Latest news with #CraftBeer
Forbes
3 days ago
- Entertainment
- Forbes
A Beer Expert's Guide To Making Beer Cocktails
Once you discover beer cocktails, you'll never go back. Beer's myriad of flavors, mouthfeel, and aromas can add heft but also a delicate nature to all manner of drinks. That's because beer can taste like almost every flavor and aroma imaginable from water crackers to tropical to chocolate. Beer is more than just a keg at a tailgate or for a plate of nachos, beer can enhance almost any situation, including being in a high end cocktail bar. London based beer writer Melissa Cole gives her thoughts about beer cocktails that are perfect for summer. Melissa Cole Beer writer Melissa Cole knows a thing or two about beer cocktails. After all, she wrote about them in her 2017 book The Little Book of Craft Beer and provides great examples of how beer can be manipulated to add a spin to your favorite cocktails. 'It's all about small details when it comes to making great cocktails, it's about textures, carbonation (or lack thereof),' says Cole. 'Is it a tall drink, a short drink, is it for sipping or refreshment?' Beer can be used in all of these situations. Working with beer in a cocktail setting is just like putting together any recipe be it cocktail or food. You want to know what you are working with. What's the beer you have? What's its alcohol strength? What are its primary aromas and flavors? Beer can be bitter (think IPAs or higher alcohol beers like barleywine), beer can be sweet (wheat beers) or beer can be sour (lambics or berliner weisses). You want to lean into what the beer can provide. With bitterness, remember that many liqueurs are also bitter so it doesn't have to be a battle, it can work for you or you can use simple syrup to temper the bitterness. Speaking of bitterness, Cole suggests using beers that utilize American hops, which have really nice citrus flavors and aromas and would be helpful in many cocktails 'Is that a note you are looking for in your drink?' says Cole. 'If so, then go for it!' Another tip from Cole is using carbonation in the beer to your advantage. Higher carbonation beers like Belgian saisons (with lovely white pepper notes) are great for adding extra body, flavor and aroma to drinks in space of soda water. And don't forget, you can use alcohol-free beers too to make mocktails, which are currently a huge segment of any well-rounded cocktail program. 'I've used non-alcoholic stout to make a float before, it's silly and fun but still tasty,' says Cole. A Couple Of Recipe Ideas From Cole's Book The Little Book Of Craft Beer A quick session is a perfect drink to showcase grapefruit forward flavors of pale ales and IPAs. Pints and Panels A Quick Session Based on the classic Greyhound cocktail, this is a simple and refreshing drink. It's great to make in large quantities for parties so Cole has put this into parts so you can batch it. 2 parts vodka, straight from the freezer 3 parts well-chilled grapefruit juice 2 parts well-chilled session IPA or American pale ale. Look to local breweries for who makes this style really well. Mix the vodka and grapefruit juice, pour into a highball glass and top up carefully with the beer. You can also put a salt rim on the glass for a take on the salty dog. A Rube Icon A rube icon uses sour beer, lime juice and lychee liqueur to create a refreshing drink that looks elegant in a martini glass or coupe. Pints and Panels A punch inspired drink, this drink is very simple to make and uses a tropical beer style like a gose or berliner weisse along with a lychee and lime juice. 2 oz. lychee liqueur 2 teaspoons lime juice 5 oz. tropical fruited beer style like a gose or berliner weisse, check your local brewery for best options Shake the liqueur and lime juice together over ice and strain into a martini glass. Top up with beer, stir gentle and serve. Cheers to summer beer cocktails and remember to drink responsibly and to share drinks with people you truly care about.
