Four Winds surprised the hell out of everybody by announcing a pop-up to celebrate their 2nd anniversary, a mere 5 days beforehand. Just check out the Instagram reaction:

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Four Winds’ limited bottle releases have consistently sold out fast and furiously. If there was one BC brewery that inspires the madness of crowds, it would be Four Winds. (Driftwood would be up there too.) The guys are the nicest, and this down-to-earth quality was reflected in how we were treated last night. I had a great time and I didn’t want it to end.

Portable joy box.

This space at 337 East Hastings has been hosting pop-up events for the past few months, including Friday burger ‘n beer nights by Local Omnivore. This space will become Dixies, a central Texas BBQ joint (more info here).

I consider myself semi-sorta-up-to-date on current beer happenings around town, but even I was surprised and delighted at the new and limited beers they had on offer. Their Berliner Weisse just got released in 4-packs last week but they chose to do not one, but two variations of it! One with rhubarb and one with passionfruit. Sadly, I could not drink everything 🙁

NOTE: they didn’t actually have the Roggen Dinkel for some reason.

If I didn’t have Hawkers Market to go to afterwards, I would’ve ate this entire menu.

Yes, there was a lineup about 50+ people deep once 5:00pm rolled around and they started letting people in. They did a pretty organized setup to deal with what could’ve been chaos. There was one lineup to order and pay for your drink tickets and food, and another lineup to exchange your tickets for beer.

Everyone seemed to be patient and enjoying themselves. Really calm, positive vibe. Food service was fairly prompt, and any issues were dealt with in a calm, respectful, apologetic manner. Kudos!

Pouring the Organic Rhubarb Hibiscus Lacto Soda. By “lacto”, I think they mean lactobacillus, not lactose as in milk stout. I think this was just a one-time soda pop experiment. It was amazingtastic though! But because it used lactobacillus, there was a chance that it had some alcohol in it. They said probably between 0.5 – 1%.

First round: Tahoma and Fir Tip Brown Ale (cask), Salt & Pepper Gose, and Organic Rhubarb Hibiscus Lacto Soda.

The overall effect of the brown ale was like drinking a roasty evergreen forest. I quite enjoyed the aromas and flavours. Our tablemates weren’t too keen on it, although I didn’t see them stop drinking it. Carbonation and mouthfeel very cask-like. Made me realize that I miss going to cask festivals. Lots of “green”, fresh forest, woodsy character.

The gose was tart, effervescent, with a great prototypical Belgian yeastiness. I didn’t get much pepper, but maybe a hint of salinity. Very enjoyable. Tablemate said “sausage”. This is the SECOND time some has mentioned sausage as a beer tasting note.

The soda was great. Sweet, floral, tart. It had a bit of a sweet Chinese fermented rice liquor quality on the nose.

Smoked Black Cod Fritters with a ranch-type dip. Crunchy, oily, great with the beer. Bit too much batter in proportion to fish, but black cod is expensive, and smoked black cod even more so, so it’s completely fair seeing as this was only $5.

Precious piece of smoked black cod. Yummmmmmmmmm.

The serving plates were actually frisbees! That we could take home! At least I think we could take them home 😉

 

Busy but not too crowded.

Things got a little blurry.

Second round: Calamansi Witbier and La Maison Grissette. I didn’t get much calamansi in the witbier, but it was otherwise ok. The grissette though was a revelation. Four Winds announced it 3 months ago but I only got around to trying it now. It’s only 4% and 20 IBUs but the aromatic quality and the floral spiciness on the tongue was my ideal sessional beer that still has plenty of flavour and body. A touch of funk. Dry. Delicious!! Well deserving of a growler fill or three.

Four Winds x Rain or Shine Ice Cream Sandwich. Sovereign Super Saison ice cream inside two snickerdoodles. Good to try but did have some deficiencies:

Where’d the ice cream go?? I wanted double, maybe even triple the amount of ice cream, and it needed to be set firmer. The flavour of the cookie might’ve masked whatever subtle saison quality the ice cream might’ve had, but I give them full props for trying. But if Rain or Shine had this ice cream at their shop, I’d certainly buy a big cup and retreat to the corner.

Congratulations to Four Winds and thanks for the good times!