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Beer column: Wrapping up 2023 with an ode to one of BC’s most iconic craft beers

I’ll come right out and say it – there’s no rhyme or reason to this week’s beer column.

It’s that week between Christmas and New Year’s when no one really knows what’s happening or even what day it is, so it shouldn’t come as a huge surprise that I didn’t have something special planned for the final column of 2023.

But it also feels like the perfect opportunity to feature a beer that is arguably the most iconic of any craft beer produced in British Columbia.

I am of course talking about Driftwood Brewery’s Fat Tug IPA.

Driftwood says it brews this Northwest-style IPA with a hop aficionado in mind, with sufficient malt to provide support.

Fat Tug’s hop profile features notes of grapefruit, mango, melon and passionfruit, and it comes in with an ABV of 7% and an IBU of more than 80.

Everything about the beloved IPA is big, from its aroma to taste to beautiful amber-gold colour.

It has a well-balanced taste for an IPA, with the pine-like hops, floral notes and malts that play off each other perfectly to produce a silky and smooth drinking experience.

In 2011, as a relative newcomer to the Canadian craft beer scene at the time, Fat Tug won Beer of the Year at the Canadian Brewing Awards.

More recently, and I might even say more importantly, it claimed top spot in one of CBC reporter Justin McElroy’s famed brackets.


Fat Tug ended up in the final against Four Winds Brewing Company’s Nectarous, which won Beer of the Year in 2016, and scored a narrow victory to claim the crown of BC’s favourite beer (according to Twitter users).

If a national award and the votes of beer lovers everywhere aren’t enough to convince you, let it be known that Fat Tug has been one of my favourites and staples since the start of my craft beer drinking days.

Anyone who enjoys a good IPA and somehow hasn’t tried Fat Tug should be running to the liquor store this weekend to grab a couple for their New Year’s celebration.

If you're looking to spice things up a bit, I also highly recommend Driftwood's Swash Box, which is the brewery's popular mixed pack.

The Swash Box comes two tall cans each of Fat Tug IPA, Raised by Wolves IPA, Naughty Hildegard ESB and Driftwood Pale Ale.


Josh Duncan is the NowMedia news director and a craft beer lover. Reach him at josh@nowmediagroup.ca. His beer column appears every Saturday afternoon in this space.



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