The regular meeting of the Rotary Club of Oak Bay was held at Spinnakers Brew Pub in Victoria.
A good time was had by all. At least that was the way it appeared by the volume and intensity of the various conversations that emanated from each of the 6 or so tables.
Visiting Harbourside Rotarian and District Secretary, Dennis Sutton, passed around samples of Christmas Fruit Cake that the Harbourside Club is selling as a fundraiser. They have both a dark, brandy-based cake and a light, rum-based cake for sale at $20 each. For more information contact Dennis by email at dsutton9@telus.net or by phone at 250-652-9271.
Another guest was Bryce Maag, a UVic Commerce student, who is with the UVic Rotaract Club. Bryce attended the meeting to find out about our Club projects and indicated that the Rotaract students would be more than happy to assist us in any of our fundraising projects.
Jo Bedford, Ruth Neroutsos and Betty O’Coffey were guests of their respective husbands, Mark, Phil and Don. Other guests included proposed club member Bob Schelle, and Colleen and Ian Buker.
After the meal a number of Club members took part in the beer tasting offered by the Pub. While the beer was quite enjoyable, the real treat was Paul’s storytelling of the history and making of craft beer. The onset of the craft brewing business in Canada began as an alternative to the big industrial breweries whose beer all had a similar taste – “beer.” The first wave of craft breweries started with variations on the industrial themes. As beer drinkers became used to these variations styles of beer began to evolve into what Paul indicated is the second wave of craft beer that is bold and adventurous and caters to a younger crowd who never experienced the limitations of industrial beer.
In addition to sipping various Spinnaker beers, we had the opportunity to taste various versions of barley. We started with the pale barley from which most of the alcohol content is obtained through fermentation and from which pale malt is derived. Next was the crystal malt, which has been kiln dried, and then we tasted the burnt malt. Both of these are used to add color to the beer. The darker the roast, the darker the beer. The roasting process reduces the fermentation, thus, in order to obtain the desired alcohol content, additional pale malt needs to be added. Currently most of the barley Spinnakers purchases comes from the UK; however, they are moving to purchase more Canadian barley.
After the barley we were treated to hops buds that come from Washington. These we didn’t taste but rather crushed them in our fingers and smelled the resins that emanated from them. These resins act as preservatives. We then had a chance to taste their Northwest beer that has a high hops content and is quite a favorite among younger folks.
The final beer ingredient talked about was the yeast. Whereas the Belgians tend to “open their windows” as Paul said to collect wild yeast, Spinnakers use a commercial yeast.
Besides beer tasting we were treated to malt vinegar and two kinds of jellies which were quite unexpected and quite delightful.
In conclusion Paul indicated that craft beer is a growing industry and that they hope to double their output in the next year. He also provided us with much more information than I could possibly keep track of while at the same time tasting each of the five samples of beer offered. Perhaps we will have to do it again.
Cheers, your faithful recorder - Jim Force.
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