THE WAKKER WEEKLY - Issue #1348 - Posted on: 28-Nov-2016

BUSHWAKKER NEWS

Our premium wines for November are from the Durbanville Hills Winery in South Africa. The red is a Shiraz and the white is a Sauvignon Blanc; both are $7.95 for a glass and $21.95 for a half litre. Our guest tap is currently pouring the Black Bridge Smoked Porter. Next up is the Galaxy SMaSH (Single Malt and Single Hop) IPA from Nokomis Craft Ales. Following that we will pour the Sundog Belgian Whit from the Churchill Brewing Company in Saskatoon. The Bushwakker is now OPEN ON SUNDAYS from Noon to Nine. Enjoy our Sunday Steak & a Pint feature. 2016 Bushwakker Blackberry Mead King/Queen Bee Contest – Eat & Drink Like Royalty, 25th Anniversary Limited Edition Mead and Friends with Mead are Friends Indeed! A true Saskatchewan phenomenon! Last year our entire Blackberry Mead offsale inventory of over 6000 bottles sold out in less than two hours. A new record was set when the devoted mead enthusiasts braved a Saskatchewan winter night and began forming a line 15 HOURS before it went on sale – yes, 7:00 PM on the Friday night! The line-up stretched half a city block by 9:00 AM. It was just like a tailgate party! Experienced mead lovers came prepared with ice fishing huts and propane heaters. We will be serving hot chocolate to all those waiting in line as well as conducting a mead trivia contest with prizes to be won. The first 80 people in line will have the opportunity to purchase our limited edition Bushwakker 25th Anniversary Commemorative Blackberry Mead. We have been brewing our Blackberry Mead all year long preparing for our annual kick off to the holiday season. 400 pounds of Lumsden Valley honey and 84 pounds of blackberries are in every batch. View the days remaining to Bushwakker Mead Day (#MEADDAY2016) on our countdown clock over our brewhouse door. Limited edition 2016 commemorative Bushwakker “A Friend With Mead is a Friend Indeed” t-shirts designed by local artist, Gavin de Lint, will also be available. Enter our “Why I Love Blackberry Mead” poetry contest at https://www.bushwakker.com/mead2016 for a chance to be King or Queen Bee for a day and sit upon a huge throne on our stage wearing a royal purple crown and robe whilst being wined and dined for free! Ashley Martin was last year’s winner in our “Why I Love Blackberry Mead” Poetry Contest and was crowned Queen Bee on Mead Day. You too can wear the royal robe and crown, hoist the royal Mead Goblet and sit upon a massive throne while we wine and dine you all day and night–for free! Send your poems to https://www.bushwakker.com/mead2016 by Dec. 1st for a chance to win!   Our Canadian Brewing Awards gold medal-winning Regina Pale Ale is now available for growler fills at the Quance Street SLGA store in Regina for the month of November. Three other new Saskatchewan brewed beers are also available. Be sure to support this SLGA pilot program and help grow Saskatchewan craft beer. If successful, more SLGA stores may also offer growler fills in the future! Nov. 26: THE 28TH BUSHWAKKER SINGLE MALT SCOTCH TASTING. One of our most popular events of the year returns! This year’s offerings include: Talisker 25 year, Speyburn Sherry Cask 8 year, Caol Ila Young and Feisty, Glenturret 2001, Wolfburn and Glendronach Peated. A performance from the Regina Police Pipes & Drums and the Regina Highland Dancing Association adds definite Scottish flare to this event.  SOLD OUT. Nov. 28: Monday Night Jazz & Blues. THE JAZZ BAND-ITS. Enjoy big band, jazz and swing with the largest band to ever grace the Bushwakker stage. 8:00 PM. Nov. 30: Wednesday Night Folk. RYAN HICKS. Folk and pop from this veteran Regina singer/songwriter. 9:00 PM. Dec. 2: First Firkin Friday. Enjoy this longstanding Bushwakker monthly tradition where a piper from the Regina Police Pipes and Drums parades a small keg of special beer throughout the brewpub in a procession and is then tapped by a volunteer open delivering a beer shower to all onlookers in the immediate proximity. Our December firkin will be a special black spiced rum – infused Missiletow Christmas Ale! 5:30. Dec. 3: 2016 BUSHWAKKER BLACKBERRY MEAD RELEASE. New mead t-shirts, limited edition Bushwakker 25th Anniversary Commemorative Blackberry Mead available to the first 80 people in line, the return of our Queen Bee/King Bee “Why I Love Blackberry Mead” poetry contest and so much more make this our biggest event of the year. #MeadDay2016. 11:00 AM. Dec. 5: Monday Night Jazz & Blues. ‘ROUND MIDNIGHT. Veteran Regina jazz acts plays popular jazz tunes. 8:00 PM. Dec. 7: Wednesday Night Folk. THE REGINA MALE VOICE CHOIR. Get into the holiday spirit with this one hour concert featuring Canada’s longest continuously performing male voice choir. The singing of the Boar’s Head Carol whilst a massive boar’s head is paraded throughout the pub is the highlight of the evening. Note the 8:00 PM earlier start time. Dec. 7: MONTHLY ALES MEETING. New members are always welcome! Come down to the Bushwakker basement clubroom and sit in on a meeting with other homebrewers of all skill levels. Discover what the Ale & Lager Enthusiasts of Saskatchewan Homebrewing Club can offer you. This month’s discussion topic is How to Make Mead & Braggot. 8:00 PM. Dec. 10: 2016 “MISSILETOW” ALE RELEASE. Avid fans of our “other” Christmas specialty brew look forward to this day every year. Only one tank of our winter warmer is produced each year. Rich malt flavours with plenty of depth and complexity. The perfect ale to sip on whilst curled up with a good book in front of a fireplace on a cold Saskatchewan winter night. We hope this special ale will last on tap until Christmas but the limited number of bottles will most likely be sold out in the blink of an eye. See you at 11:00!

