THE WAKKER WEEKLY – Issue #1474

THE WAKKER WEEKLY – Issue #1474 – Posted on: 29-Apr-2019

BUSHWAKKER NEWS

NEWS FROM THE BREWERY! Head brewer, Michael Gaetz, reports our seasonally available PREMIUM PALE ALE, TWO SON’S MILK STOUT, BARON BOCK, PICKARD’S OATMEAL STOUT, and PONCE DE LEON FRUIT ALE are currently on tap. There are also batches of BOMBAY IPA, BUSHVAR CZECH PILS and UPENDI PASSIONFRUIT PINEAPPLE BLONDE ALE working their way through the brewery.

Our GUEST TAP is pouring the Star Crossed Starfuit and Peach Kettle Sour from Regina’s Malty National Brewing. Next up is a Citra Dry Hopped Cider from Crossmount Cider in Saskatoon.

Our April premium wine features are the PAINTED WOLF WINES from South Africa. The white is a Chenin Blanc and the red is a Cabernet Sauvignon. Both are $7.95 for a glass and $21.95 for a half litre.

THE BUSHWAKKER GOODNESS IS SPREADING! Regina’s Quance Street SLGA Store now offers six Bushwakker beer styles. The Broadway SLGA Store has recently added our REGINA PALE ALE to their other Bushwakker brands. 650 ml glass bottles of our number one selling DUNGARVON IRISH RED ALE are currently available at ALL SIX REGINA SLGA stores. It is also now available at Urban Cellars in Regina. Regina’s Metro Liquor carries bottles of our PONCE DE LEON Blackberry Raspberry Fruit Beer. ATTENTION SASKATOON RESIDENTS! You can find our Dungarvon bottles in the Saskatoon Metro Liquor store!

NEW BUSHWAKKER SPRING/SUMMER KITCHEN OFFERING! We now offer a SOUP, BREAD & SALAD FEATURE for only $10.95. Includes a serving of our Soup du Jour, a demi-baguette and your choice of Caesar, Greek, Spinach or House Salad.

BUSHWAKKER EVENTS

Apr. 22 – 27: THE 26TH ANNUAL ALES OPEN. A record 800 entries from all across Canada will be judged in this year’s homebrewing competition. Approximately 100 volunteers will be working away all week in the Bushwakker basement clubroom.

Apr. 27: ANNUAL BUSHWAKKER BREWER’S DINNER – SOLD OUT! The signature event of The Bushwakker Brewpub! A four-course meal in which each dish utilizes a unique beer as an ingredient and is paired with a unique half pint of beer  to enhance the flavours of the food. This year’s fun and festive dinner theme will be MARDI GRAS! This is one of Chef Mike’s favourite culinary styles. 7:00 pm.

Apr. 29: Monday Night Jazz & Blues. BILLY HUGHES & THE INSTIGATORS. Veteran Regina bluesman recently resurrected his rockin’ blues band and is back for an encore performance! 8:00 PM.

May 1: MONTHLY ALES MEETING. After a marathon week conducting one of the largest homebrewing competitions in the nation, the ALES Open, the club is back for a regular monthly meeting. New members are always welcome. This month’s presentation topic will be Malting Grains and the beer style spotlight will be on British Browns. Meetings are held in the Bushwakker basement clubroom at 8:00 PM.

May 1: Wednesday Night Folk. THE NEW CURRICULUM. Manitoba folk trio makes their Bushwakker debut. 8:00 PM.

May 3: FIRST FIRKIN FRIDAY. A decades-old Bushwakker tradition! A piper from the Regina Police Services Pipes & Drums leads a keg of special brew in a procession throughout the brewpub. A guest volunteer is selected to wield the handmade wooden maul affectionately referred to as “The Mighty Firkin Wakker,” and attempt to tap the firkin in one mighty blow. Hophead rejoice! This month’s firkin offering will be a Fuggle’s Dry-Hopped Premium Pale Ale. The delicious suds-soaking experience takes place at 5:30 PM.

May 6: Monday Night Jazz & Blues. THE MINISTRY OF GROOVE. Large act with fine horn section delivers great 1970’s jazz, funk and more! 8:00 PM.

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

May 11: BIG BREW DAY. The ALES Club and the Bushwakker Brewpub continue this longstanding tradition of celebrating craft beer at the grassroots level. Members of the club join Bushwakker head brewer, Michael Gaetz, and assistant brewer, Bradley Dalrymple, in brewing a special high gravity Belgian Quadrupel!

May 13: Monday Night Jazz & Blues. KEITH BOMPHRAY & FRIENDS. Great jazz standards receive a few fun twists from this talented trio. 8:00 PM.

May 15: Wednesday Night Folk. RON LOOS. Talented guitar plucker with an off-centred sense of humour. 8:00 PM.

May 16: SCIENCE PUB – International Year of the Periodic Table! Don’t miss the final installment of the wildly popular Science Pub Series’ seventh 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. Brian Sterenberg from the Department of Chemistry and Biochemistry at the University of Regina.

May 17- 20: MAY LONG WEEKEND KEG EVENT. What better way to celebrate the year’s first warm long weekend than with a Bushwakker keg? Receive free ice, cups, coasters and the use of a keg chiller tub with any May long weekend keg order. Four sizes of kegs are available for any gathering big or small.

May 18: ANNUAL SCREAMIN’ MOSQUITO CHILI BEER RELEASE. Our hot pepper-infused blonde ale makes its annual return this weekend. We have partnered with local businessman Tony Matharu at the India Food Centre in Regina to provide us with fresh spicy peppers. Hurts so good!

