amartin wrote: ↑Sun Jul 16, 2017 9:24 pmFair point about Rare Bird, I've never been overly impressed with any of their offerings. That said, I don't know how successful they are, or if they plan on expanding, or if they have already, or what. I haven't been paying a lot of attention to a brewery I don't care for, but I was under the impression that they were owned by the same people who own the "distillery" (I don't think of aging pre-made rum as distilling anymore than fermenting pre-made wort as brewing) and coffee roasting place, so maybe the beer's success is part of a larger brand, or something like that. I'm pretty sure I had a point when I started this thought.
I disagree with the point about the local element being the entire trend behind craft beer. Craft beer has been a trend for 30 odd years now, and was more about quality than where it was made. I've never had any qualms about buying a good beer from Sierra Nevada or Anchor or somewhere else far away. That said, I think craft beer has been helped by the local food movement (despite being made mostly with ingredients grown elsewhere), although I think the quality of the products produced here stand on their own. As in, the local breweries are making some fantastic beer, but there are probably some people willing to try some of it because it's local.
There must be something to this. I've tried one of theirs and wasn't impressed. I'll stick my neck out and say the same for Uncle Leo's. Both were styles I'm very familiar with and both were fails on first impression - Rare Birds Red and Uncle Leo's IPA I believe. All other NS breweries I've visited or tried brew great beer - and I've sampled a few in the five years I've been back.
That being said, I recall visiting a brewhouse in the Truro Power Center around 2003 or 2004 and I think they brewed some kind of extract which they canned in Schooner and Oland colours. Unimpressive stuff. Even a Keurig can produce a decent coffee, according to coffee drinkers - which I'm not. Keurig beer machines hmmmm... Good beer will sell if it's good. That's why craft brewers like Toronto's Steam Whistle have expanded nationally and I believe now into the US market. There's a tremendous amount of great brewing going on here in NS. I will admit that I've only made a few forays into the NS urban beer scene and need to devote some time to Halifax's.