You can feel the peculiar energy as you walk around pretty much anywhere in Squamish. It’s there downtown while your buying groceries and wafts around in Brackendale’s backwoods, you even get it up in Garibaldi Heights. It’s omnipresent, a feeling of electricity that you might attribute to the towering skyline, but it’s not all just mountains so close you could jog to them… It’s right in front of you: It’s a feeling of youthful exuberance!
Everyone here is so damn young! It’s like they politely asked everyone over the age of 60 to leave and sold all the houses to 30-something couples with four kids, no-one over 15% body fat, please. They are everywhere, jogging and mountain biking, opening yoga studios and breweries like Backcountry Brewing.
You feel the energy the moment you walk in and are greeted by the wildly grinning, moustachioed man with Celtic Frost patches all over his denim shorty-shorts. No barstools, lots of long tables and open space for kids to play in… Wait, kids? Yep, crawling all over the place while their parents sip kolsch and catch up with friends. Cool-looking Vancouverites in sun dresses smile over at muck-splattered mountain bikers. It’s a tad chaotic, but that beautiful energy propelled us ever forward!
John Folinsbee and his brewing team certainly have tapped into the energy! When we sat down there were 20+ beers available to order by the pint or add to a flight! This was a blinding array of beers for a couple ‘o newbies such as us, but we settled on a classic hodge-podge of styles and flavours for her and mine all IPAs.
Both flights were great with standouts:
We both loved Crystal’s “You Stop Laughing Right Meow” Mexican Purple Corn Lager. It was crisp and refreshing with a surprising amount warm corn flavour (not apparent until we tucked into some food) and a dreamy smooth finish. A prefect session beer to accompany fatty foods and warm afternoons. It was the one we walked away with!
Nearly as beloved was my “See You Space Cowboy” Hazy IPA. Juicy guava and citrus aroma with a big fuzzy body got me excited while the smooth finish and lights hops made Crystal take note. One of most crushable Hazy IPAs I’ve had in a long time!
Just behind that was another Hazy Ale named “Dale Dug a Hole” (I can’t emphasize enough how weird the beer names get) which won our hearts and minds with the same platform of rich tropical aromas, funky near-savoury notes in the body and really smooth, tannins-less finish.
We ordered our food right away, which was a good idea as the joint was filling up with the post-work crowd. It came in a flash! Literally minutes after ordering! In ‘dunno if we hit a fortunate pocket of kitchen inactivity or that’s just how this team rolls, either way respect the brigade for their speed and quality!
The pizza was the kind of super-thin crust that most breweries are pairing with these days, ie: funky re-imaginings of classic toppings and what my wife described as “trendy additions” like bacon jam, truffle oil, gochujang etc. It was perfectly prepared and blistered on the edges of the crust, but the center quite literally could not hold and tended to disintegrate if not folded quickly like a New York street slice.
What was truly exceptional, in fact the reason we had come to this brewery in the first place thanks to a local recommendation, was the chicken wings… They may very well be the best chicken wings we’ve ever had!!! Brined and fried in tallow (my wife’s eyes are rolling again!) they came out shatteringly crisp, enough to withstand long periods of dabbing, lifting, moaning ,munching, talking and drinking beers that happens in such environments. Plus the hot honey-siracha sauce was perfectly balanced, not cloying and didn’t gum up over time.
Stuffed full of spicy wings, we stumbled back to our Air B&B with cans of cat-themed beer in hand. The energy of Squamish inciting our atoms to keep moving, keep planning the next adventure.