THE WAKKER WEEKLY - ISSUE #1467

Posted on: 11-Mar-2019

BUSHWAKKER NEWS

NEWS FROM THE BREWERY! Head brewer, Michael Gaetz, reports our seasonally available TWO SON'S MILK STOUT, BOW PROJECT AMARILLO S.M.A.S.H., FLEK’S CZECH DARK LAGER, CHINOOK ESB, and BLOOD ORANGE BLONDE ALE are currently on tap. There are batches of PICKARD’S OATMEAL STOUT and PONCE DE LEON FRUIT ALE working their way through the brewery.

Our GUEST TAP is currently pouring the Heartstopper Hot Chocolate Stout from Saskatoon’s Paddock Wood Brewing. Next up is a Double IPA from Swift Current’s Black Bridge Brewery.

Our March premium wine features are the DUPLICATE WINES from Australia. The white is a Sauvignon Blanc and the red is a Shiraz. Both are $7.95 for a glass and $21.95 for a half litre.

650 ml glass bottles of our number one selling DUNGARVON IRISH RED ALE are currently available at ALL SIX SLGA stores including the Normanview, Quance Street, Broadway Avenue, North Albert Street, Dewdney & Lewvan and South Albert locations! ATTENTION SASKATOON RESIDENTS! You can now find our Dungarvon in bottles as well as on tap at the Growler Filling Station in the Saskatoon Metro Liquor store!

We are pleased to announce that you have nominated your Bushwakker in an unprecedented 20 categories in the 2019 edition of the Prairie Dog Magazine’s Best of Food Regina reader’s poll. Those nomination categories include Regina’s Best: brewpub, pub, pub server (Cheryl), bartender (Troy), chef (Mike), nachos, appetizers, soup, pub pizza, wings, business lunch, lunch restaurant, sandwich, burger, local fries, happy hour, caesar, restaurant for a first date, restaurant for a party AND restaurant for a fundraiser! Visit the voting site at http://www.prairiedogmag.com/best-of-food-2019/#// before April 8th and turn those nominations into victories! If you vote in at least 20 categories, you have a chance to win a $500 prize package from the Prairie Dog.

The BUSHWAKKER LOCAL ARTIST WALL for the month of March features the works of the two Shelleys! Long time 13th ave business owners Shelley Hoffman (The Room, now retired) and Shelley Patterson (still slinging ice cream cones) have teamed up to collaborate on this art project inspired by the Saskatchewan prairies.

Shelley Hoffman is a visual poet who expresses herself with her iPhone. She finds inspiration and healing during her daily walks. Her home base is Wilcox where she can open the front door and look out on to the prairies. Her work has been featured on the Meanwhile in Sask Instagram page and she recently was chaises as best local photographer in the Vernon West Side Post.

Shelley Patterson is a textile artist from Regina. Shelley has explored many art mediums but found her fibre calling after taking a workshop from MonikaKinner Whelan. She is inspired by the beauty and the light ofthe Saskatchewan prairies. Apart from fibre, her biggest creative project to date has been Dessart Sweets on 13th.

BUSHWAKKER EVENTS

Mar. 11: Monday Night Jazz & Blues. CHRIS WALLACE. Toronto quartet plays original modern jazz. 8:00 PM.

Mar. 13: Wednesday Night Folk. SUN ZOOM SPARX. Funk, jazz fusion, psychedelia and mid-70’s ambience. 8:00 PM.

Mar. 15: CHERYL TOVEY TURNS 60! Longtime Bushwakker floor manager, Cheryl Tovey, winds up six decades on the planet and invites you to join her in a pint during Happy Hour today. She would love to see you and reminds everyone that she has everything a girl could possibly need so please don’t bring her any presents. However, if you wish to donate to her charity bin, she will be collecting donations for the Regina Food Bank, Souls Harbour Rescue Mission, Carmichael Outreach and the Regina Humane Society. She is giving the love back to our community!

