Flagship February
The month of February is the unofficial month to show some love for the flagship beers out in the world of craft beer #FlagshipFebruary. Our beloved flagship beers, are the ones that have been with us since our early days, the ones we brew year round, and the ones you know and love! PINGO, WEEKEND WARRIOR, SWEATER WEATHER, MOUNTAIN HERO, SINISTER ROUGE, & RECKLESS ABANDON.
For the rest of February, we are offering 10% off all Flagship Beers - on tap and in cans. So come on out and enjoy the OGs!
Read on as we delve deeper into the background on how each of these six beers came about. It's also a chance to peruse the awesome photos that Erik Pinkerton Photography took for us!
PINGO PALE ALE
Pingo was 1 of 3 beers we were perfecting at home before opening the brewery. We re-brewed and tweaked the recipe nearly a dozen times at home before brewing it on our original 3 bbl brewhouse for the first time in 2015.
We’ve always loved this beer and it’s been a gateway into craft beer for many of our customers. It’s also one of our top sellers, in terms of volume.
Pingo is a great showcase of Amarillo hops, which we use in the whirlpool and dry hop additions, bringing those juicy tangerine flavours to the forefront. In the style of American Pale Ale it is crisp and refreshing with a great balance for drinkability.
FUN FACT - Did you know Pingo is named for the street we live on. That’s where it all started, in the basement on our homebrew system.
WEEKEND WARRIOR IPA
Maybe one of the biggest reasons we opened a brewery in the first place, was to brew some mighty fine IPAs. In 2014 when we were starting the brewery, the big hoppy hit at the time was Driftwood’s Fat Tug. Living in the Yukon, the quality of craft beer from OUTSIDE was (and still is for the most part) hit or miss. We wanted to recreate that crisp, bitter west coast vibe with our own IPA. So we worked on our homebrew recipe over and over again. Affectionately called IPA #1, #2, #3….#12.
We originally slated Citra hops for the dry hop, but it was so hard to get this sexy hop variety at the time, particularly as a new tiny brewery. So we kept it classic with some Cascade, Columbus and Centennial hops instead. We haven't changed much over the past 8 yrs, aside from simplifying the malt bill to 100% 2-row (i.e. no specialty grains).
It has literally been our go-to since we started this wild ride. Satisfyingly clean and crisp with a nice hit of citrus and floral hop flavours. It’s what we reach for most days after work or a day on the slopes, lakes, or trails.
FUN FACT - When naming this beer, it was the only 'Weekend Warrior' out there, as far as we could tell in our searches. Now you look on Untappd (a popular beer app) and there's too many to count. So hard to be original these days!
SWEATER WEATHER
Ok, so we couldn’t just brew all IPAs. We wanted to have some variety in our regular lineup. For us that meant having a dark beer on offer all year round! Enter, SWEATER WEATHER, our silky smooth and chocolatey Oatmeal Stout. This was another recipe that we worked on at home before opening the brewery.
It has a great following and has also turned out to be a gateway for many into craft beer. While we personally prefer more roasty, robust, strong stouts, we wanted this year-round offering to be approachable and great for any weather.
FUN FACT - Some people mistake this name and think it’s ‘SWEETER’ weather!? If you’re one of those people, you’ve now been warned.
SINISTER ROUGE
First off, it’s 'Rouge' (en français) not 'Rogue' (like the famous brewery in Oregon). Believe us, it gets mispronounced regularly.
This is a beer we first brewed in August 2015 with our first employee, Matt (owner/founder/brewer of Deep Dark Wood Brewing). This is one of many recipes we collaborated on with him when he was at Winterlong.
It's a pretty badass beer, with a wicked red-amber colour, some tasty toffee and biscuity malt character and those oh so dank and tropical hop aromas. When we made the switch to cans and had Mary Binsted design all our beer labels, the sly fox was the perfect character for this beer.
There are a few iconic bars around Whitehorse that swear by Sinister Rouge on tap. The Gold Pan Saloon goes through it on heavy rotation, along with the Airport Chalet, who we can't seem to get enough of it to.
FUN FACT - As big Bad Religion fans we could not resist the temptation to name this beer Sinister Rouge, after the second song off ‘The Empire Strikes First’ album. Rock on!
RECKLESS ABANDON Double IPA
As serious hop heads, of course a Double IPA was something that had to be on our regular lineup. This was another doozy we worked on with Matt, at the time he was at Winterlong. Originally it was a Galaxy and Simcoe hop combo but has since switched to Citra and Simcoe.
The name Reckless Abandon was perfect for our DIPA, not only another punk song reference (à la Blink 182), but also the approach to hopping this beer. Not only that, after a few of these at 8.5% you can get a little reckless, which is NOT a good thing!
The audience for this beer has always been interesting, either it's your first taste of craft beer and it's so interesting you never look back, or you simply crave this dangerously smooth beer with a wicked tropical hop flavour.
FUN FACT - The name of the 'Reckless Raven' Yukon 50 Mile Ultra (now called the 'Raven 50') was inspired by this beer. We've since enjoyed sponsoring this event every summer. It's almost worth running this race to get the sweet co-branded beer glass at the end.
MOUNTAIN HERO SAISON
MOUNTAIN HERO joined the party a little later than our other regular beers. This brew started out as one of our 1st Anniversary beer releases, under a different name in 2016. We also served it at the 2016 Haines Beer Festival.
The reception was great for our first saison, and we were looking for something different (aka not an IPA) to add to our year-round lineup. It's been a hit ever since, not to mention an award-winning beer. We were stoked to win a Silver Medal at the CANADIAN BREWING AWARDS in 2017.
When developing the recipe, it was important to find the right yeast for the type of saison we wanted to make. Our recipe features the Old World Saison blend from Escparment Labs, which is actually a combo of two classic Saison strains, resulting in complex fruit and black pepper character. The grain bill is mostly continental Pilsner malt with a touch of Vienna and Wheat malt for added character. It's also hopped with Amarillo for bittering and aroma.
FUN FACT - Our Mountain Hero is named for the world-famous mountain bike trail on Montana Mountain in Carcross. The name for the trail came from the old mine site on the mountain. The label art that Mary Binsted designed is an ode to both biking and trail building tools as well as old mining tools. Shout out to the crew at Single Track to Success and the Carcross Tagish Management Corporation for making some epic, world-class trails. Consider donating to S2S if you enjoy the trails out that way!