Four Years Strong

Blindman Brewing has been killing the craft beer game! They have created brilliant beers while pushing flavour and style boundaries. The Common has had their beers on tap for years, and has had great opportunities to work closely with the Lacombe brewery, most recently collaborating on a Manhattan-style beer cocktail and having Blindman join us for our last street car cask event of the year.

The Blindmanhattan Brew Day

On October 7th, a few of The Common’s staff headed down to Lacombe to craft the Blindmanhattan beer cocktail. Beer cocktails is the latest trend in beer that Blindman has been dabbling in! Beginning with a base of beer, ingredients are added to create a flavour profile that mimics a cocktail.

As our collaboration beer is set to launch late October, we brainstormed cocktails with warm notes, fit to be consumed on the coldest of days. Like the Old Fashion beer cocktail Blindman had done previously, we decided on another classic, the Manhattan. The Common’s cocktail program has been banging out creative cocktails over its 10 years, but is never shy about the classics being…classic! Once the cocktail was solidified, Blindman chose a base beer combination of 45% their Triphammer Porter and 55% of their Super River Session to best combine with cocktail ingredients.

Upon arriving Monday morning, the beer base was already in the brite tank, ready for our cocktail additions. Our two seasoned bartenders, Kelsey and Kevin, tested out ratios of bitters to bourbon to syrup in samples of the base beer until they had decided on the best beginning recipe. Through a funnel into the brite tank we added Buffalo Trace Bourbon, cherry and Saskatoon berry Token bitters (Handmade in Edmonton), and morello cherry syrup.

Brewing beer has many breaks in which the beer sits and stews, we took our brew break to tour the sour side of the brewery, the Barrel Room. Back at the brite tank with Blindman brewer Brendan we drew samples from the tank to see how the ingredients were mixing with the beer. The verdict was more bourbon and cherry syrup to sweeten and warm the beer up further. As always visiting Blindman was a fun learning experience, seasoning our staff further in the production of beer!

Rail Car Cask Party

The Lacombe brewery has been a part of our Rail Car cask party series several times, and will join us again Thursday October 17th for the last Rail Car cask event of the season! On each rail car we depart from the Jasper location and ride the rails to the middle of the track on Saskatchewan river, to tap a unique cask. This coming railcar cask will be Blindman’s Florida Weisse, their winter sour that features blackberries and plums. For the casked version, Hallertau Blanc has been added, a hop whose flavor profile is fruity, with wine-like qualities of gooseberry and grass, similar to that of Sauvignon Blanc. It also features a complex aroma profile with notes of cassis and elderflower in addition to grapes, grapefuit and lemongrass.

Alberta Beer Week Blindman Tap Takeover

The same day as the railcar (Oct 17th), our 14-line Blindman Brewing tap takeover commences in celebration of Alberta Beer Week and will run until Oct 26, although with the brilliant brew line up the beers may tap out before the end! Check out the amazing line up below!