Doug and Greg Drink Beers – Erlton Street 2023 from The Establishment

by Greg Zeschuk

Welcome to the first episode of Doug and Greg Drink Beers—a new tasting series from Blind Enthusiasm Brewing Company. Greg Zeschuk (founder of Blind Enthusiasm) and Doug Checknita (Head Brewer and Blender) crack open a bottle of Erlton Street from our good friends at The Establishment Brewing Company in Calgary. This gold medal–winning beer from the 2025 World Beer Cup beat out our own silver medalist (Spontaneous Manifesto 2023), and we’re here to find out why. Expect a deep dive into aroma, acidity, mouthfeel, and all the nuances that make this mixed fermentation beer stand out. Get honest impressions, some friendly Alberta beer community banter, and behind-the-scenes insights into how brewers evaluate world-class beer.

Subscribe for more episodes where we explore incredible mixed fermentation, spontaneous, and barrel-fermented beers from our cellar and beyond.

Beer featured: 🍻 Erlton Street by The Establishment Brewing Company (Calgary, Alberta) – Gold Medal Winner, World Beer Cup 2025

The Transcript

Greg: I'm Greg from Blind Enthusiasm Brewing Company. I'm here with Doug Checknita, head brew and blender, we are trying stuff for our new show called Doug and Greg Drink Beers. We are going to try a bunch of epic bottles from our fridges, from friends, from our cellars. What we're doing today is we are trying Erlton Street from our friends at The Establishment in Calgary. Doug, have you had this beer before?

Doug: I have not had this beer before. I'm excited to try it.

Greg: It is exciting, I mean what's cool about this, well, I mean, it's not cool we lost but it's cool that we were beaten by our friends at the World Beer Cup. We got a silver medal for Spontaneous Manifesto 2023, and Erlton Street got the gold. This is a pretty exciting beer. I've had it a couple times but I haven't had a chance to sit down and enjoy it. We tend to drink a lot of beers and we go through things very analytically. A couple little notes on this beer: one thing is that it is a blend of multiple barrels. The intention was to try and find the best balance of complexity and balance. We're just we're going to talk about the details as we drink it. So I I really hate sitting here not touching beer that's ready to drink so let's begin. Cheers!! We look in each others in the eyes; we'll tell the story about that one day. Where would you where'd you begin?

Doug: It's really funny because if we're trying stuff to try, but then you and I spend a lot of time blending, so typically when we're tasting we go through like AFTAX. It's Aroma Flavor Texture Acidity and then X factor (what gives it that little “how ya doin’” or whatever right. So I instantly go, when I'm thinking about beers, through that.

Greg: When I try them, it's interesting, I almost always go, “are they good bad?” initially. First the binary good or bad decision. And this is good; this is actually really good. Why don't we start from the top and talk about what you're tasting in here, the aromas. The usual.

Doug: You know it's funny because when we're doing the videos for our stuff, it's like I've tasted the beers a hundred times and we've kind of created a little script.

Greg: Yeah, we cheated.

Doug: Yeah, we've cheated so that there's no dead space in the video. But trying it, I need a moment to digest. Right off the bat, especially in the aromatics, there's like a nice like leathery quality to it. In my mind that's always a good a symbol of quality; having like a little bit of those reductive qualities from time spent in barrel. So a nice leathery quality, but then there's still a good amount of fruit there.

Greg: For me I'm going to blend a little bit of the aroma and the flavor, but there’s a really nice citrus note. This has that really nice crisp citrus. I know that what the label says on this, but I'm going say a little different: definitely an orange peel quality and it persists from the beginning to the end. It's actually nice and thorough through the drink.

Doug: Yes and the quality of the acidity too; it's not just a lactic acidity but that citrus quality comes through as well in the way the acid presents in the beer.

Greg: If you if you were to try this blind like and you didn't know what it was, would you be able to pick this as a mixed fermentation?

Doug: Yeah.

Greg: What is it that you tips you off in that regard?

Doug: For me it's a number of things. One is the ester quality. It's very much from a Saccromyces ester profile. With a lot of spontaneous stuff it's coming from many different sources. So the quality of the fruit, and the brightness are at the forefront of those stone fruit notes and it just comes across to me as what would come from mixed fermentation as opposed to spontaneous.

Greg: But we drink this all day long!

Doug: My “but” was going to be to say it's not better or worse or anything. It's to say that in mixed ferment they just have a very distinct quality with those fruity notes that jump out right off the bat. Like you said the fruitiness is so nice you could drink this. I mean super you could drink it all day.

Greg: This is a really, really good beer. I think one of the reasons it did so well in competition is that it is very well balanced and it has a real clear flavor profile. The flavor profile in this beer is really, really precise. I really enjoy the citrus elements of it. There's a little bit of stone fruit in there too. I would say, in my opinion, it takes a little bit backseat to the to the citrus notes. I don't know if you feel the same way or not?

Doug: I feel like it's pretty balanced between the stone fruit and the and the citrus. The citrus is by all means there for sure, but I I get so much of the stone fruit as well! It's definitely there. I also hang out with Nik Kozub, our brewer, who always is pointing those notes out! So for me they always jump to the forefront now because of that.