Mar. 16 & 17: ST. PATRICK’S DAY WEEKEND. A two-day Irish celebration! Enjoy traditional Irish food, drink and entertainment Saturday night as well as Sunday afternoon and early evening too! The weekend kicks off with the tapping of a firkin of the extremely popular IRISH COFFEE STOUT at 5:00 PM and will be followed by Irish dancing, pipes & drums and a special Celtic performance from WEST OF MABOU. We open at noon on Sunday and The Prairie School of Irish Dance will perform at 1:00 PM followed by music act, THE HIGHLANDERS, pipes & drums and a suppertime performance from massive acoustic Celtic act, BILLARNEY. Enjoy Corned Beef & Cabbage, Belfast Breakfast Burger, O’Hara’s Stout Lamb Stew, Irish Whiskey Bread Pudding, Guinness, Green Shamrock Ale, Green Spot Single Pot Still Irish Whiskey and more this Saturday and Sunday! $5 cover charge.

Mar. 18: Monday Night Jazz & Blues. THE U OF R JAZZ BAND. Come hear this huge act comprised of local future jazz stars! 8:00 PM.

Mar. 20: Wednesday Night Folk. CHRIS SPAKE. Australian singer/songwriter delivers lush acoustic pop and tells stories that burn a memorable experience. 8:00 PM.

Mar. 21: SCIENCE PUB. Virtual Reality: Past failures, Current Hype, and Future Vision. Our wildly popular Science Pub Series has returned for a seventh incredible season! Enjoy lectures on scientific topics of general interest in our Arizona Room (main floor banquet room) over beer and snacks. The room opens at 5:00 PM and quite often is full by 6:00 PM. Avoid disappointment and come down early for dinner and a pint before the presentation which begins at 7:00 PM. This month’s lecture will be presented by Dr. David Gerhard, Dept. of Computer Science, University of Regina.

NEW INNOVATIONS STRENGTHEN THE BACKBONE OF BEER

by Chris Clarke

With the increasing demand for fruity and piney India Pale Ales, hops often take center stage in the beer world. That has not stopped many of the brewing industry’s finest minds from working to understand and improve malt, an essential co-star in the beer-making process.

To understand why, it’s important to know the grain’s purpose and limits.

Comprising 75 percent to 98 percent of the brewing materials in beer, malt is created by kilning or roasting germinated barley at various temperatures for prescribed lengths of time. Yeast converts the fermentable sugars that were extracted from the malt into alcohol, while the unfermentable sugars help create body and sweetness that help balance the bitterness coming from hops. Malt, including base malt and kilned or roasted specialty malts, also imbues finished beer with colors and a complex suite of hundreds of sensory attributes, just as hops do.

Before the rise of craft beer, most large-scale legacy breweries used a combination of malt and adjuncts – such as corn or rice – to brew light lager beer styles. Craft brewers generally eschew cereal adjuncts in favor of all-malt grain bills to produce the more flavorful beers their consumers demand.

It didn’t take long to learn most malt producers could not meet the needs of both large-scale and craft brewers with similar malt products. “Through the 1980s, our brewing industry [had] spent 50 years producing adjunct lager and virtually nothing else. Our malted barley industry responded very correctly to the needs of those brewers,” said Chris Swersey, director of supply chain management for the Brewers Association. “And now there’s another set of needs.”

Work began in earnest to understand and address those needs when about five years ago the BA, which represents America’s more than 6,000 craft breweries, commissioned a team of brewing and malt experts to delve into malt-related issues that could hinder the craft beer industry’s progress.

It’s All About Protein and Flavor

Swersey wrote a white paper summarizing key points from those discussions. Brewers, he said, focused on two areas– protein and flavor.

Legacy brewers need malt with high protein or FAN (Free Amino Nitrogen) levels because the recipes for these products call for a high percentage of adjuncts, which often contribute little or no FAN to wort. Malted barley with a higher FAN level provides yeast with the nutrients it needs to adequately grow and ferment.

On the other hand, most craft brewers using all-malt grain bills find higher-FAN malt can cause flavor instability and reduce the shelf life of certain beers. The challenge, Swersey noted, is the vast majority of the current suite of barley malts have FAN levels in the 225-240 ppm range. Craft brewers need FAN levels of 140-175 ppm for ample yeast nutrition, without sacrificing shelf stability in finished beer brands that feature all-malt grain bills.

