Your intrepid liquor reporter was not always the unrepentant beer snob that he is today. No, gentle reader, in the bygone days of youth, your humble narrator’s favourite beer quality was low price, with taste coming a distant second.
This was long ago, when mullets roamed the earth with impunity, and Red Deer’s famed Drummond Brewing made the cheapest draught beer in the province. In those halcyon days of yore, I would stick a straw directly into the pitcher and gulp the fizzy yellow liquid without the benefits of a glass.
In the fullness of time, I grew to manhood, giving up those fratboy pastimes of chugging straight from the pitcher, and developed a discerning palate that would not tolerate mediocrity in my tipples.
While Alberta has long been a hotbed of beer snobbery, with the hipsters and lumbersexuals giddy at the idea of paying $20 for a single bottle of sour Flemish lambic, the recent economic downturn has brought a surging demand for cheap beer.
Seeing all the buck-a-can specials at my friendly neighbourhood booze merchants reminds me of all those youthful indiscretions, calling out to me like my long-lost MC Hammer parachute pants.
Naturally, your long-suffering liquor columnist would prefer that you, the gentle reader, consumed nothing but small-batch craft beer. However, in the spirit of harm reduction, if your purchase decision is driven by price, I will outline the best of the worst for your imbibing pleasure.
There are not many ways to reduce the price of a beer. The only ingredients are water, barley, hops, and yeast. Since a can of beer is a standard size, the brewer can’t really scrimp on the water.
Mainstream beers are generally 5% ABV, so it’s hard to scrimp on the yeast if they want to hit a consistent alcohol level.
That only leaves barley and hops, which is why the buck-a-can bargain beers all tend to be pale insipid lagers, as they are made with much less malted barley and fewer hops than your average beer.
Some brewers bring the price of the raw ingredients down even lower by substituting rice or other cereals for barley.
One of the first bargain beers on the Alberta scene came to us courtesy of the Co-op Liquor stores, who wanted their own house beer called Alberta Genuine Draft. Calgary’s own Big Rock Brewery answered the call, and has been producing AGD for the Co-op stores for many years.
Interestingly, Big Rock also produces Bow Valley Lager, and even President’s Choice Beers, which are sold exclusively at the Real Canadian Liquor Store outlets.
Big Rock certainly doesn’t go out of their way to let anyone know that they produce these value-oriented beers, and you won’t find the Big Rock logo anywhere on the can. Still, if you’re looking for a cheap beer, you could do worse than these ones.
From the megabreweries, we find Lucky Lager, which first hit the market in San Francisco way back in 1934.
Over the decades, the Lucky Lager brand changed hands many times, and is now produced in Edmonton’s Labatt brewery for the Canadian market, with additional production handled by Pabst Brewing in California for the Yankee market.
While marketed as a budget beer, it’s hard to tell the difference between Lucky Lager and other full-fare macrobrews like Budweiser or Miller Lite, so if taste (or lack of taste) is not a concern, get lucky with a case of Lucky.
Looking towards the flat province to the east, Saskatoon’s own Great Western Brewing recently celebrated 27 years in business, and seems to operate in a near-mythical sweet spot between the discount and mainstream segments of the beer market.
Make no mistake, the Great Western Brewhouse Pilsner will never be mistaken for an Imperial Stout or Belgian Trippel, but can stand toe-to-toe with the mainstream lagers that sell for a higher price.
Perhaps it is their humble prairie roots, with the feel-good story of 16 former employees buying up a shuttered Carling O’Keefe brewery in Saskatoon, then learning the ins and outs of the beer business as they went along.
Regardless of the reason, Great Western Brewing is extremely popular in Saskatchewan, even edging the megabreweries out of the 2012 Grey Cup in Regina.
So, if beer snobbery is not for you, and you think a cheap beer is a good beer, give one of these a try.
