Greg is joined by Doug, our head brewer, to walk through the ingredients we use in our beers. They go in depth into sourcing the best possible ingredients, and our focus on partnering with Canadian producers to create beer that truly couldn't be brewed anywhere else in the world.
Greg and Doug do a tasting of the 2019 vintage of Measure of Patience, the first beer ever released from our barrel rooms! This beer has been cellaring for 6 years—watch along as they describe the flavours the beer retained and added through the cellaring process. Wait until the end for their verdict of whether this beer is at its peak, or whether you should continue to cellar it.
We're honoured to have been awarded three golds for the second year in a row at one of Europe's biggest beer competitions! Spontaneous Manifesto 2023, Fruitful Pursuits: Cherry 2023, and Substantially Complete 2023 were all judged to be gold standard by a demanding panel of judges from across Europe.
Head Brewer Doug joins Greg to taste Fruitful Pursuits: Shiro Plum as it is released.
Fruitful Pursuits Shiro Plum 2023 is a blend of Mixed Fermentation barrels refermented on Shiro Plums. This unique variety originated in Japan and was grown in the Okanagan. This harvest was supplied by Steve & Dan’s Fresh BC Fruit. The blend of 1 & 2 year barrels spent 2 months refermenting with hundreds of kilograms of Shiro plums. The plums add subtle spice, floral, candy and fresh flavours and aromas. It brings delicate texture with a velvety tannin structure that lightly coats the palate, complimented by the tart, juicy acidity balancing the blend.
Head Brewer Doug joins Greg to taste Fruitful Pursuits: Peach as it is released. This Spontaneous & Mixed Fermentation blend is refermented on organic Angela peaches, chosen specifically for our beer by Steve & Dan’s Fresh BC Fruit.
This blend of 1, 2, 3 & 4 year barrels refermented on the peaches for 2 months. The concentrated peach aromatics and subtle herbaceousness evoke characteristics of classic white wines, complemented by a texture that is reminiscent of fuzzy peach skins. The bright acidity enhances the juiciness of the fruit and light tannin.
Head Brewer Doug joins Greg to taste Fruitful Pursuits: Cherry as it is released. This Spontaneous Fermentation blend is refermented on Okanagan sour cherries.
This cherry variety of unknown heritage was supplied by Steve & Dan’s Fresh BC Fruit. The blend of 1, 2, & 3 year barrels refermented for 2 months on hundreds of kilograms of whole cherries, which showcases the full spectrum of character from the fruit and pits. The result is a stunning, ruby red colour, with pronounced baking spice and marzipan flavour, and a rich, coating texture and acidity.
We are celebrating the release of the 2023 vintage of Substantially Complete by doing a vertical tasting of the all three vintages of our quintessential mixed fermentation blend. Watch as Greg and Doug discuss what makes each beer unique, and the effect of age upon these beers.
Want to do your own vertical tasting? We released a very limited quantity of tasting boxes on our shop. Shop the Tasting Box →
In total, Blind Enthusiasm Brewing Company received 15 awards/medals in 2024.
We want to let you know some significant news regarding our restaurant Biera, and Blind Enthusiasm’s Market Brewery; we are closing both businesses at the end of December 2024.
We’ve had an amazing run for the last seven and a half years. However, due to changes to market conditions, we feel the restaurant is in need of a revamp, but we’re not going to be the ones to do it. Our goal is to find a worthy successor with fresh ideas and energy that will continue to serve customers in the existing space.
Until closing, Biera will remain open on weekends for bunch and happy hour, and for dinners six days a week. Biera will be closed for weekday lunches after Friday, November 8th. With respect to our other businesses, our taproom, the Monolith, will continue operations as is. This change will allow us to put a greater focus on its unique brewing program, expanding our current operations with new offerings, including additional tour options and launching a direct to consumer sales business to better serve our customers. The Biera Market will operate until the end of December, close briefly in the new year, and will re-emerge as a new business in the same location selling many of the products it currently offers. We’ll be making an exciting announcement about this early in the new year.
With regard to events hosted in the Barrel Room, we will be proceeding with our currently booked private events until February 15th, 2025. For anyone that has an event booked after that time, we will be reaching out to you directly in the next few days and providing full refunds of any deposits.
We’re proud of the successes Biera and the Blind Enthusiasm Market brewery achieved. Even with the critical acclaim for our food and beer, we are most proud of all the guests we served over the years, and all the people we entertained in our event space. We hope we helped create some special memories for you and your friends and families. Special thanks to all the support of our neighbours in Hazeldean, King Edward, Mill Creek and especially Ritchie.
Finally, we’d like to thank our amazing staff. We’ve had the opportunity to work with so many wonderful people over the years and we are proud to see how much you have grown. We appreciate everything you’ve done for us and the passion you all brought to your roles.
One last reminder that even as this chapter closes, Blind Enthusiasm is not gone. We hope you will continue to visit us at our taproom, the Monolith, and the newly imagined Biera Market space.
Thank you.
Greg Zeschuk
Owner, Blind Enthusiasm Brewing Company & Biera
If you have media or leasing inquires, please reach out to contact@blindenthusiasm.ca
Sign up for our newsletter to stay up to date.
Book a reservation at Biera.
Learn about our brewery
The beers from our brewery, the Monolith, come with a recommendation that they can be cellared for 10 years. It’s fair to say that we were conservative when we made that estimate and based on the evaluation of the 5 year old beers in our cellar at the time of this writing it’s looking really good they will last much longer. A little known secret is that we’ve kept and faithfully cellared hundreds of bottles of every one of our prior releases for eventual release. This will be taking place at the 5 year point, which is just around the corner for the 2019 releases. We’ve been tasting these and they’re progressing really well; we can’t wait until those of you that missed our original releases years ago get a chance to try these special beers.
So why do our beers last so long in the cellar? There are a few factors that come into play that promote successful long term cellaring, and some of these are quite similar to fine wines. In terms of wine, people talk about the “structure” of the wine being suitable for aging. These are things like levels of fruit, acidity, and tannin – all of these contribute to success when cellaring, Funny enough our beer has many of the same elements – fruit, acid, tannin and we’ve also got a live microbial culture in the bottle. Over time these microbes go into suspended animation but they’re still there and available to grab and oxygen or other interesting chemicals that might serve as food. The processes in the bottle over time are both biological and chemical, with reactions of various types taking place over time to slowly alter the beer.
Our beer’s suitability for long term cellaring also dictates our choice in vessel to hold our beer – we use a crown cap and a cork (like the Belgian Lambic beers) to provide two methods for closure during long term cellaring. If one type fails the other is a backup.
Also, glass is proven inert and acidic liquid like wine and our beers can last for decades in glass, but that’s not the case for cans. Research has shown that the plastic lining of cans deteriorate over time with acidic sources, like beer.
We’re trying to create a special experience with our beers and the ability to successfully cellar them for years is something we aspire to do for your long term enjoyment of everything we make.
Bottle conditioning is the act of adding a source of sugar to a beer before it’s bottled in order to have it develop carbonation in the bottle. Some people add additional yeast to the bottle along with the sugar to ensure carbonation but we only add sugar as our already existing microorganisms are happy, healthy, and looking for more sugar to create alcohol and CO2. The actual carbonation doesn’t take all that long (a couple months) but because of the complex range of microorganisms in our beer another full fermentation is triggered when we add the sugar.
