Crawling Through Prince George
This past weekend I had the pleasure of partnering with Tourism Prince George to explore BC’s unofficial Northern capital and experience the Kiwanis Ale Fest Cask Crawl.
Kiwanis translates to “we share out talents” and it’s easy to see how that resonates with the Ale Fest and Cask Crawl. The Kiwanis Ale Fest has been an integral source for sharing and showcasing some of the best craft beer and breweries in Central and Northern British Columbia since 2015. The popularity of the fest just keeps growing each year and even with 3 tasting sessions throughout the weekend, they still consistently sell out. Even the Internet Famous Thirsty Explorer couldn’t get tickets! (<– please insert sarcasm while reading that last sentence).
Lucky for me, and anyone else that couldn’t get tickets, they also run the cask crawl throughout the city of Prince George. Each night (Friday & Saturday) 5 participating venues were tapping at least 1 cask ale from some of the breweries participating in the Ale Fest. So even if you couldn’t score tickets to the main event, you still got a chance to try some limited, one of a kind beer while exploring the city.
Here’s the cherry on top, you could also pick up a tasting passport at any of the participating venues and fill it with stamps each time you tried a different cask ale throughout the city. If you filled up your passport with at least 4 stamps, you had a chance to win tickets to next year’s Ale Fest as well as a BC Ale Trail prize basket.
Great beer and a chance to win prizes?! Count me in!
The Night of the Casks
Knowing that the casks were all changing on Saturday, I wanted to make sure I tried as many as I could on Friday night. So after landing in Prince George, taxiing to my hotel and dropping off my bags I headed straight out to start my Cask Crawl.
The first spot was Nancy O’s on 3rd ave. They were pouring the “Tahitian Vanilla Bean Brown Ale” from Deadfall Brewing. Which I later found out via their Instagram was actually brewed with Madagascar vanilla beans. Thanks to Brandon’s mom in-law for the correction. This was one of my favorite beers of the night. It uses their award winning brown ale as a base with vanilla beans added in for some sweetness.
I was also starving so I ordered the “Drunken BBQ” burger from their insanely impressive food menu. The sweet & spicy hits in the burger were so good! I feel like I need to go back to Prince George specifically to try more food from Nancy O’s.
Spot #2 was at Betulla Burning, literally right next door. If I knew I’d be going to a wood burning pizza kitchen I may have saved some room for more food. Betulla Burning was pouring the “Peaches Pale Ale” from Crossroads Brewing and it was delicious. Refreshing with lots of aroma but not too sweet.
Stop #3 was just over a kilometre (or 0.62 miles for my friends down south) away so I decided to hoof it and work off that burger and fries I wolfed down.
Although it’s a little bit outside the downtown core, Trench Brewing was bumping on a rainy Friday night. There was hardly an open seat in the house. Lucky for me, I was travelling solo so I cozied up on their comfy couches and compared tasting passports with a group that had just started their Cask Crawl. Trench was pouring the “Fruit Punch Sour” from Smithers Brewing and after comparing tasting notes with my fellow couch dwellers, we came to the conclusion that it tasted like a Fruit Punch Jolly Rancher. Which is my second favorite Jolly Rancher flavor next to Watermelon so, needless to say, I was a fan of this cask concoction.
Despite the downpour outside, I decided to walk back downtown to spot #4, The Black Clover Irish Pub, where they were pouring from two different casks. The first suds I sipped was the “Mr. G Black Cherry Screamer” from Wheelhouse Brewing. It was a mix of fruit, lactose and vanilla to replicate the taste of, you guessed it, a screamer, which urban legend says was invented in Prince George my Mr. G Convenience stores.
The second cask was the “Rum Raisin Red Ale” from Crossroads Brewing. I’m not a huge fan of rum raisin or red ales so this one wasn’t really for me but I did appreciate how they nailed the flavors.
The fifth and final stop for the night was at Crossroads Brewing, conveniently located next to my hotel, where they had tapped a cask of “Coastal Mountain Pilsner” from Sherwood Mountain Brewhouse. I’ll be honest, by this point in the night I probably wasn’t the most reliable judge of flavor profiles but I do remember enjoying that crispy cold one, sooooo, that says something, right?
Coffee and Claws
On Saturday I hauled myself out of bed early to to go for a wake-up walk and grab a cuppa from Ritual Coffeeworks. If you know me, you know I’m a bit of a coffee snob and I worried I wouldn’t be able to find quality small batch coffee in Prince George. Luckily Ritual was suggested to me by Alina from Tourism Prince George and their coffee was exactly what I was looking for (great cinnamon buns too). I was actually going to go back on Sunday to grab a bag of beans to bring home but, I snooze I lose, they were closed on Sundays.
Next up was a little adventure to get my snow steps in. I went back to my hotel room and threw on my knee brace tights, because I’m old and falling apart, and hopped in a U-Ride (the ride share of the north) to the Caledonia Nordic area for some snowshoeing.
The Nordic area was mobbed with cross-country skiers that morning as they had a big event happening over the weekend. Luckily, all the snowshoe trails were still open and they were actually very quiet because, I assume, most locals were avoiding the area due to the events. I had the trails all to myself and what a trail system they have!
