Lager: A part of our heritage?
Propeller Brewing Company is asking breweries and home brewers across the country to participate in the Great Canadian Lager Challenge—Propeller’s way of celebrating Canada 150.
“Up until five years ago, there still wasn’t much community in the craft beer world,” says Aaron Emery, the company’s director of marketing. “If there is anything today, there is community.”
Brewers in different regions across the country are “actually starting to to talk to each other.” The idea, Emery explains, is to actually do something with that community.
“There’s such a—in some ways, needless—divide between the mainstream beer world and the craft beer world,” says Emery, adding that there’s a time and place for different flavours. The light and crisp beers might be what folks knock back at a baseball game or sip on the beach, for instance.
“Specifically, Canada Day at noon probably isn’t the time and place for the jalapeño coriander stout.”
Between now and July 1, brewers are invited to brew a lager and “make it the most ridiculously Canadian lager that you can.”
“I’d love to see a Nova Scotian brewery do sea salt and seaweed and whatever,” says Emery, “or someone in Alberta to do a Rocky Mountain snowmelt.”
Those who want to enter the competition will then send their beer to Halifax for Propeller’s 20th anniversary party, where it will be put before a panel of judges. Beer won’t necessarily be assessed by how “good” it tastes, but the more creative the approach, the better.
“It’s just about having fun. Telling a story.”
