Beer has come a long way in Canada. In pioneer days all beer was small production and artisan-made. Then big companies swallowed up the little brewers and industrial production ruled. Now, beer drinkers, especially those on Vancouver Island, have fully embraced a new age of microbreweries. Along with a new age of beer comes along a new age of pairing foods with beer.
I think when I moved to Vancouver Island nearly 10 years ago the trend was just getting underway and you could count the number of microbreweries on the fingers of two hands. But now there’s been an explosion, and part of it is due to some relaxed regulations allowing small production breweries to have restaurants attached to them, allowing the brewmasters to sample their wares to a bit of a captive audience, and this in turn has elevated the art of pairing food with beer.
Canoe Brewpub in Victoria put on a very well-attended beer feast last night that featured five courses of food, six if you count the bowl of onion and ale soup in between the duck confit and the braised short ribs. Each course was paired with one of five different beers crafted by brewmaster Daniel Murphy, who emphasized that there aren’t too many rights or wrongs when pairing beers with foods, but at Canoe they’re there to make you think about their suggestions and then get out there and try it for yourself. A prime example was our first course, a platter of cured meats from the Whole Beast Artisan Salumeria, house beer cheese, and Yarrow Meadows duck pate, paired with Canoe’s River Rock Bitter. The extra hoppiness in the bitter really helps to cut through the fat of the charcuterie, cheese and pate. I would probably find the beer too bitter on its own, but it goes very well with the platter.
Sturgeon
I asked Chef Aaron Lawrence to tell me how he goes about developing a special menu like this, and it’s all about reflecting the general values they’ve established for the brewpub. Simple, fresh flavours, local ingredients whenever possible. Lots of BC ingredients were on the menu last night, including Cache Creek beef shortribs, Little Qualicum Cheeseworks raclette cheese on an onion and ale soup, Yarrow Meadows duck confit, and Fraser River Sturgeon, which came on a chorizo-flavoured grits cake with some pickled fennel. This is a sustainably farmed fish that has a very mild flavour that Aaron didn’t want to overpower with a strong beer, so we had this very smooth Red Canoe Lager to go along with it. As Daniel Murphy says, there aren’t a lot of rules, but one is that you don’t have a strong beer overpower a mild food and vice versa.
The brewmaster and chef work together on the menu plan, and they both told me that they love working in the brewpub setting and love working together not only on the regular menu, but on special evenings like last night’s feast.
There are some other beer and food events coming up, but they are both SOLD OUT. Brewery and the Beast takes place this Sunday at Phillips Brewery, and the Tall Sails and Ales Tour by Maple Leaf Adventures…a five day sailing tour visiting BC microbreweries…is also sold out. Check that one out for next year.
I had a great time visiting some North Thompson area farms and ranches, a relatively new winery and even tasting salmon from a new First Nations fishing and processing operation. That was the ‘farm’ part of things, and then the ‘fork’ took place at a couple of restaurants at 
The first visit was to a ranch, the 
Part of the hard part of doing this is getting chefs used to using all of the animal, not just the prime cuts like steaks, and not just the less expensive products like ground beef. When it comes to people cooking at home, Ian says we’re less likely to buy quarters or a side of beef these days and we don’t know how to deal with meat from the freezer, even though buying a side of beef can be much more economical and much more interesting because there are all those different cuts to work with. They are doing some value-added products like jerky though, which we tasted at the ranch, and I had to pull myself away from the teriyaki, black pepper and sweet and spicy varieties…
The vegetable side of things came along with a visit to 
At Harper’s Trail I met vineyard manager John Dranchuk, who described the ups and downs he’s had managing the grapevines at what is being billed as BC’s most northern vineyard. But after four years the vines have managed to provide the raw material for a decent white blend, a very good rose and an excellent Riesling. The 2011 rose was a blend of 3 red varieties of grape grown at Harper’s Trail, including Merlot, but you won’t see the merlot in the blend next year, that was one of the varieties that just wasn’t cutting it on the 18 acres of vineyard, so it was pulled out and replaced with varietals like Gamay Noir, which are thriving.
The salmon is from a BC rarity, an inland commercial salmon fishery on Kamloops Lake, operated by a fisheries commission operating within the Shuswap Nation Tribal Council. Murray Ross, the director of the fisheries commission, explained part of the marketing effort is convincing people that salmon caught inland is still very tasty to eat, despite the traditional impression people have that salmon is of a lower quality once it makes it way that far from the ocean.
But if you saw how quickly a whole platter of smoked salmon disappeared into the mouths of the group I was traveling with you wouldn’t have any questions about the quality. Along with the smoked salmon you can also purchase 
