10 Reasons Victoria is a Kick-Ass Beer Town: #6 Phillips Brewing

Note: This is the start of a new series on YADBB, listing the best beery things about the place I live. It's not in any order, which is why I'm starting at #6 with Phillips. Doing things out of order like this virtually ensures that I'm going to get muddled and end up with two #3 spots. So be it.

Today is the third week since I started this blog, and we're sitting at 1500 pageviews. Not bad! Pass the link around, as always. I'm also happy to announce that a version of these meandering and beer-soaked writings will soon be appearing in the North Shore News periodically, right up until they start getting too many letters of complaint. Which shouldn't take too long.

But enough self-congratulatory fiddle-faddle, let's talk beer.


Possibly the greatest thing that happened as a result of my wife Katie and I moving from Vancouver to Victoria is that we increased our proximity to Phillips brewing. Not that we couldn't find their excellent beers in the big Smoke; in fact, I fondly remember the days when you could still get Phoenix Lager in stubbies and the cases were stamped "Imported From Esquimalt".

But now, the Phillips brewery is a scant 10 minutes away, and we can pop in and have a 2L growler filled with fresh-drawn, draft-style beer for all of ten bucks. Bargain.

So, thinking to celebrate the steady flow of traffic to YADBB (what, are you people all brain-damaged or something? Oh, that's right, you're probably all just drunk) I selected and rinsed a likely pair out of our growler collection, chucked 'em in the Soob and booted it.

Empty growlers. Sad panda. Yes, that is a growler cozy. What, you don't have one? *tsk*

Matt Phillips is basically the Kevin Smith of brewing. Both couldn't get financing to follow their dreams, so both maxed-out credit cards and cut corners to create masterworks. Matt slept in his brewery and made deliveries in an old Subaru, and to be honest I don't see what all the fuss is about because I'd be perfectly happy to sleep in a brewery and I drive an old Subaru now, and it's not in any pursuit of some damn dream.

Anyway, thus was born Clerks and the original Phillips beer lineup including Phoenix and some other ones which I'm too lazy to look up right now. However, then Kevin Smith went on to make Jersey Girl, and up until Phillips releases a Hobo-Urine seasonal, I'm going to say their careers have diverged somewhat.

Roll into the parking lot at the Government Street brewery, and your nostrils are immediately tantalized by the smell of the mash tuns. It's twice as good as the smell of baking bread, and quite frankly, I'm not sure why real-estate agents don't set up homebrew equipment when they're having an open-house.

Step in the door and again you'll find something special. The front retail part of the brewery is set up as a kind of art studio, and functions from time to time as a space where you can rub elbows with artists and brewers and beery guys like me. They're launching some new beers tomorrow, don't miss it.

You'll also notice a coupla taps and a chalkboard showing what's growling today. Talk to Bill, a guy who's as nice as he is hirsute (which is a lot, fyi), and he'll be happy to fill yer bucket with some of Victoria's finest suds.



I picked myself out a Hop-Circle and a coffee stout for those late night deadlines, and bumped into Deebs, the brewer. He was absconding with an interesting-looking 12-pack, and when I checked the fridge, I found even more booty.

Check out this haul:
What noise? Oh, that's just my liver, screaming. Quiet, you!

Any road, for a hop-head like me, this beery cornucopia was akin to checking your phone and unexpectedly getting naked texts from Jessica Alba. Or from Brett Farve, if you're into elderly micro-peen. Either way, score!

Here's the bombers, a triumvirate of Hoppy Tripel, Malty Imperial Red and Ginger Beer (the replacement for Gentleman Jim):
But what about the contents of that inscrutable cube? Not since the Borg has a square object been more filled with dangerous mystery....

What a lineup! It's the Sports Illustrated Swimsuit Edition for hops. We've got the ever-popular Hop-circle and Skookum, the fresh hop ale Grow-Hop (which Deeb says will be rotating with whatever is the current seasonal hop, so centennial right now) and the "guest" beer, a rye IPA called Krypton, which I'm currently drinking. It's as tasty as Lex Luthor is villainous (not the lame Gene Hackman version). My house now has more hops than a Texan rabbit sanctuary.

So let me just recap: local, fresh beer readily available and basically the same price as the corporation's swill; a strong community presence and sponsorship of local events; friendly, hairy staff; a dedication to brewing great beer; and last but not least, a plethora of seasonals, experimental beers and a general willingness to try new things. Plus, they like My Little Pony.

Phillips, we salute thee. Bottoms up!

Battle Royale No. 3: The Glass Jaw Joe Edition

Phillips Hop Circle IPA vs. Alexander Keith's IPA

Round One: Fight!

