and do it in a bigger town - groceries in Lake Louise for example were super pricey. Several decent spots in Calgary (see reviews on RB for more info).

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Let me know about your plans; this weekend and next week we have a lot of personal stuff going on, but it would be a pity not to meet for a beer

By the way, if you are “stocking up” for the camping, Brassneck can fill 473ml cans and 946ml crowlers with everything they have on tap; cans are on the expensive side when comparing to other taprooms (in general 5.75$), maybe the double size crowler is more convenient; they have a good hazy IPA now, and other stuff.

@fiulijn having trouble getting to the old mail system from mobile. As you can see we hit port moody tonight, we will be in town tomorrow and Monday as well, let me know if there is a time and place we can meet up for a beer!

We are in whistler now. Between the 2 days, tonight quite late may be the only option

You can also try to send a personal msg with this new system, I usually don’t check but today I’ll make an exception :wink: