It's been quite a few months since the last time I've written about my visit to Vancouver's breweries back in January but with COVID and everything, I was focusing my time more on writing reviews to keep sane than anything else. So, let's rewind back to January 27, 2020.. as stressful time of year, COVID was gradually becoming the main international news story at the time but things didn't worry us just quite yet.. I can't believe I took this photo in the same
year and decade as writing this up.
Today's visit is to
Parallel 49, with a quick stop by
Andina to find out they're closed, and a brief visit to
Bomber Brewing.
Parallel 49 Brewing
The first stop in the day was over at Parallel 49 Brewing. I believe the first time I ever had anything from Parallel 49 was in the early-mid 2010s thanks to my buddy Lloyd. I definitely expected the Parallel to be pretty large as I've seen their beer as far away as Vermont in the past. We had a bit of a hard time finding a brewery open when we popped into the city, every brewery we went to was closed on that day (as it was a Monday) or not opening until much later in the day
Unlike most breweries I've been to, you really couldn't get a view of the brewing going on, all their equipment was behind a fence. Ah well, generally once you've gone to ten breweries, the workings are generally the same (except for the ones that aren't).
Parallel 49's tap list. It was a bit overwhelming for me at first, but I quickly realized that a lot of the beer on the list I've had in the past or it just didn't intrigue me at all.
Okay, their permanent food-truck-in-a-brewery is a pretty cool idea. Is it to get around city licencing? It's one of the coolest restaurants I've seen out of all the breweries I've gone to.
The entire trip to Vancouver I felt a bit nauseous in the stomach, not really craving food at all. As I'm writing this, there's so many things I'd love to be eating right now. I ordered the bacon cheese burger with waffle fries. I don't remember what Chris ordered but his partner ordered a glazed doughnut.
Cosmic Slop Sour - really good pucker-worthy sour!
I didn't find out until that day that
Boombox Brewing brews out of the P49 facility. I ended up picking up a couple four-packs of Boombox, beers that I ended up finding at the
Quality Beer Store days
weeks later! Ah well, more chance for me to savour it and not worry about running out!
Doughnut!
Just your everyday Cody
http://parallel49brewing.com/
Andina Brewing
My buddy
Brady told me about this place when it first opened, absolutely raving about their beer. Unfortunately, the brewery was either closed that day or we showed up too early. Since our schedule is very time sensitive (thanks to Chris making sure I get a GOOD sampling of Vancouver beer scene), we wouldn't be able to go back. I've heard their Mango Ceviché is pretty darn good, but I'm too picky of an eater
(yet I write about nearly every beer I can get my hands on).
Maybe next time....
https://andinabrewing.ca/
Bomber Brewing
Next up, Bomber Brewing. Another brewery that a buddy introduced me to, this time thanks to Grant Lawrence. I still remember when this brewery opened up a bunch of years ago because Grant was absolutely excited to tell me about it. The brewery was started by some of his buddies he regularly played hockey against. He initially
told me it was Craig Northey's brewery, but I was pretty red faced at my first
Mondial de la bière in a VIP/Media section going "oh my friend's friends with the owner!" Then I mentioned Northey to the server and he was "ummm.. I don't think that's true" because the owner himself was no more than 10 feet away from us. Thankfully we laughed it off and went
"yeah, that sounds like something Grant would do!"
Fast forward to now, the brewery was purchased by another brewery and it appears that Grant's friends are no longer involved with the brewery, but I was able to be able to try their beers here in Manitoba, especially
Prairie Baard which I described as crisp golden ale with a light-to-moderate hop presence.
Their bar setup was nice nice but I had a hard time deciding what I wanted to sample, it's tough on a timer (but makes the whole day great in general)
Peloton Saison - Tastes a lot more like a Pilsner than a saison. Grassy, with tad citrus presence, grainy, crisp.
Beer almost all gone 🙁
I couldn't get any other pictures during my visit as my iPhone camera conked out (which Chris saw me cursing at my phone at least a hundred times that weekend).
When I was picturing the brewery, I was expecting the classic 60s kind of look to it, when they've in reality rebranded the brewery. I'm just not a fan of the look, it has a 60s/early 70s vibe to it as well but it's all
too plain and reminiscent of a mixture of Paint Brush and Microsoft Office know-how, which works for Lagunitas (owned by Heineken), so maybe it's just something that will grow on me over time?
Unfortunately I could only afford time to get in one beer in as we spent a
lot of time at Parallel 49, so my bad, peeps! I'll hopefully check out the place for a bit longer the next time while in town.
https://bomberbrewing.com/
Check out my other Vancouver brewery visits:
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