Forbes
6 days ago
- Business
- Forbes
Hike Hopped Seltzer Elevates The NA Beverage Shelf By Making Hops The Star
Hike Hopped Seltzer grapefruit What's the first word that comes to mind when you hear the ingredient, 'hops?' Well, hops can be used for much more than just brewing beer. The plant is on a trajectory of commercial reinvention, largely in other types of beverages. A leader in the space is Ryan Coleman, founder of Hike Hopped Seltzer. Coleman has been enamored with the plant for years, beyond its presence in a hoppy beer. Even when his negative relationship with beer led him to keep alcohol at a distance, he brought hops in closer. 'That journey meant completely throwing away a big chunk of my life that involved drinking and starting from scratch,' Coleman tells me. Nonalcoholic beers tasted too similar to its alcoholic counterparts, so he set out to create a beverage where he could have fun with something he loves while maintaining his sobriety 'Why not just make something that is still super interesting to taste but doesn't remind you of the old stuff?' he says. Hike's initial intention was to help Coleman himself. But as its presence expands, it taps into much more. Hike founder and CEO Ryan Coleman Sobering Up 'Craft beer was my thing…super high proof IPAs,' Coleman says. During the pandemic, Coleman realized his dependency on beer became unhealthy. 'The guardrails were off,' he says. Once becoming a dad, he decided to get sober. 'It was very hard and really humbling.' Nonalcoholic beers are gaining traction for their incredible resemblance to alcoholic ones. In fact, Athletic Brewing, the nonalcoholic beer company, is the top-selling beer, alcoholic or otherwise, at Whole Foods Market. Coleman got the memo and gave them a try. They resembled alcoholic beer so precisely to the point where they just were not a good fit for his particular journey. 'I would think that I was [getting drunk]Beyond his relationship with beer, Coleman has known more about hops than most, given that his family members have grown them in the past, selling them to local breweries in Virginia. He remembers pulling hops off of the vine and dunking them into beer to make them hoppier. While browsing the NA set, he was looking for an option with exactly that hoppy aroma instead of the overall beer flavor. 'This one specific part of the beer drinking experience, which is aromatic, sort of bitter, sort of earthy, grassy–it's just wildly appealing.' Hike Hopped Seltzer original with citra hops Even hop seltzers on the shelf didn't match what he was looking for, which was simply a crisp, bubbly seltzer with those earthy aromas; he found every option to be too sweet or too similar to beer. Coleman bought some equipment to do it himself, and would play around in his home kitchen with all different varieties of hops. He channeled much of his culinary background working in kitchens of many restaurants to find the perfect balance of hops and flavor. 'What I wanted to find was something that had the most approachable characteristics,' Coleman says. 'I was thinking, 'I know there's a way that you could make this so that people who don't like beer would like it.'' The Hops Plant Hops are a member of the cannabis family, but they do not contain any THC or CBD; they don't get you high. There are some functional benefits of hops given all of the polyphenols they contain, but really, they're used for flavor and aroma. Yakima Valley hops Coleman sources hop extract from Washington State's Yakima Valley Hops, a subsidiary of Haas, the largest hops supplier in the world. 'Kind of like grapes, hops take on elements of where they're grown so they have discernible differences,' says Kaleb Schwecke, Chief Marketing Officer at Yakima Valley Hops. '[The Yakima Valley has] ample irrigation coming out of the snow melt in the Cascades, so even though we're in a desert, we still have ample water supply.' Yakima Valley hops farm Incredibly diverse and complex, hops, although most widely associated with beer, can be applied in a wide variety of products. 'Everything from ethanol production to diapers,' Schwecke says. 'Hops were used for their bitter potential to balance out the sweetness of all the malt that goes into beer…They started using hops for their aroma and flavor–that's where you get IPAs,' he continues. 'And now that advances even further into alternative beverages for their maximum flavor potential.' There are thousands of varieties of hops grown around the world, about 100 of which are used commercially. 