“Blame Canada”: Wisconsin brewery unveils new beer inspired by our wildfire smoke

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New India Pale Ale is inspired by the smoky skies that plagued much of the Midwest and Northeast states in the early summer

WASHINGTON — Another fragrant, hazy phenomenon is turning heads in the United States — but this time, beer lovers in Canada will be happy to take the blame.

It’s one of G-Five Brewing Company’s latest IPA offerings in Beloit, a southern Wisconsin community of about 36,500 people an hour’s drive southwest of Milwaukee, a city synonymous with foam.

“Blame Canada” – what else would they call it? – is an easy-drinking Indian lager inspired by the smoky skies that plagued much of the Midwest and Northeast states in the early summer.

It was the product of a collaboration with fellow Wisconsin brewers, Rocky Reef, a partnership that came together in mid-June when wildfire smoke was at its worst, said brewer Tim Goers. in chief of G-Five.

“When you have a cyclical business like that, you don’t want your customers to be outside because of the air quality, so it hurts business a bit,” Goers said.

Naturally, that’s when the conversation turned to 1999’s “South Park: The Movie” and that now-anthem song-and-dance number, “Blame Canada” — a riff on the tongue-in-cheek penchant for the series to make fun of Canadians.

“We were going to stick with it for a week, but it was just a fluke that the wildfire haze returned,” he said.

“We got to the point where when we casted this beer, it was pretty awful outside. We were, like, ‘This is too fortuitous – we can’t keep this beer.’ So we released it.”

It was then that it spread like the proverbial wildfire.

Of the 12 options available, “this is our third best-seller right now, and it hasn’t even had a full month of sales.”

Even the label on the can is one that many Canadians might adopt – a red silhouette of Toronto’s familiar skyline ablaze, with a smoky mountain range and the white maple leaf emblem behind it. -plan.

If beer alone isn’t enough, patio patrons can pair it with G-Five’s latest burger of the week, “Canadian Wildfire,” a ground rib eye burger made with spiced maple syrup, back bacon, jalapenos and pepper jack cheese.

“If you have a more hoppy IPA or beer – ours aren’t, like, wildly hoppy – that will help cut some of the spiciness out of the burger. So they ended up pairing really well together.”

Much of the United States now gets a reprieve from the smoke, although there are still air quality issues in northern states including Montana, North Dakota, Minnesota and parts of northern Wisconsin, according to data from the Environmental Protection Agency.

Instead, most Americans will face a dreaded heat wave this week that is already hitting much of the southern United States, with record highs expected to hit 49C in places.

And Goers said he was well aware that the wildfire season on both sides of the border was just beginning.

“It’s an ironic and funny thing for us as a brewery, but as a nation and for the people going through it, it’s pretty awful,” he said.

“It’s kind of sad for me – I have a lot of empathy (and) sympathy for what’s going on…it’s July 14, and usually the dry season hasn’t even started.”

G-Five sourced some malting barley from Maker’s Malt, a specialty producer near Saskatoon that caters specifically to the craft beer industry. But between the COVID-19 pandemic, shipping issues and recent droughts, the brewery has been forced to switch to a supplier closer to home.

“It hurts to see,” he said. “Now, does it hurt us to brew beer? No. But, you know, that’s not all that surrounds my life.”

In the meantime, Goers said that hoping the wildfires don’t spread as badly as they did last month, G-Five will keep the ‘Blame Canada’ recipe on hand and break it out. again if circumstances change.

“I’m not the biggest fan of ‘South Park’ – maybe I watched a few (episodes) in high school just to have something to say with my friends,” Goers said.

But if a Canadian craft brewer wanted to get the ball rolling again with a tangy seasonal offering called “Team America: World Police,” for example, they’d be all for it.

“That would be hilarious.”

This report from The Canadian Press was first published on July 15, 2023.

James McCarten, The Canadian Press

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