Our Beer
Founded in 2019, Trial & Ale has created 100% sour and wild fermentations to showcase the complexity of fermentation derived flavour possibilities. Our love for mixed fermentation beers led us to blend, bottle, can, keg these funky, tart beers and ship them all around the world. Our beers are shipped across Canada, Europe, Asia, and the US. While not your standard fare, we strive to make approachable, enjoyable blends intent on highlighting the fermentation character or our featured fruit or adjunct additions we choose to use.
We also recognize that, when creating a public space, sour and wild beer is not for everyone’s taste profile. In addition to our in-house Trial & Ale taps, we have selected a carefully curated selection of some of our favourite beers (and breweries). This cross-section of talented fermentation among our guest taps is designed to showcase a broad array of styles and flavours. There’s something for everyone in the mix!
Our Pizza
As we have done with our beer, we have become more than a little obsessed with the process of pizza creation and dough slinging. The basis of all beer, cheese, and bread is fermentation. The process involves the conversion of starches to sugars and the consumption of those sugars to create ethanol and CO2. Fortunately, in the case of pizza, any ethanol created is cooked off leaving behind only a beautiful crust, crumb structure, and flavour profile. We take pride in our fermentation abilities. We believe in a long, slow fermentation to create the complex sugars needed for our microbes to build our flavour. The unique Maillard reactions produced by this process give our crust a rustic browning unique to slow fermented pies, and this long fermentation produces an unparalleled depth of flavour.
We love all pizza. When we were trying to figure out the direction we wanted to go for a style of pizza, we couldn’t decide. So, we narrowed it down to three styles: Thin Crust Chicago Tavern Style pizzas, 12" Pizzettas, and a 24” true to form NY Style pie that was heretofore not available in Edmonton. We feel each style represents a genre of its own, is markedly different from each other, and represents some of the best the pizza world has to offer.
Chicago Tavern Style
What? You’ve never heard of this wild, globally underappreciated Style? These unique pies originated in Chicago area pubs in the 1930’s. With a VERY extended fermentation schedule, and a unique “curing” period of open-air simultaneous fermentation and drying, this dough produces a thin, cracker like crust that is sliced into squares. Is this complex schedule worth it? Because this complex depth of flavour can only be produced by these intricate means, we definitely believe it is.
Pizzettas
Sometimes less is more. A personal sized Lore pizza hits the spot this patio season. They combine our beautiful multi-day fermented NY Style dough, hand stretched to a 12” canvas, topped with an array of our most requested combinations. These smaller pies allow for a flair of avant garde, and an experimental element. Not just a miniaturized version of our New Yorks, these little beauties exude independence and charm. Pizzetta.
New York
Everyone knows and loves a NY slice. What most people don’t know is that the pizza industry works on standardization. All the pans, equipment, etc. are designed for the max 18” diameter pies or smaller. These micro-NY’s pans were simply unacceptable to us for this fantastic style. We wanted to pay a proper tribute. We sourced and imported screens, pans, boxes, etc. from far and wide that allow us to offer Edmonton the Authentic NY experience. At 24” in diameter, some of our NY pies weigh somewhere around 8 pounds per pizza. Our NY pies are so big, they are too big for a single box!