Autumnal Island Brews
At the end of the summer last year, something happened at Île Sauvage Brewing in Victoria that left the brewhouse looking like a crime scene.
“It was a mess. My hands were stained for three days afterwards,” brewmaster Stephane Turcotte later admitted. “We had to peel and cube 40 pounds of beets! But it was fun. We came down at night, Benny [from The Drake Eatery & Craft Beer Parlour] was here, we opened a couple of beers and sat together.”
This collaboration between Île Sauvage and The Drake resulted in a special autumnal beer called Au Jardin. “We puréed the beets, so it was really bright purple, and added some lemon zest and black pepper,” explained Turcotte, who said they plan to release it again this fall. “It has some of the earthiness, but it’s in a sour beer so it’s still super bright and refreshing.”
Along with ingredients like beets, berries and other fruit, breweries also celebrate the harvest season with fresh hop beers. Hops, which are harvested around Labour Day, are typically dried and processed into pellets that can be stored and used later in the year. But many breweries like to use fresh hops (also called “wet hops”) taken directly from farms as soon as they are picked to brew special beers that showcase the fresh, green flavours of the hops and the terroir of the farms where they were grown. Driftwood Brewery’s Sartori Harvest Fresh Hop IPA introduced the fresh hops style to British Columbia beer lovers in 2009 and is still the most highly anticipated autumnal beer release each year.
And then there are pumpkin beers, which are divisive among craft beer lovers.
“I have a love-hate relationship with them myself,” Turcotte said. “I find a lot of them not done very well—too sweet, not very drinkable.” That said, he is planning on producing one at Île Sauvage this fall called La Tarte, “a play on tart meaning sour and pumpkin pie being the inspiration.” It is a brown-coloured sour beer with cinnamon, nutmeg and ginger. “We use some pumpkin puree and squash, but I don’t know how much flavour it contributes to the final beer. It’s just the spice you’re going for.”
While these autumnal beers are delicious on their own, there are also some great options for pairing them with fall foods. “I personally think of root vegetables, purees and roasted meats,” Turcotte said. “Dishes like roast chicken, potatoes, beets and carrots.”
Turcotte pointed to European beer styles as complementary autumnal pairings. “Saisons go incredibly well with those kinds of flavours because you get some harmony between the peppery, herbal-ness on the nose of the beer with fall when we are starting to move into the thyme or rosemary type of aromatics in the food.” Saisons were originally brewed by Belgian farmers for their seasonal workers, or saisonniers, to be served during the harvest each year.
Turcotte also pointed to Märzen or Festbier lagers typically produced for Oktoberfest in Germany. “They’re malty and dry and carbonated enough to be cleansing on the palate with those rich flavours, and they’ve got a little bit of colour to them so those copper malts go with some of the flavours in a roast or root vegetables.”
Oktoberfest beers are certainly familiar to German-born chef Jan Gumbmann, who recently moved to Mayne Island with his partner Randi Schultz from Vancouver, where Jan previously worked at Farmer’s Apprentice and Randi worked at The Acorn. They have opened their own restaurant on Mayne called Das Nest, which is focused on using organic, farm-fresh fruit and vegetables and ethically raised meat. They have formed a great friendship with Michael Garratt and Annette Witteman, owners of Mayne Island Brewing Company, which has been operating there since 2016. According to Gumbmann, the brewery “was also one of the reasons why we came.”
“I came to Mayne Island and tasted Michael’s beers, which were beautiful, clean and complex, just in the making,” Gumbmann enthused. Needless to say, Mayne Island Brewing’s IPA and Forager Saison, which features seasonally changing locally foraged ingredients, are permanent taps at the restaurant.
When I asked him about food-and-beer pairings for the fall, Gumbmann responded, “I think the Farmhouse Ale would pair really well with a dish I did a few years ago: roasted spaghetti squash with a brown butter and hazelnut vinaigrette, fresh kale and Saint Agur Blue cheese. The kale gives it a little freshness, the butter and the nuts are comforting, and the cheese is very sharp.” Mayne Island Brewing’s Hardscrabble Farmhouse Ale is a robust saison that could definitely handle the variety of flavours in that dish. The barrel-aged version, called Punch’s Farmhouse Ale, won first place at the 2019 B.C. Beer Awards for specialty barrel-aged beers.
When Schultz suggested Gumbmann’s handmade ramen might pair well with the Mayne-ich Lager, he agreed: “Ramen and lager go very well together, especially if you have ramen that’s a little bit more on the spicier side. Then the lager is so complementary to it. It gives a nice balance because it has a little bit of fruitiness without being overpowering.”
For dessert, consensus pointed to pumpkin pie as the go-to. Schultz recalled a beer-paired dinner she hosted at The Acorn that featured beer from Mayne Island Brewing. “I took a beet bock home from that and had it with pumpkin pie and it was unbelievable,” Gumbmann concurred enthusiastically.
Another dessert suggestion came from Turcotte: “Sour beers go really well with dessert. You tend to get the best of both worlds—you can augment the aroma and the fruitiness of the dessert and the beer, but then you get something that’s sour that can cut some of the sweetness in a really rich, fatty dessert.”
Autumnal Releases from Vancouver Island Breweries
Beet Buck, Märzen and Forager Saison - Mayne Island Brewing
Crookeder Tooth Barrel-Aged Pumpkin Ale - Phillips Brewing & Malting Co. (Victoria)
Full Patch Pumpkin Saison – Longwood Brewery (Nanaimo)
Märzen - Gladstone Brewing Company (Courtenay)
Pollinator Honey Ale (brewed with local honey) - Beachfire Brewing (Campbell River)
Sartori Harvest IPA - Driftwood Brewery (Victoria)
Wolf Vine Wet Hopped Pale Ale - Hoyne Brewing Co. (Victoria)
Photo credits:
Top: Milen Kootnikoff
Middle: Provided by Driftwood Brewery
Bottom: Jasper Garratt