It’s only $9 to use the snowshoe trails if you bring your own claws and with their seemingly endless trail system you could be there exploring the forest all day long. Unfortunately I didn’t have all day, I needed to get back in to town to shower up, grab some grub and practice my “let’s go boys!” cheer for another event in the evening.
World’s Best Beef Dip
Now, I understand that’s quite the claim, and it is a little bit click-baity but the beef dip I had for lunch at Trench Brewing was honestly one of the best I’ve eaten, and I’ve scarfed a lot of beef dips in my day. 6 hour smoked chuck flat on a pretzel baguette! My mouth is watering just thinking about it. The au jus could’ve been a little thicker but the sandwich itself was drool worthy and the rest of the menu sounds just as delicious. I washed this down with their new Cold IPA and also tried the new cask they had tapped for the Saturday Cask Crawl, the “Salted Blueberry Saison” from Two Peaks Brewing.
With a satiated appetite I hopped in a U-Ride to go check out Deadfall Brewing on the other side of town.
Deadfall has only been around since 2022 but have quickly been making a name for themselves by collecting some hardware for their trophy cabinet. They recently took home the overall champion award and the gold medal in the “American Style Brown Ale” category at the Canada Beer Cup for their “Basal” Brown Ale. They also won gold at last year’s BC Beer Awards for their Cold IPA. This is a lot for a relatively new brewery with a tiny tasting room in the corner of a strip mall. Don’t let that description fool you though, they have a very lively and welcoming tasting room with friendly staff, boardgames and local live music.
I wish I could’ve stayed longer but I had to make my way over to the barn to watch some beauties put biscuits in the basket…..
A Lopsided Barn Burner
If you ever want to check out the culture of a small town in Canada, go to a Junior A hockey game. That’s where all the locals come out to support their team and mingle together. I’m a huge hockey fan and I love the atmosphere at junior games because, for the most part, it’s all real hockey fans taking time out of their schedule and money out of their pocket to enjoy a game.
That night I was fortunate to score a ticket to watch the Prince George Spruce Kings take on the Salmon Arm Silverbacks. I won’t go in to too much detail about the game for a couple reasons; A) not a lot of people want to read a play-by-play of any sporting event and B) the Spruce Kings were on the wrong side of a lopsided barn burner (aka; they got worked). The final score was 6-0 for the visiting team, but I can give credit to the Spruce Kings for keeping it exciting and getting the home crowd in to it. They had some big hits, a bunch of on ice scuffles and even a couple tilts. This despite fighting being an automatic game misconduct in junior hockey. Although a bit somber because of the score, the home crowd stuck around til the end and cheered on their team whenever they got the chance. Gotta love small town hockey!
The game ended around 8:30 and by that time my unofficial world’s best beef dip had worn off. Now I started thinking about the wood fired pizzas I saw at Betulla Burning the night before so I took a walk back to 3rd ave.
Betulla Burning is definitely a more upscale pizza joint and had a pretty packed house on that Saturday night. So I plopped myself at the bar and ordered the Smoked Chicken and Apricot BBQ pizza (yes, an entire pizza to myself! So what?!) and coupled it with the cask ale of the night which was “The Winter Ram” from Three Ranges Brewing. It’s a take on their popular Amber Ale but with cinnamon, ginger, clove and cardamom added to give it some winter flavor. It was like drinking that smell of a Michael’s Craft Store around Christmas time, and that’s not a bad thing, I love Christmassy drinks.
So Long And Thanks For All The Pancakes
My final morning in Prince George was spent walking from my hotel to the Cottonwood Island Nature Park. About 8km from my hotel and back. In my opinion, a great way to spend a morning. The views of the sun peaking up across the frozen Fraser River were breathtaking to say the least. So much so that I had to remind myself to look down every so often and watch out for icy patches along the path.
After snapping a few photos and enjoying my morning coffee on a park bench I started heading back towards the hotel to go enjoy my final meal in Prince George, well, besides the bag of chips at the airport.
Opened in 2016, Crossroads Brewing is the OG of the modern craft breweries in Prince George. Their downtown location is housed in a building that’s almost 80 years old and was originally built as a car dealership and garage. Although, with the renovations they’ve done to the building, like adding a full kitchen with wood fire oven, you can’t really tell unless you pay attention to the details.
Speaking of the kitchen, they offer a full brunch menu on weekends and I wasn’t about to miss out on those Lemon Ricotta Pancakes with Berry Compote. In case you’re wondering, they were fabulous. Here’s another bonus about visiting Crossroads on a weekend morning, you can order a beer-mosa and not have to feel bad for drinking before noon! Beer with orange juice doesn’t count, right?
As I took the last bite of pancake and washed it down with hop OJ, my time in Prince George had officially come to an end. What a whirlwind weekend of delicious drinks, fantastic eats and some great northern exposure.
I have to send a big thanks to Tourism Prince George for making this weekend happen. I had never been this far north in BC and now I feel like I not only need to explore more of Prince George but check out other Northern towns in our wonderful province.
I also now need to investigate to see if the brewery food options in other northern BC towns are as good as Prince George. Is this something that the Northern areas have been hiding from us southerners?? To be continued……
As always, here are a few more photos I snapped while cruising around PG.