May 18: THE POET LAUREATE’S 4TH ANNUAL POETRY & A PINT PRESENTATION. The Saskatchewan Poet Laureate Program was the first  provincial program of its kind in Canada. The Saskatchewan Arts Board,  Saskatchewan Book Awards, and the Saskatchewan Writers’ Guild are partners in the program, which is under the patronage of the Lieutenant Governor. Enjoy a Saturday afternoon of poetry readings from some of Regina and area’s established and up-and-coming writers including: Bruce Rice (Poet Laureate of Saskatchewan), Carol Rose GoldenEagle, Judith Krause, Medrie Purdham, James Trettwer and Michael Trussler. Perhaps enjoy a slice of our special limited edition Saskatoon Berry Cheesecake Poetry Dessert! 3:00 PM.

May 20: Open from noon to nine on Victoria Day.

Much thanks to Yorkton photographer and visual artist, Chellan Barsi, who recently created this image of the Bushwakker front doors and Strathdee Building.

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2018 Consumer Beer Sales Analysis

BY:  JIM DYKSTRA

As we hop forward into 2019, the North American craft market continues to refine in interesting ways. We’re seeing more niche, focused consolidations and strategic partnerships, along with the development of new avenues into craft markets, including alcoholic versions of functionally-minded drinks like kombucha, and non-alcoholic beers — some infused with THC and CBD, some of the main active ingredients in cannabis.

The convergence of these craft products is the result of an increasingly health-minded public, and a sign of things to come. With that in mind, you can expect to see a few changes on the shelves this year.

First up is “hard kombucha,” which has caught the interest of major brewers, both craft and macro.

The Boston Beer Co. is working on Tura, a 4 percent ABV kombucha brand to be released later this year, and Full Sail is already on the market with its Kyla Kombucha line of products. The West Coast, which originally introduced kombucha to the mainstream, also boasts regional hard kombucha brands including Flying Embers, a startup from the founder of the successful Kevita line of kombuchas. Sierra Nevada is rumored to be eyeing hard kombucha’s potential as well.

On the macro end, ZX Ventures, the self-described “global incubator, operator, and venture capital team backed by Anheuser-Busch InBev” is now funding the recently overhauled Kombrewcha, which will debut is higher-ABV (from 3.2 to 4.4 percent), freshly packaged line in March.

Kombrewcha was co-founded by Honest Tea’s wonderfully named co-creator Barry Nalebuff as a non-alcoholic brand in 2013 and has been circulating its alcoholic version for the past couple years. Now with increased funding and distribution and its new design aimed at the 28- to 45-year-old female demographic, expansion is imminent, and other brewers will be sure to follow in this brand’s footsteps. Look for it to begin impacting the IRI top brands’ numbers in the coming year.

Canned Cannabis: Speaking of new inroads to the craft market, 2019 looks to be the year where the evolving cannabis and craft brewing industries intersect in earnest.

If you’re not familiar with the company Cannabiniers, you likely soon will be. The makers of Two Roots CBD- and THC-infused non-alcoholic craft beers recently signed multiple letters of intent to acquire breweries distributed across North America, including a “top-20 privately held brewery based in California” and a “top-40 privately held brewery on the East Coast”, according to this report.

This is big time – the company’s stated goal is to reach 500,000 bbls of brewing capacity, which would place it among the ranks of the largest brewers in the United States. Similar to the effect craft beer’s popularity had on loosening the reins of restrictive legislation, this move could be a major jolt to the nation in terms of cannabis sales and regulation.

In a world where all 50 states have legalized cannabis sales, we could be looking at the seed of the AB InBev of cannabis.

Consider also that Blue Moon inventor Keith Villa has jumped all-in to the non-alcoholic CBD-infused beer market with his new company Ceria Beverages, and we begin to get an image of where craft beverages are headed.

For the consumer, this means an exciting new mode of experiential drinking, if you’re open to it.

Last up is the burgeoning non-alcoholic craft brewing market in America. In 2017, people spent over $100 million on NA beer. Within those sales, almost half of that amount of was comprised of O’Douls and Busch NA sales. Obviously, the same logic applied to the craft movement (emphasis on quality) is now being applied to non-alcoholic offerings. If you’re going to forsake the buzz, why not at least enjoy the flavor?

To this end, there are now multiple non-alcoholic craft brewers in the U.S. Connecticut boasts Athletic Brewing Co., California has Surreal Brewing Co., and Missouri has Wellbeing Brewing, offering both year-round selections and seasonal releases.

As consumers, investors or brewers, what we may find absurd today is often the beginning of something big. Keep an eye out for these trending segments this year as well as an open mind. On to the numbers.

TIME OUT

I was sitting in the waiting room for my first appointment with a new dentist. I noticed his diploma on the wall, which bore his full name. Suddenly, I remembered a tall, handsome, dark-haired boy with the same name had been in my high school class some 30-odd years ago. Could he be the same guy that I had a secret crush on, way back then? Upon seeing him, however, I quickly discarded any such thought. This balding, gray-haired man with the deeply lined face was way too old to have been my classmate. After he examined my teeth, I asked him if he had attended Northmont high school.
“Yes. Yes, I did. I’m a thunderbolt,” he gleamed with pride.
“When did you graduate?” I asked.
He answered, “In 1975. Why do you ask?”
“You were in my class!” I exclaimed.
He looked at me closely. Then, that ugly, old, bald, wrinkled faced, fat-ass, gray-haired, decrepit son-of-a-bitch asked, “What did you teach?”

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