Four bottles went on the table in the third week the Council sat down to score its own picks, and nobody had much reason to go home embarrassed. Three came from BC breweries and the fourth came from a homebrewer in Langley who had never sold a drop of it. Angry Scotch Ale from Russell Brewing in Surrey finished at 3.5 out of 5, Hoyne's Big Bock from Victoria took 4, Longwood's The One That Got Away from Nanaimo took 3.7, and the pumpkin porter went onto the sheet as a bonus pour with dashes in every column instead of numbers. A 3.5 from three drinkers who bought their own beer is not an insult, and that is the promise in the title.
The method has not moved since the first write-up. Each member brings a bottle, everybody tastes before anybody talks, and a number goes on the sheet once and cannot be revised afterwards, which is why the spread inside one beer is worth more reading than the average printed beside it. This week that spread was narrow on all three scored bottles, and the highest mark the group had handed out to that point went to a beer it did not think was much like a bock.
Angry Scotch Ale, Russell Brewing, Surrey
Russell bottled this strong Scotch ale in a 650 mL brown glass bottle at 6.6 percent and sold it in the language of the old Scottish shilling grades, promising a long boil and dark fruit and toffee from the roasted malt. The Council found the toffee and very little of the intensity the name is reaching for. It was smooth enough that a second bottle sounded pleasant rather than heroic, which is the one thing a Scotch ale rarely manages. Kyle's line was that it was smooth, drinkable and enjoyable, but only got the silver medal from him, and Tim and Tyrone landed at 3.5 and 3.2.
The bottle did better with outside judges than it did at this table. The official 2010 World Beer Cup results list it under the brewery's fuller name, Russell Wee Angry Scotch Ale, taking bronze in the Scottish-Style Ale category against 29 entries. That is a useful thing to know about a score of 3.5, because it means the beer was not flawed and not bad, only not what three people at that table wanted that night.
Big Bock, Hoyne Brewing, Victoria
This was the second Hoyne bottle at the table and the one that produced the best number on the sheet: 4 out of 5, with Kyle and Tyrone both at 4.0 and Tim a tenth of a point behind. The pour was a deep red amber with sweet malt and floral hops carrying from the first nose through to a clean, earthy finish, plus a light fruit layer nobody had expected. The tasters were clear that it was nothing like a traditional bock and equally clear that they did not mind. The rooster on the label is a leftover from a longer name, since the brewery first called the beer Big Cock Bock and the BC Liquor Distribution Board rejected it, and Big Bock is what came after.
The label copy still leans into the bird, in a passage about a majestic rooster unafraid to strut his colours and proclaim his dominion while the flock pretends not to listen. Tyrone's complaint was the practical one, which was that a beer this good asks you to go looking for it, and putting in the effort is not something a tasting group should have to do on a weeknight.
The One That Got Away, Longwood Brewpub, Nanaimo
Longwood built this red wheat ale around a West Coast tuna fishing derby out of Bamfield, put half the grain bill into wheat, added a generous dose of crystal malt, and told people to drink it with seafood. The label in the photograph makes the same argument with a hooked fish. The Council got a slight red hue, a subtle sourness, a bitter edge that a note of banana kept from getting aggressive, and a head that did not turn up to the party. Tim's verdict was that it was full of colour, a little yeasty, ever so sweet and not worth mourning, and the 3.7 average put it in the middle of the three.
The Bonus Pour: A Homebrew From Langley
The fourth bottle did not come from a brewery at all. Greg Clark of Langley had brewed a chocolate pumpkin porter called Jack-o-Heed and brought it to the meeting, and the group poured it as a bonus and entered dashes rather than scores, which is the right call when the only source of a beer is the man who made it. The body looked as thick as Guinness and went down far more smoothly than that description promises, with pumpkin running quietly underneath and a roasted chocolate finish that stayed put long after the glass was empty. It was the one bottle nobody at the table had a complaint about, and one unscored sample is not enough to make more of than that.
The Scores From That Week
Three tasters, four bottles, one sitting, and no revisions after the fact. The averages are the ones quoted above, and the columns are where the disagreement lives.
| Beer | Kyle | Tim | Tyrone | Average |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Big Bock, Hoyne | 4.0 | 3.9 | 4.0 | 4.0 |
| The One That Got Away, Longwood | 3.6 | 3.7 | 3.8 | 3.7 |
| Angry Scotch Ale, Russell | 3.9 | 3.5 | 3.2 | 3.5 |
| Jack-o-Heed, homebrew | - | - | - | Not scored |
Where These Breweries Stand
Two of the three names on this sheet are still pouring and one is not. Russell closed its Surrey brewery and tasting room in April 2026 and sold the equipment, and the company has since moved to contract brewing, so the address printed on the label is not a place you can visit any more. Surrey was also the closest of the three to where the group sat, and the write-up treated it as the promising start of a tasting map and floated the idea of a first brewing tour there. Hoyne is still brewing in Victoria and has opened a tasting room of its own in the years since. Longwood is still trading in Nanaimo. Whether any of these three beers is still in the lineup is a separate question, and one you can only answer from a current list rather than a sheet from 2014. The write-up of another early Council meeting covers four other bottles from the same run, plus a bonus gose that split the table two against two.
What A Middle Score Is For
A 3.5 is the hardest number to publish and the most useful one to read. A brewery can shrug off a bad night, and a panel that says 5 out of 5 has nothing left to tell you, but a 3.5 with the reasoning attached says something specific: the beer did what it claimed and did not do more than that. If you keep a sheet like this with friends, write one line before the number goes down, keep the same drinkers for a whole season so the scores mean something against each other, and leave the middling marks where they are. Three weeks in, this is what the record has become: what three people thought on a night in 2014 about beers from a Surrey brewery that is now gone, a Victoria brewery that is still pouring, and a Nanaimo brewpub that is still trading.
