THE WAKKER WEEKLY

Issue #1492 – Posted on: 02-Sep-2019

BUSHWAKKER NEWS

NEWS FROM THE BREWERY! Head brewer, Michael Gaetz, reports our seasonally available GREAT NORTHERN GRAPEFRUIT RADLER, CHICO LIGHT SESSION IPA, CYCLONE BARLEY WINE, BUSHVAR CZECH PILS, SUMMER WHEAT and MOTHERWELL BARNSTORMER RED FIFE WITBIER are currently on tap. There are also batches of JOE’S FIRKIN SQUIRREL ALE, KAI’S MUNICH HELLES, RASPBERRY WHEAT, BREW & GOLD DORTMUNDER and GRANNY’S BITTER working their way through the brewery.

Our September Premium White Wine Feature is Whitehaven Sauvignon Blanc from New Zealand. The Premium Red Wine Feature is Traminer Pinot Noir from France. Both are $8.95 for a glass and $23.95 for a half litre.

Our GUEST TAP is currently pouring the ELDERFLOWER ALE from Saskatoon’s Paddock Wood Brewery.  This will be followed by Malty National’s CHOCOLATE LAVENDER STOUT, Black Bridge’s PINEAPPLE WHEATBURST and the POMEGRANATE PALE ALE from High Key Brewing.

THE BUSHWAKKER GOODNESS IS SPREADING!  ALL SIX REGINA SLGA stores are now offering a varied selection of Bushwakker beers in 650ml bottles. The Quance street SLGA store is also offering growler fills of our number one selling DUNGARVON IRISH RED ALE. Regina’s Urban Cellars east location and Metro Liquor also offer a selection of our bottled beers.

BUSHWAKKER EVENTS

Aug. 31, Sept. 1 & 2: LABOUR DAY LONG WEEKEND RIDER/BOMBER BURGER BATTLE.  We welcome our many Manitoba friends who make their annual pilgrimage to the Bushwakker and Mosaic stadium. This is also the only weekend of the year where you can choose from either our Winnipeg Burger & a Pint feature or our Saskatchewan Burger & a Pint feature. History has shown that the burger which sells the best prior to the game is a strong indicator as to which team will win the Labour Day Classic! May the best burger win!

Sept. 1: THE LABOUR DAY CLASSIC: OPEN AT 11:00 AM. Can Team Green produce yet another Labour Day Classic win this year? Join the Sea of Green at the Bushwakker for our Saskatchewan Burger & a Pint or a Winnipeg Burger & a Pint feature and to discuss the probable outcome before the 1:00 PM kick-off. Meet “Back at the Bush” to conduct your post-game analysis.

Sept. 2: OPEN LABOUR DAY MONDAY.

Sept. 4: ALES CLUB MONTHLY MEETING. After a two month summer break, one of North America’s top ranked homebrewing clubs is set to reconvene for another brewing season. The September meeting is historically the largest meeting of the year. If you are interested in getting into the art of home brewing or would like to improve your skills, come to the Bushwakker basement clubroom at 8:00 PM and discover what the ALES Club can offer you.

Sept. 4: Wednesday Night Folk. DORIAN MICHAEL. Blues and fingerstyle guitarist from California brings us a special treat for the ears. 8:00 PM.

Sept. 6: FIRST FIRKIN FRIDAY SPECIAL EDITION. We pay tribute to the late JOE FAFARD with the release of a special commemorative brew and limited edition bottle release created in his honour. Joe was a renowned Canadian visual artist, Order of Canada recipient and designer of the Bushwakker/Fafard logo which adorns our t-shirts, beer labels, glassware and is also found on the outside of the building near our front door. After much consultation with Joe’s immediate family, we identified some symbolic ingredients found on his family’s farm which were incorporated into this English Pale Ale. Honey from his wife’s bee hives and hand-picked dandelion leaves near his creek all play a role in this most unusual, yet very balanced and approachable ale. The pomp and circumstance of this longstanding Bushwakker monthly tradition will be altered somewhat this month as an accordion player will pay tribute to Joe’s Métis roots and will lead a small keg (the firkin) of JOE’S FIRKIN SQUIRREL ALE throughout the pub in a procession. A guest volunteer tapper has been selected to wield the handmade wooden maul affectionately named, The Mighty Firkin Wakker, and attempt to tap the keg in one swift blow! The suds-soaking spectacular takes place at 5:30 PM. The limited edition bottles will be made available after the firkin is tapped.

Sept. 9: Monday Night Jazz & Blues. ‘ROUND MIDNIGHT.  Great jazz standards and adult contemporary tunes from this veteran Regina band. 8:00 PM.

Sept. 11: Wednesday Night Folk. THE ACCOMPLICE. Innovative one-man band delivers Grammy recognizable rock songs. 8:00 PM.

Sept. 14: SASK VS MONTREAL. Kickoff is at 5:00 PM. Enjoy our gourmet MONTREAL BURGER & A PINT game day special for only $19.95. Come “devour” the competition!

Sept. 16: Monday Night Jazz & Blues. THE JAZZ BAND – ITS. Enjoy big band, jazz and swing from the largest band to ever grace the Bushwakker stage. 8:00 PM.

Sept. 18: Wednesday Night Folk. JITENSHA. Upbeat indie folk rock duo from Montreal makes their Bushwakker debut. 8:00 PM.

