Quote:
Originally Posted by Bobblehead
I went to the Toolshed Brewery tour a couple weeks ago and was told that in Calgary the water is excellent for ales, but not good for lagers. The said Big Rock has to run their water through a reverse osmosis process to brew their lagers.
I'm not sure exactly WHY that is the case, but I can see that would be why smaller local brewers create ales.
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I remember being told on a Wild Rose Brewery tour a few years ago that lagers are generally more difficult to brew all around. More equipment required, less forgiving in terms of contaminants adding additional flavours & such.
Basically dark or heavily hopped ales can are more forgiving to brew as the stronger flavours will cover up some the minor flaws that'll be more apparent in lighter bodied lagers.
The brew master with Brewsters told us most commercial brewers actually have a ton of respect for the big guys like Bud/Molson/Labatt being to able to brew such large batches of lagers with such consistently. It's apparently not an easy thing to do.
But yeah, I'm not gagga over the current IPA craze either, much prefer a nice brown or amber ale myself.