Last post, some folks thought I was being a little hard on poor ol' Alexander Keith's IPA. Let's be clear: the real Alexander Keith had a beard like a rhododendron bush and looks like he ate lightly boiled babies at breakfast. Comparing his Masonic magnificence to the current Labatt-run accountant-brewing is one way to highlight the insipidity of Keith's "IPA". I've got another.

But hang on: when I twittered about this upcoming battle, the responses from the beer-swilling cognoscenti were universal in their confusion. "Is that even a competition?" one asked. Another compared it to a "viscous (sic) lion taking on a timid mouse." Wasn't this B.R. going to be as one-sided as Mike Tyson fighting a man composed entirely of ears?

Oily felines notwithstanding, we're talking here about a huge, multi-nationally owned brand that sells thousands of hecta-liters of beer and has essentially limitless resources and funding, going up against a beer brewed by a guy who started in the business by maxing out his credit cards and making deliveries in a crap-can Subaru GL. You're damn right it's unfair.

Still, we've got to handicap David so that Goliath doesn't get the bejesus kicked out of him in the first round. As such, I'm tying one hand behind Hop Circle's back by drinking both beers right out of the bottle. I regard myself as against the winification of beer and deplore aping the oneophiles with their snorting and snuffling into their glasses like a pig after a truffle, but beer tastes better when you can smell it while you're tasting it.

I'm also going to attempt to remove Phillip's home court advantage by creating a sort of East Coast ambiance through the use of selected props. Having thought about it for a while, I planned on using a Sou'wester, a cod, a bottle of screech rum, and a Rita McNeil CD.

Unfortunately, by the time I got home today I didn't have the opportunity to get any of those things. Therefore, I reached in the freezer and pulled out a trout I caught myself (which is why it's so pathetically small), created a sou'wester by sticking yellow Post-Its to a baseball hat, and "found" an authentic Rita McNeil CD. For some bizarre reason, we had the Screech already.


All right, down the hatch!


Y'know, it's not terrible. There's an old joke that goes: "Nothing is better than Budweiser. Given the choice, I'd take nothing." That's not the case here. On first taste, the Keith's is almost like a real beer. Now the Hop Circle.

Oh. Oh wow. Okay, so what happened there in my commentary on the Keith's is that I had a problem with my brain being missing. Keith's is not beer. This is beer.

In comparison to the robust (resisted a temporary urge to say "out-of-this-world") flavour of the Hop Circle, Keith's IPA is an IPA the same way that Chinese air-to-air missile footage is real. Real IPAs are exploding with hops. Keith's has less hops than a squashed grasshopper. Less hops than a kangaroo with polio.

Less hops than a white basketball player.

Round Two: Fight?

What's the point?

Look at this man here:
This be-joweled chap is an East India Company Officer: the fat bastards that IPAs were originally brewed for. Does he look like he'd be satisfied with a watery yellow imitation? No, he Does Not. Try sending these guys Keith's IPA in the 1800s, and their reaction would make the slaughter of the Sepoy Mutiny look like high tea at the Empress.

On the other hand, if you Fedexed them a coupla six-packs of Hop Circle, I think we could all breathe easy. Just like the historical IPAs, Phillips has created something packing a far more intense experience than your everyday beer. If you think the six-packs are good, just try growling it sometime!



Result!

Anybody want a Keith's 5-and-a-half-pack?

Post-Battle Review

No surprises here, but Keith's IPA got hammered like a myopic carpenter's thumb. What a bloodbath: even with the extras it wasn't close.

Just so you know, I bought both sixers at Liquor Plus between Douglas and Blanshard: and the Hop Circle cost me all of fifty cents more. For my small investment, I got a real beer, and let me just say that the beauty of living in Canada, with all its back-asswards semi-repealed prohibition nonsense, is that you can buy a craft beer, brewed by people who are striving to produce the very best thing they can, and it's going to cost you pennies more than the heartless, soulless, greedy, conniving, cut-throat, incompetently-produced corporate swill.

Phillips Hop Circle IPA
Recommended if:
-you like a hoppy west-coast IPA (who doesn't?)
-you're going to see this movie
-you want something one step lighter than Red Racer's IPA

Not Recommended if:
-you've been probed
-you don't like hoppy beers
-you own a REAL sou'wester

Alexander Keith's IPA
Recommended if:
-there's a fire and you need to pour something on it
-that's pretty much it

Not recommended if:
-you own a working tastebud
-you understand that IPA doesn't mean International Police Association
-Zima is also available