Distilling the Beast: Fort McMurray captures wildfire in a bottle 

By Wallis Snowdon, CBC News By bottling the black smoke which blanketed a wildfire-ravaged Fort McMurray, a northern Alberta brewery is distilling disaster into something delicious. The Wood Buffalo Brewing Company will create a new double-smoked whisky, using grain permeated with the fiery haze.  Their new blend will be aptly named the Beast. Head brewer Spike Baker hopes the new whisky will embody some of the resilient spirit of Fort McMurray. "This is was a heavily peated grain that's going to be mixed with this smoke flavour," Baker said in an interview with CBC Edmonton's Radio Active. "So it will be a combination of the sweet peat flavour and campfire flavour and it will produce a once in a lifetime kind of bottle. We'll never be able to reproduce it." After the flames forced the entire city to flee for their lives, Baker spent his first days back in Fort McMurray dumping fire-tainted beer down the drain. While most of the beer survived, hundreds of litres had to be discarded. While they were scrubbing the business clean of ash and smoke damage, they discovered a single pallet of peated malt which had been abandoned outside for weeks. They thought it was destined for the landfill, but when testing showed it was safe to use, Baker knew they had something special. They're now preparing to heap the double-smoked barley into their copper still. "This grain we had was sitting out on our patio for the entire fire. And obviously the town was incredibly smoky at that time, so that grain has absorbed some of that extra flavour. "It depends on each person's individual palates, but some of the predominant flavours (for whisky) are always peat and smoke, and this one should have both."

The Beast in a bottle

But those keen to catch a taste of the Beast in a bottle will have to wait. The brewery will auction off 10 of the bottles at an official launch party when distilling begins this Friday, but the aging process won't be complete for years. "They will receive a labelled bottle with a scroll certificate inside of it, stating that they have purchased this numbered bottle of this specific whisky. "And we will be aging it in bottles in the brewery and come five years, we will give them an additional bottle with the whisky inside." From the whisky's name, branding and official launch,  Baker says they've been working with local firefighters every step of the way. A large portion of the proceeds will be funnelled back into the community through the Friends of Fort McMurray Firefighters Charities Fund. Wood Buffalo Brewing will also provide 10 bottles per year for auction at initiatives supporting victims of the wildfire. "It's an opportunity to celebrate how far we've come as a community," Baker said. "In honour of the firefighters saving the city and making this whisky possible, we want to move that legacy forward. That's where the give back comes in." Preparation for parenthood is not just a matter of reading books and decorating the nursery. Here are three simple tests for expectant parents to take to prepare themselves for the real-life experience of being a mother or father. 1. Women: to prepare for maternity, put on a dressing gown and stick a beanbag down the front. Leave it there for 9 months.   After 9 months, take out 10% of the beans. Men: to prepare for paternity, go to the local drug store, tip the contents of your wallet on the counter, and tell the pharmacist to help himself. Then go to the supermarket. Arrange to have your salary paid directly to their head office. Go home. Pick up the paper. Read it for the last time. 2. Before you finally go ahead and have children, find a couple who are already parents and berate them about their methods of discipline, lack of patience, appallingly low tolerance levels, and how they have allowed their children to run riot. Suggest ways in which they might improve their child's sleeping habits, toilet training, table manners and overall behavior. Enjoy it -- it'll be the last time in your life that you will have all of the answers. 3. Can you stand the mess children make? To find out, smear peanut butter onto the sofa and jam onto the curtains. Hide a fish finger behind the stereo and leave it there all summer. Stick your fingers in the flowerbeds then rub them on the clean walls. Cover the stains with crayons. How does that look?

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