{"id":6659,"date":"2008-10-15T14:06:37","date_gmt":"2008-10-15T21:06:37","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.bsbrewing.com\/blog\/?p=746"},"modified":"2008-10-15T14:06:37","modified_gmt":"2008-10-15T21:06:37","slug":"champagne-of-blogs-the-vancouver-beer-central-city-brewing","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.browbrew.com\/?p=6659","title":{"rendered":"Champagne of Blogs, The: Vancouver Beer: Central City Brewing"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p>Let me start by saying that &#8220;Central City&#8221; in the context of &#8220;Vancouver Beer&#8221; is a bit misleading. You see, <a href=\"http:\/\/www.centralcitybrewing.com\/\">Central City Brewing<\/a> is central to Vancouver&#8217;s suburb, Surrey, which is about a 45-minute train ride from downtown Vancouver. It&#8217;s also located in a giant shopping mall, about 200 yards across a busy parking lot from the train station. This brewery&#8217;s never going to be on a postcard, but it <em>is<\/em> worth writing home about. <\/p>\n<p><img src='http:\/\/www.bsbrewing.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2008\/10\/central-city-brewing-exterior.jpg' alt='Central City Brewing in Surrey, BC' \/><\/p>\n<p>Based on some forewarning (thanks again, Abe!), I knew this was going to be decent beer, and I wasn&#8217;t disappointed. I ordered a sampler tray, which was a tremendous value at $8 CDN for 8 6 oz. samples, if presented a little haphazardly tableside (I like my samples in light &gt; dark order).<\/p>\n<p><img src='http:\/\/www.bsbrewing.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2008\/10\/central-city-sampler.jpg' alt='Sampler of Beers from Central City Brewing' \/><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>Springboard Lager: I have been conditioned by many a brewpub to expect very little when it comes to a pale lager, which is usually on tap as a nod to the Miller Lite crowd. This was Miller Lite-colored (or, to use the Canadian, &#8220;coloured&#8221;), but with much more hoppy goodness and even a little malt note. Very nice.<\/li>\n<li>Iceberg Copper Bock: What a cool name for a kind of blah beer. Not as much hop as the Springboard, nor anything very distinguishing, but still very drinkable.<\/li>\n<li>Wally&#8217;s Wheat: This thing looked like someone had poured milk in it, it was so opaque and cloudy. It was also a bit effervescent for my liking, but had a nice herbally spice to it (they claim coriander and orange peel, but I swear there was rosemary there) that would make this a nice summer session.<\/li>\n<li>Red Racer Pale Ale: Have I mentioned yet how much better Central City is than <a href=\"http:\/\/www.bsbrewing.com\/blog\/?p=742\">Steamworks<\/a>? This beer washed all those bad beer memories away with its herbal hops and balanced bitterness. This was a very respectable NW Pale.<\/li>\n<li>Raspberry Wheat: I fear fruit beers that don&#8217;t come with Flemish on them. I&#8217;ve had too many overly-sweet alcopops designed to pander to &#8220;girl tastes.&#8221; This was no sissy beer, with very strong raspberry flavor and aroma, but with none of the candy sweet. Maybe a little too much flavor for a full pint, but I bet this would be an awesome mixer with a chocolate stout &#8230;<\/li>\n<li>Empire IPA: CAMRA called this the best BC beer of 2008, and while I haven&#8217;t tried more than a few, I can see why. This was a solid IPA with piney, resiny flavor, and even a bit of fruitiness (though that could be the Raspberry Wheat lingering). Might have caught a bit of butter in there someplace, too.<\/li>\n<li>Boomer&#8217;s Red Ale: Like the Bock, I&#8217;m not sure this lived up to its name. It had an odd cinnamon aroma that wasn&#8217;t bad, but the flavor was pretty bland and a little dry.<\/li>\n<li>________ Stout: I didn&#8217;t catch the name of the stout (the sampler was one of 2 that lacked a label), but I doubt I&#8217;d order it again. It might have been on cask (normally a plus in my book), but the flat-ish mouthfeel might also have been the result of a little too much oily oatmeal. There was a pretty strong smoke flavor there, too, so fans of Alaskan Smoked Porter might really like this beer, but it wasn&#8217;t really for me.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>We didn&#8217;t eat anything on our visit, but it seemed like a pretty busy kitchen and the environs would lead me to suspect they have a lot of &#8220;upscale bar favorites&#8221; on the menu. The decor was also fairly standard &#8220;upscale bar&#8221; in feel, and not someplace I&#8217;d relish hanging out at &#8230; a little suburban for a regular hangout, but I&#8217;d definitely return to fill a few growlers, especially for the Empire IPA or the Red Racer Pale. Heck, maybe even the Lager if I had a wild hair (or were in the midst of a heat wave). I forgot my growlers on this trip, but I was able to bring back a mixed six pack; Central City offers 12 oz. cans of their wheat, pale and lager!<\/p>\n<p><img src='http:\/\/www.bsbrewing.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2008\/10\/central-city-sportsbar.jpg' alt='Central City Brewing in Surrey is part sports bar, part nightclub' \/><\/p>\n<p>I&#8217;m not sure I&#8217;d make the trip out to Surrey again, as it was a pretty long trek out through not terribly scenic terrain. But if you do go, make sure you take your growlers, and make double-sure you arrive before 11 PM. In an odd nod to its mixed-use setting, Central City converts to a nightclub at 11 PM. If you look carefully, you can see a disco ball there between the projection screens.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/www.technorati.com\/cosmos\/search.html?sub=postcosm&amp;url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.bsbrewing.com%2Fblog%2F%3Fp%3D746\" title=\"other blogs commenting on this post\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/static.technorati.com\/images\/bubble.gif\" alt=\"Technorati talk bubble\" \/><\/a> <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>\tLet me start by saying that &#8220;Central City&#8221; in the context of &#8220;Vancouver Beer&#8221; is a bit misleading. You see, Central City Brewing is central to Vancouver&#8217;s suburb, Surrey, which is about a 45-minute train ride from downtow&#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":79,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-6659","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.browbrew.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6659","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.browbrew.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.browbrew.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.browbrew.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/79"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.browbrew.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=6659"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.browbrew.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6659\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.browbrew.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=6659"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.browbrew.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=6659"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.browbrew.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=6659"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}