Sept. 19: NEWLY EXPANDED!!! HEALTH SCIENCE PUB – Why We Fall for Fake News (and other B.S.) Presented by the Integrated Health Research Cluster. Our wildly popular Science Pub Series has returned for an eighth incredible season! To meet the growing demand we have doubled our viewing capacity by including our basement clubroom as a satellite room to view the lecture with the aid of a very large TV, Skype and a dedicated WiFi line. Enjoy lectures on scientific topics of general interest in both our Arizona Room (main floor banquet room) and basement clubroom over fine craft beer and award-winning pub cuisine. The main floor room opens at 5:00 PM and once it reaches capacity the basement clubroom will then open. 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. Gordon Pennycook, Business Administration, University of Regina.

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What is Real Ale?

By: Owen Ogletree

In traditional pubs in the U.K., patrons stroll up to the bar to select a beer. Along with offerings in bottles and cans, pubs will pour a range of draft lagers and ales. Most fine pubs will also showcase a row of peculiar, elongated, vertical tap handles that resemble billy clubs. These require the bartender to use a bit of muscle to pump the handle a couple of times to suction beer from the cellar up to the pint glass. These “hand-pulled” beers display colorful pump clip labels featuring eccentric names and artwork, and the unfiltered beer pours from a gooseneck spout with a soft, light CO2 sparkle. This quirky, historic English product is known as “real ale” or “cask ale.”

Fizzy draft or keg beer is filtered and pumped full of pressurized carbon dioxide gas, but real ale breweries in the U.K. usually put unfiltered, uncarbonated ale into 10.8-gallon metal casks called “firkins.” A hint of fermentable sugar and live yeast is included in the sealed firkin. Like a bottle of homebrew, the yeast consumes the residual sugar over a few days, producing a natural, subtle carbonation in the cask ale – making real ale a living product.

When the cask arrives at the pub, the cellar person places it in “stillage” position in the cool cellar. A cask in stillage is left horizontal and motionless for a couple of days, allowing the yeast to settle to the bottom and the beer to clarify. English casks are built with a “keystone” serving hole on one end and a larger opening in the center of the cask known as the “shive.” Plastic or wooden shive and keystone bungs get hammered into both openings to seal up the cask ale. Before serving, the cellar person hammers a small wooden peg or “spile” into a depression in the shive bung to monitor the level of CO2 in the ale. Lively casks are allowed to bubble and vent through the wooden spile for a few minutes or hours until the real ale achieves the perfect level of delicate carbonation.

Despite persistent myths, English cask ale should never be served flat or warm. Pubs that respect real ale and take proper care of the product serve it at a cool, pleasant cellar temperature of 50-55 degrees F, and knowledgeable bartenders taste the beer at least twice a day to check its condition. Gentle carbonation, elegant fruity esters from cask-conditioning, and serving at cellar temperature make for a flavorful and satisfying pint of real ale.

Time travel back to England in the 1970s and real ale appeared to be on the brink of extinction. Large beer manufacturers purchased scores of smaller breweries, and extensive consolidation was the norm. Deciding that real ale was just too much of a bother, the national breweries began to produce and promote a range of bland, fizzy, heavily filtered, watery ales and lagers that were served on draft throughout the U.K. A small group of real ale aficionados finally had enough and formed the organization now known as the Campaign for Real Ale (CAMRA).

Widely considered one of the most successful and influential consumer groups in Europe, CAMRA invented the term “real ale” for cask-conditioned beer and demanded that traditional English cask ale return to pubs. After many years of crusading for promotion, publicity and consumer pressure, the big breweries acquiesced, and real ale experienced a triumphant resurgence that’s still going on today.

CAMRA may have started out with a group of discontented friends in a pub, but today the powerful organization boasts almost 200,000 members. Over the years, CAMRA has succeeded in lowering beer taxes in the U.K., pushing through pub-friendly legislation and introducing new generations to the joys of real ale. CAMRA cask ale festivals take place year-round across the U.K., and the organization’s flagship event is the massive Great British Beer Festival that’s held each year in London with hundreds of cask ales and ciders on offer.

Hundreds of years ago, beers across Europe were mostly served in methods similar to cask ale, but England ranks as the only country that continues this idiosyncratic process. Despite its historic roots, real ale continues to evolve. In the first half of the 1900s, sessionable mild ales, English bitters, dark porters and the occasional malty old ale constituted the basic range of real ales available in most U.K. pubs. These days, real ale drinkers are blessed with choices ranging from golden ales with American hops, pale ales, fruit beers, sour ales, stouts, barleywines and even a few hazy/juicy IPAs. Many folks in the U.K. consider modern cask ale as the ultimate form of craft beer.

TIME OUT

The local Priest entered his donkey in a race and it won.  He was so pleased with the donkey that he entered it in the next race and it won again.
The local paper read: PASTOR’S ASS OUT FRONT
The Bishop was so upset with this kind of publicity that he ordered the Priest not to enter the donkey in another race.
The next day the local paper headline read: BISHOP SCRATCHES PASTOR’S ASS.
This was too much for the Bishop so he ordered the Priest to get rid of the donkey.
The Priest decided to give it to a Nun in a nearby convent.
The local paper, hearing of the news, posted the following headline the next day: NUN NOW HAS BEST ASS IN TOWN
The Bishop fainted…. he informed the Nun that she would have to get rid of the donkey, so she sold it to a local farmer for $20.
The next day the paper read: NUN SELLS ASS FOR $20
This was too much for the Bishop so he ordered the Nun to buy back the donkey and lead it to the plains where it could run wild.
The next day the headlines read: NUN ANNOUNCES HER ASS IS WILD AND FREE
The Bishop had a heart attack and was buried the next day.
The moral of the story is:  Being concerned about public opinion can
bring you much grief and misery… even shorten your life.  So be yourself, enjoy life, stop worrying about everyone else’s ass, and just cover your own… you’ll be a lot happier and live longer!

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