Greg: We mentioned the acidity. The acidity was really kind of round. I felt it was complex and it wasn't like a single note or anything like that.

Doug: Yeah there's a little bit of sharpness in the finish. It's pretty round and coating. The acidity matches really nicely with a little bit of tannin that's in the beer. It’s not super fleeting or lingering and it's it really is balanced in that it doesn't just sit on the pallet too long where sometimes that can be cloying. It's not so fleeting that like it just comes across tart initially. It's got a really nice like lasting quality.

Greg: Yeah it's well integrated and the thing that frankly blows me away is it's got a really great texture. That’s one of the things that we obsess over as a brewery: the mouthfeel and texture of beers. Because often when you're doing these type of beers they can be very thin. You want to talk about that?

Doug: With the complexity of fermentation, whether it's spontaneous or mixed fermentation, there are many different types of microorganisms chomping at everything that's in your wort. Yeah, it's just going to thin things out, so it is a mark of good quality - the ones that have a good texture. I agree 100% that this has a really nice full body. It dries out where it needs to at the end, but it doesn't it doesn't become dilute or watery.

Greg: Sometimes they’re very thin but from this I get a nice really fullness from it. Any other notes of what we probably glossed over and skimmed over?

Doug: Oh yeah, I mean we're tasting it and talking about it as we go. It's funny, i don't want to compare and contrast to our beers but there is a really nice musty quality in this as well. Yeah, it reminds me of some of our mixed ferment beers that we've done in the past that had barrel mustiness. It's a fermentation effect; it's a little bit of what was in the barrel before, but it can be a number of things. It’s kind of like a cellar mustiness. I mean this in a good way. It's funny when you're like, "huh, this kind of reminds me of something we've tasted before like Measure of Patience and the first batch 2019 of Substantially Complete and it's that musty quality specifically that reminded me of those." So as a compare point of comparison, if you've had our beers, there is some musty quality that is similar.

Greg: It's really good. I I get why it did so well in competition. The thing about this comes back to that classic idea that I could happily drink a pint of this. If you basically said ,"Greg, you’ve got to drink a pint." I'd be like smiling ear to ear because it's very pintable. In Belgium these types of beers with this similar type of profile, you get them in a pint and you drink them in a pint. This is something that would I would; you don't need just a little bit of this, but a whole pint and you probably want another one.

Doug: I mean that's where these beers fall; sometimes you can do what we're doing and treat them like wine or the fine products they are, and taste and sip and all that that stuff. But then throw it in a pint. Sometimes that's one of the best parts of having lived in Belgium. Going down to the bar and getting a pint of Gueze.

Greg: Absolutely! Well this is it. I don't think there’s too much more. This isn't meant to be a long boring thing. This is meant to help you figure out what beers you want to find and search for. Because this is an absolute gem.

Doug: Yeah, absolutely. It's cool that there are other people in Alberta making these beers. I've known Mike from The Establishment since I think we first met in like 2011 or something like that. Back when I was at brewing school and he was checking out our the program and our the yeast research projects. It’s great to see that Mike's gotten his product to this quality is really exciting.

Greg: We're back to back Alberta golds; we got the gold last year with Homage to the Old Ones and they got the gold this year with Erlton Street. It's a real testimony to their beer. Also is the 2023 edition; that's the other thing to remember.

Doug: This is 2023 version and this is their anniversary beer?

Greg: Yeah this is the anniversary beer for them.

Doug: I'm the ignorant one that has not tried this. I don't have social media and stuff, so I'm always in the dark on things.

Greg: I didn't know that either! I've had it, like I said I had it a couple times, but I never knew that it was a commemorative thing.

Doug: They do it every year?

Greg: Yeah the last number of years. We actually have the 2024 as well. We're going to be drinking it this weekend.

Doug: Okay, that's what's on in the keg there?

Greg: 23 is in the keg, we got a keg of this.

Doug: Oh and then you have some bottles as well?

Greg: Yeah there's some bottles and we'll have some of our beers up against it. Not really against it.

Doug: You’re talking about the competitions and it's all super competitive in us versus them but it's not. We're all good pals. I feel like everyone's in it for the fun.

Greg: You know Doug, we're all winners.

Doug: Thanks Dad.

Greg: Well that's my dad wisdom for the day: we're all winners. Anyway that's it. That's all we got for today. This is a fabulous beer and if you can get your hands. The 24, I think is just coming out, but this is the 23 and it was it was the gold medalist and it's an absolutely delicious beer. It's fantastic.

Both: all right thanks cheers

Greg: Cheers! Remember don't slam it on the table or Tom will get mad at us.

Doug: i know. I was trying. I was trying so hard not to.

Greg: All right that's it!

Greg Zeschuk

Author

Greg’s career has ranged from physician, to videogame developer as founder of BioWare, and now trainee brewer. Greg is the prime enthusiast behind the Blind Enthusiasm Brewing Company.

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Doug and Greg Drink Beers – Erlton Street 2023 from The Establishment

The Transcript

Greg Zeschuk

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