'The cones look different between varieties…that's where all the alpha acids and Washington State's Yakima Valley is a prime growing region for hops the oils and all those aroma compounds are found,' Schwecke explains. 'Everything from citrus to sweet fruit…flowers, spices, cream…and some smell like whiskey.' Citra hops, with tropical and citrus notes, are the most commonly found hops today, including in Hike's original variety. Coleman chooses the types of hops with the profiles of each flavor to pair them with intention. 'I'm always looking for a palatable, bright tropical hop that has aromatic and flavor qualities similar to the fruit that you might want to put in there,' he says. He often refers to Hike as 'Sprindrift with hops,' given the fresh fruit juice he adds for each different flavor, which currently includes Grapefruit and Maracuyá (Spanish for passionfruit). 'I've been obsessed with flavors and how combinations of flavors work.' Coleman says. He plans to extend his line of hop seltzers with future flavors like Sudachi Squirt, Green Tea Watermelon, Yuzu Ginger and Finger Lime (aka lime caviar). 'I want to give an homage to different cultures.' Marketing To The '4th Category' Hike positions itself differently than each of its competitors. HOP WTR, on track to become the leader in the hop water category (according to Nielsen IQ data), typically sits in the seltzer aisle alongside La Croix and Polar, whereas Hike markets itself more as a nonalcoholic beverage, sitting alongside Lagunitas Hoppy Refresher and Sierra Nevada Hop Splash. And among those, Hike is one of the only hop seltzers that's actually a brand of hop seltzers and not just a line extension by a beer conglomerate. 'We had already talked to the big national brands, but at Whole Foods, it's really important to us to also meet with the regional people who maybe just want to get into five, ten stores. It's all the same to us,' says Samatha Fletcher, Category Manager for '4th Category' of adult beverages at Whole Foods Market, a new position at the nation's leading natural grocer, highlighting the growth of this category, which includes ready-to-drink cocktails, hard seltzers and nonalcoholic beverages. 'The fact that [Coleman] was doing a non-alc seltzer that was branding himself to intentionally be carried in adult beverage as a non-alc item, really checked all the boxes.' Hike Hopped Seltzer maracuyá In addition to traditional retail, Coleman doubles down on his brand by also selling Hike in alternative spaces like music venues and skate parks. Targeting this niche community in the early years of his business helps tell the story of Hike. It was important for him to have a presence in these communities, which he felt could use a nonalcoholic alternative. This led to his first major retail accounts at Total Wine & More and Trader Joe's. Hike entered Whole Foods Market stores in Virginia in the Spring of 2025, and Fletcher has high hopes for the brand. 'He's telling me the story…and I tried it and I was like…just sign me up,' she says. 'If they want to stay small, they can. If they want to go big, they will.' So long as the visibility of hop seltzers increases, there's the potential for a larger market than nonalcoholic beer. 'If you're driving in your car drinking an NA beer…at a kid's baseball game…at your office fridge at work…it points to something problematic if you're searching for that flavor profile at that time,' Coleman says. '[Hike is] a completely harmless beverage with an interesting taste profile that's not overwhelming. It seemed to me, whether it's true or not, that you could probably sell more of them because people would keep them in the fridge as an any-time beverage.' There are many positive associations with the word 'hike.' 'Not hike, like to take a hike,' Coleman says, 'but a new version of that word, of forging your own path, moving ahead. Maybe not on a trail, but just moving forward…to elevate, pull yourself up.' On Hike's website, Coleman created a tab called 'You good?' which he describes as a 'stream of consciousness" that he wrote to share his sobriety experience with others who also may be struggling. 'Every time I think about taking it out, I get some person reaching out saying how it spoke to them,' he says. 'That's what this is about…this is bigger than just creating a beverage business.'
