Beer, Booze and Bars.

A7

Craig Pinhey

Stumble Upon

del.icio.us

Digg

Facebook

Print

Email

6 Comment(s)

While one could gainfully argue that all beer is Feel Good Beer, Northhampton Brewing Company, famous for their Picaroons brands, is pressing the point, partnering with Fredericton's Feels Good to release their newest beer, the appropriately named "Feels Good Imperial Pilsner." The label design will be selected from entries submitted by Feelsgood.ca members.

Enlarge Photo

FeelsGood.ca is a local (Fredericton) art group collective populated mainly by artists, writers and musicians. Northhampton is capitalizing on this resource by asking Feelsgood.ca members to compete to design the label for their new Pilsner. The intent is to build on the synergy between local artists and locally crafted beer, as part of the overall arts and culture scene in the Maritimes. This "craft beer/artist" link already exists, but projects like this will help fortify the relationship.

There are over 700 members of Feelsgood.ca, so organizers expected a veritable vat of entries by the June 21st deadline. "I am excited to get the whole art community behind this project, to strengthen the arts culture in the Maritimes," says Paul McAllister, co-founder of FeelsGood.

The winning entry will be announced July 1, and the new beer will be celebrated at the Picaroons Feels Good Folly Fest on August 29, which will feature a musical showcase of Maritime talent and the official release of the Feels Good Pilsner. If you are super keen to try it, there will be an advance tasting at the Feels Good Houseboat Party, June 29th-July 3rd. Feels Good is commandeering two houseboats on the Mactuaquac Head Pond for a party with live music, art, DJ's, food, drink and hot tubbing. For more info, go to feelsgood.ca.

FYI, an Imperial Pilsner is a strong, bitter lager. It is defined by the Beer Judge Certification Program as"¦hold on a second"¦it is not in their style guidelines at bjcp.org, which I consider the bible of beer styles! They have specs for 3 types of Pilsner and 4 types of Bock, which is THE quintessential strong lager. Imperial Pilsner is an American creation, so not surprisingly it is over the top in hops and alcohol. The one I've had is the Morimoto Imperial Pilsner from Oregon's Rogue, and it bore little resemblance to a classic Czech Pils, such as Urquell. Morimoto has 8.8% alcohol and is far from refreshing. Samuel Adams also makes one that is 8.8% alcohol.

I asked Sean Dunbar of Northampton about his recipe. "I don't want to spoil the fun, but we put it at about 7 per cent," explains Dunbar, "I still want it to be drinkable. Don't forget, this is our version of a pilsner made in an ale brewery." Whatever Picaroons comes up with for an Imperial Pilsner, I'll give it a try.

This is just one example of modern thinking from this small brewer. They are also launching their own social networking site at picaroonspub.com. As it says on the main page of the site: "This network was developed by Picaroons Brewing Company to talk about beer, make some new friends and have a few laughs!"

Craig Allen, a Saint Johner with oodles of interweb expertise, refers to it as "A social network/online pub for Picaroons fans to network, hear about events and talk beer on the web...sort of like their own beer branded Facebook." This site has just been launched, so the membership is small but mighty, but I can see the appeal and potential. I love Picaroons Bitter and I generally find that people who really "get" (as in grok) craft beer tend to like many of the same things that I like. Thus, I would get along better with them than the average person on the street, who would probably rather punch me than drink a beer with me. So I am attracted to picaroonspub.com. Of course it would be better if this site could allow me to tap beer directly from my iPhone, but that will come in time"¦is there an app for that?

Craig Pinhey practices social networking, but won't twitter, ever. Well, unless he's paid to twitter. Visit him at www.frogspad.ca.