It is odd how sometimes the Canadian drinks press fails to recognize the rather large neighbo(u)r to the south. In 2007, we learned through the Globe and Mail that pumpkin ales were "another classic" which deserved the revival that an Ontario brewery brought to the style even though there were 150 examples of the style in the US at the time. Today, we learn in the Toronto Star about of blueberry beer that New Brunswick's Greg Nash was inspired by his Nova Scotian home when he came up with the idea:
"I practically grew up in a blueberry field, so it was kind of a natural for me to do a blueberry beer," explains Nash, whose mother Raylene is a former head of the Nova Scotia Blueberry Growers Association. Nash grew up in Amherst, N.S., not too far from the town of Oxford, N.S., which bills itself as the wild blueberry capital of Canada. While there were already some fruit beers around, Nash noticed they tended mostly to use raspberries or cherries. "There really weren't any blueberry beers out there," Nash explains.
Like me, another central Nova Scotian, he also grew up next to New England and about six hours drive to Bar Harbor, Maine and its extremely well known Atlantic Brewing Blueberry Ale. Six hours drive, you might say. How the hell would he know about goings on in Maine? Well, the cable TV is all from Maine when you grow up in the Maritimes and the drive to the cousins in Boston is through Maine and long weekends twice a year for the normal family include going shopping in, you know, Maine. New Brunswickers are pouring over the border as you read this just to get the cheap brew. Heck, I once defended the honour of a nice girl when backpacking through Paris in 1986 by defending the honour of her home of Maine as Canada's other Maritime Province. Given all that, it would seem that anyone interested in brewing in the Maritimes in the first part of this decade could not have but spent a significant time in Maine and beyond sampling the beer - not to mention noticing all the brewing innovations we Canadians are, well, not particularly known for.
I introduced a pal to Atlantic Brewing Blueberry Ale's in 2000 or 2001 and the oldest review on Beer Advocate is from late 2001. Given the Pump House take could well be showing up around two years later... any chance that's where the inspiration really came from? I make no accusation in this other than to scratch my head at the cultural issues we seem to have sharing a continent with one of the most vibrant and innovative societies in the history of human kind and not expecting that there is cross-pollination. I always assume the influences are there.
Then again... Pump House has a beer called S.O.B. with a first review in 2006 just like Atlantic Brewing has had since at least 2002. Is there a branding side deal here that needs a bit of 'splainin'?
Comments
jesskidden - July 17, 2009 11:10 AM
Ah, but on the other hand, Canada doesn't get credit for first selling pre-mixed "beer + Clamato juice". Didn't Brick's Red Eye pre-date Anheuser-Busch's versions by many years? Was Brick's the original? Did any other Canadian brewers follow their lead?
Down here in the US, for some odd reason, tomato juice + beer is now thought of as a Mexican-influenced drink but I've always thought it came from the North- at least, in my case, I first tried it over 20 years ago after a suggestion by someone who'd picked up the habit in Canada . And in that time, I've probably gone through a good six-pack or two of Clamato- probably averaging one drink every two years or so...
Alan - July 17, 2009 12:25 PM
No so much as a bottled product but I was drinking that - called "two and juice" - at the Midtown in the early 80s. Gerry was the kind Saturday morning bartender who made many a Haligonian happier through his ministrations. In Halifax then the pattern of beer glass was using 2 eight ounce glasses as the unit of a beer purchase in an tavern. So "two and juice" was two eight ounce glasses with a small can of tomato juice. It was up to the customer to mix.
Vern - July 17, 2009 1:32 PM
The first Blueberry beer I had was one I made at Big River Brewing in Richmond BC (another Canadian locale surrounded by blueberries) in 1998. I doubt it had any influence on the Maritimers now making one though!
Alan - July 17, 2009 2:14 PM
To be very fair to Greg Nash, he would be entirely right to say there was none in the local market but that there were people out there with the idea already. I wonder if there is one in the Joy of Home brewing or other earlier texts that 1990s micros would have known about.