CTV News
22-07-2025
- Business
- CTV News
Canadians are drinking more local beer and wine during U.S. trade war, report suggests
A display of Ontario wine is pictured at the 100 Queen's Quay East LCBO outlet in Toronto on Tuesday, March 4, 2025. THE CANADIAN PRESS/Laura Proctor As trade tensions simmer between Ottawa and Washington, 'Buy Canada' sentiment has taken off across the country, and new data suggests Canadian wine and beer producers are reaping the benefits. A report published last month from data research consultancy firm CGA, powered by consumer intelligence company NIQ, found that 37 per cent of respondents in a May survey said they purchased an alcoholic drink at a bar or restaurant in the past month from a Canadian brand they hadn't tried before. The most common reason given for the increase was to support local, according to the report, which included survey responses from individuals in Alberta, British Columbia, Ontario and Quebec. The report found that 28 per cent of beer drinkers reported consuming more craft beer since U.S. President Donald Trump's administration first imposed tariffs on Canadian products. Among them, 46 per cent said they did so to support local or Canadian brands. When it comes to wine drinkers, 51 per cent reported drinking more Canadian wine than before tariffs were introduced. Overall, 57 per cent of wine consumers reported having tried a Canadian wine brand at a restaurant or bar at some point in 2025. Survey participants were also asked what they'd like to see more of in national bar and restaurant chains, and the second most common response was the increased availability of Canadian beer, wine and spirits. The consumer shift towards local and Canadian alcohol comes at the same time American products are less readily available in Canada. Provinces across the country pulled American beer, wine and spirits from liquor store shelves earlier this year in response to Trump's tariffs. While some provinces have since rescinded that action, others including Ontario, whose liquor control board is one of the largest alcohol purchasers in the world, have not. Methodology CGA by NIQ surveyed 1,200 LDA On Premise consumers across four key provinces (Alberta, British Columbia, Ontario and Quebec). Consumers had to have visited the On Premise in the past 3 months and be aged 19+. An equal number of respondents were collected from each province with each nationally representative on gender and age. Fieldwork was undertaken 2025/05/28 to 2025/05/30.
CTV News
18-07-2025
- Entertainment
- CTV News
What's happening July 19 and July 20 in Waterloo Region?
Ribs cook on the grill at the Ribfest and Craft Beer Show at Victoria Park in Kitchener on Friday, July 17, 2017. (Dan Lauckner / CTV Kitchener) Here's what's happening this weekend in Waterloo Region, Guelph and beyond: Mount Forest Fireworks Festival June 17 to June 20 Fireworks will light up the sky as the Mount Forest Fireworks Festival returns to the Mount Forest & District Sports Complex. Events include a firefighters' breakfast, a mascot race, a demolition derby, car show, kid zone and, of course, fireworks. Downtown Kitchener Ribfest & Craft Beer Show July 18 to 20 The Downtown Kitchener Ribfest & Craft Beer Show takes place in Kitchener's Victoria Park from July 18 until July 20. Enjoy a selection of ribs, chicken and craft beer with friends and family. Hillside Festival returns July 18 to 20 The annual Hillside Festival returns to Guelph Lake this weekend. Artists include modern folk artist Abigail Lapell, singer/songwriter Adam Baldwin and indie rocker Ballsy. Gates open at 4:30 p.m. Friday and the festival closes at 11 p.m. every night. Cambridge Scottish Festival July 18 and July 19 Grab your tartan and immerse yourself in Scottish culture as the Cambridge Scottish Festival returns. Hear performances from the pipers, watch Highland dancers and watch feats of strength at the heavy events. Guelph Royals vs. Brantford Red Sox July 19 The Guelph Royals welcome the Brantford Red Sox to David E. Hastings Stadium at 7:30 p.m. Saturday. Cambridge's Mini-Con July 19 Dress as your favourite comic book characters and meet comic book writers and artists during the 2nd annual mini comic convention on Main Street from 11 a.m. until 4 p.m. Sunday Sessions: 'Juneyt' Live in the Gaslight District July 20 Kitchener-based musician Juneyt will be performing a free live concert at The Gaslight District in Cambridge. Enjoy as Flamenco & Spanish music fills the square from 1 p.m. until 5 Guelph Royals welcome the Brantford Red Sox to David E. Hastings Stadium at 7:30 p.m. Saturday. Cambridge's Mini-Con July 19 Dress as your favourite comic book characters and meet comic book writers and artists during the 2nd annual mini comic convention on Main Street from 11 a.m. until 4 p.m. Sunday Sessions: 'Juneyt' Live in the Gaslight District July 20