A growing cadre of craft maltsters, aided by the Craft Maltsters Guild, are helping brewers address this issue by providing unique craft malt and varietal flavors and efficiencies. North American farmers and craft maltsters are working to create barley varieties with plumper kernels, lower protein and higher extract yields as well as growing and malting new cereals and gluten-free grains.

“I see more people looking to malt as a flavor source that’s going to make their beer stand out…make the quality better, make the flavor different,” said Cassie Poirier, a sensory specialist with Briess Malt & Ingredients of Wisconsin.

That said, Poirier realizes there is “still a lot of mystery” about malt flavor. That’s why she and others have worked to demystify the grain by developing two breakthrough tools.

The base malt flavor map, which Poirier and a group of maltsters and brewers created and released last year, makes it easier for people across the industry to speak about malt using a common, more descriptive language. The map features terms such as bready, grainy, earthy and floral, among others, followed by sub-descriptors that provide more specificity. The map’s lexicon helps brewers and maltsters discuss the pros and cons of existing malt varieties and target flavor profiles for new ones.

A second new tool, the Hot Steep Malt Sensory Evaluation Method, is a quick and uniform test to steep and taste malt before it’s used in the brewing process. This approach, which was validated by the American Society of Brewing Chemists, helps brewers fine tune grain bills before brewing a full batch of beer, and it allows them to provide malt houses with more meaningful feedback.

Furthermore, by making these malt “teas” or infusions, brewers can anticipate changes in the flavor profile that these malts will provide, noted Dr. Hugo Patiño, director of technical services at brewery consultant group, First Key. Like hops, barley and other cereal grains are agronomic products and can vary by variety, season, terroir and malting conditions. The new Hot Steep Sensory method helps maltsters and brewers document and control quality, while discussing these differences relative to their own needs and beer styles.

“Yet one more application is for recipe improvement, as a brewer may be seeking to tweak the recipe to reduce a particular trait in the final product,” said Dr. Patiño of the Hot Steep method. “By evaluating different options at a small scale a new optimized recipe can be tested more effectively.”

“Brewers are starting to gain momentum around this idea that new malts can create a new beer style. That’s something I think is really important,” said Poirier. “Who’s to say there can’t be all these new beer styles that are defined by specialty malts that haven’t even been made yet? It’s not like all the beer that exists in the world [now] is the only kind we’re ever going to have. We could see whole new styles defined by new malts.”

“The last few decades have seen a new focus and craft brewer awareness of the role that hops can play in defining unique beer styles.” said Dave Thomas, author of the Craft Maltsters Handbook and malting technical adviser at First Key. “This romance enjoyed by the principal spice used in brewing is now even touted by craft beer drinkers. Craft maltsters are jealous of this infatuation and are now discussing methods to elevate to the same level…the undisputed heart, soul and backbone of beer…malt!”

The biggest St. Patrick’s Day Weekend Celebration in our 28 year history takes place March 16th and March 17th!

TIME OUT- More Actual Writings on Hospital Charts

11. Healthy appearing decrepit 69-year old male, mentally alert, but forgetful.

12. Patient had waffles for breakfast and anorexia for lunch.

13. She is numb from her toes down.

14. While in ER, she was examined, x-rated and sent home.

15. The skin was moist and dry.

16. Occasional, constant infrequent headaches.

17. Patient was alert and unresponsive.

18. Rectal examination revealed a normal size thyroid.

19. She stated that she had been constipated for most of her life until she got a divorce.

20. I saw your patient today, who is still under our car for physical therapy.

This Weekend’s Special Dining Feature: Prime Rib Shepherd’s Pie. $16.95

Soup & Sandwich Special is $13.95. All hot specials are $16.95, except where noted, & include a serving of soup du jour, house, or Caesar salad.

We strive to ensure all weekly specials and soups are made available. Product shortages or unforeseen circumstances may result in modification or even substitution of certain featured menu items.