Jul. 13, 2011 - Issue #821: The Beer Issue

Geek out

New beer club raising the profile of craft beer in Edmonton

While charcoal-coloured clouds wept down on a dismal Wednesday evening—the sort of weather that sweeps an evening's schedule clean in lieu of staying in and, thus, out of it—a warm, buzzing crowd trickled through the downpour to assemble in the cozy dim of Wünderbar Hofbrauhaus.
Bunched in loose circles of seating and conversation, some wore shirts emblazoned with brewers' logos while others were less visually beer-friendly though no less chatty—some, too, had probably just wandered in to get out of the rain, but found themselves intrigued into staying as a tall fellow in a classy golf hat detached himself from the crowd and took to the stage's microphone, welcoming the assembled crowd to the inaugural meeting of Edmonton Beer Geeks Anonymous.

"Beer Geeks is just a term that me and my friends adopted for ourselves, because we never really thought of anything else," explains Shane Groendahl, the hatted man, a few days after the event. "We're geeks at our dayjob, working at the university, so it's just a matter of extending that."
He estimates some 60 people wandered in and out of Wünderbar that night from all facets of the Edmonton beer community: home brewers, the various local breweries and other fellow imbibers committed to enjoying beers a little more unique than tapwater-thin lagers and mass-produced ales.
Groendahl's personal road to beer geekery brewed up over time: two years ago, he built up a beer cooler while working "at a fine wine store," and found himself with a bit of a following. He frequents cask nights and other hops-friendly events around town. Beer Geeks, his own evening of celebrating the nuances of craft beer, first came together in his backyard.

"We always would go down to the Sugarbowl and have a pint of something, and we always find time to go to the cask nights," he explains. "And then we decided this was getting a little expensive, so [we would] sit in my backyard. But then we realized we're not out in the community anymore, and that's something we wanted to maintain."

At the first Beer Geeks night, pints were poured of a beer previously unseen in Alberta, and which may never return again; after an "equalizer beer" whetted our palettes, we were introduced to the hops-heavy punch of Yukon Brewery's Double Trouble IPA. Pints of that, as well as any other beer were cheap all night, as conversation percolated around the room. Groendahl worked his way through every circle he could, and halfway through returned to the microphone to give some stats for the veteran geeks about the IPA, numbers involving specific brewing gravities, and the mix and types of hops and malts involved.

"As you progress as a beer geek—and this is what I did in the past few years—you start to get intrigued by these different things: what does that number mean?" Groendahl says. "What's the scale, or what are the different types of malts or hops, what do they do, how do they effect it? Once you start getting into that thing, you're basically doing what, in my mind, the brewer wants you to find out, especially in terms of craft beer: there's such care and attention taken to making these small batches of beer."

That trend, of rare craft beers finding their way into pint glasses around town, is one that Groendahl wants to continue with these monthly events, alongside guests. July's upcoming meeting (on the 27th) will feature an appearance from Jim Pettinger, owner of beer stronghold Sherbrooke Liquor, who will discuss craft beer and its state here in Edmonton.

Most of all, Groendahl wants Beer Geeks Anonymous to be accessible to anyone: if the numbers and conversations intrigue you down a path of deeper appreciation for craft brews, fantastic, but in the end he just wants to offer a night where people can discuss and enjoy beer in all its intriguing forms.
"I don't care if you regularly drink some cheap lager, I still want you out," he says. "I don't want to hold anything over anybody's head."
 

Next meeting: Wed, Jul 27 (7:30 pm)
Wünderbar Hofbrauhaus
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