CBC
18-07-2025
- Entertainment
- CBC
Kate's 5 fun things to do in and around Waterloo region: July 18 to 20
This is one of the busiest weekends of the summer so far when it comes to events happening in this area. The Kitchener Ribfest and Craft Beer Show starts at noon Friday and runs afternoons and evenings Friday, Saturday and Sunday. Admission to the event in Kitchener's Victoria Park is free, but donations are accepted for The Food Bank of Waterloo Region. Elora Community Theatre will present Shakespeare in the Park starting Friday night with The Merry Wives of Windsor. Performances are in the yard at the Elora Centre for the Arts. In Guelph at McCrae House, it's Backyard Theatre season. We Lived, Felt Dawn, Saw Sunset Glow is the title of the performance by Mike Ford, who is described by the museum as a solo troubadour opera. The piece was commissioned by Guelph Museums to commemorate the 80th anniversary of the liberation in Europe. If you can't make it this weekend, the show also runs July 24 to 26 with afternoon and evening performances. Sunset Sessions in Vogelsang Green is a free concert in downtown Kitchener. Music starts at 7 p.m. and you won't know who is performing until they step up to the mic. The Scotland Yard Hockey Classic to support kids cancer care will be held at The Boardwalk in Waterloo with 96 teams taking part. People can show up and cheer on their favourite teams and just enjoy a day of street hockey. The day benefits the Waterloo Region Health Network Foundation. Latin Music on Main happens in Galt on Saturday evening. Beginner dance lessons are at 6 p.m. with dancing from 6:30 p.m. to 10:30 p.m. The Kitchener Panthers are on the road this weekend. They're in Welland Friday and Barrie on Saturday. The Guelph Royals are home Saturday night and host the Brantford Red Sox. If you need to drive, here are some local gas prices: Uptown Waterloo Jazz Festival Friday 3:30 p.m. to 11 p.m., Saturday 12:30 p.m. to 11 p.m., Sunday 12 p.m. to 4 p.m. Uptown Waterloo This free, outdoor festival in uptown Waterloo has everything a jazz music lover would want, plus community vendors and food. Headlining Friday night is Monkey House and on Saturday it's Travis Knights. Plus check out the youth ensemble, Freddie's Freeloaders, the Christine Jensen Quartet and much more. Friday 5:30 p.m. to 11 p.m., Saturday 11 a.m. to 11 p.m., Sunday 11 a.m. to 11 p.m. Guelph Lake Conservation Area This annual festival is back and along with a very long list of musicians on three different stages, there are workshops, vendors, food, children's area and activity areas. Amanda Keeles Sunday at 7 p.m. Forbes Park, 16 Kribs St., Cambridge Cambridge is holding a number of Summer Live events and this weekend, it's a free concert from London, Ont., country singer-songwriter Amanda Keeles. Bring a lawn chair, some snacks and be prepared to enjoy an evening of music. AfroVibes Festival Friday 4 p.m. to 6 p.m., Saturday 12 p.m. to 9 p.m and 10 p.m. to late Deb 1880 in Waterloo, Carl Zehr Square in front of Kitchener's city hall, Rare Nightclub in Waterloo This festival kicks off Friday night with a panel discussion talking about business and the creative economy locally. On Saturday, the festival takes over the space in front of Kitchener's city hall with a free day of music, workshops, food, fashion, games and lots of interactive activities for people of all ages. There's also an after party with DJ Neptune later in the evening, which requires tickets. Sights and sounds from AfroVibes Festival in Kitchener 1 year ago There was food, music and vendors in front of Kitchener's city hall and on the Gaukel Block on Saturday as part of the AfroVibes Festival. The three-day event celebrating African culture also included a karaoke night and a panel discussion in Waterloo. Cambridge Scottish Festival Friday 7 p.m. to 11 p.m., Saturday 8 a.m. to 5 p.m. Churchill Park, Cambridge The festival gets underway with the Celtic sip and shop Friday night, which has vendors set up, there's live music and watch swords clash in a battle performance. Saturday will see various pipe, drum, band and dancing competitions and performances, a children's glen, the heritage area and live music in the beer tent. Cambridge Scottish Festival website Fitness in the Forest Saturday 10 a.m. to 12 p.m. Stanley Park Conservation Area, Kitchener This is a resident-led project that is supported through the City of Kitchener's Love My Hood program. The trail through the park now has signs that offer some additional suggestions on exercises that can be done to get even more out of an evening stroll. A grand opening celebration takes place Saturday with some refreshments and giveaways, but the trail is now open to anyone who wants to use it. Facebook event page
