Welcome, gentle reader, to the opening days of the year 2017. The past year has been a busy one for the Alberta beer industry, with dozens of new breweries coming online across our fair province.
Despite similar populations, Edmonton only saw five new breweries open in 2016, a feat more than doubled by eleven new breweries in Calgary last year alone.
Aside from the two largest cities, the rest of Alberta is awash in fresh new beer as well, with new breweries in Red Deer, Lethbridge, Grande Prairie, Medicine Hat, Lloydminster, Didsbury, and Turner Valley.
Despite the economic downturn, there was much more local beer on the Alberta market in 2016 than there was for the previous year, and 2017 already looks like it will be even bigger for craft beer lovers, with dozens of new breweries in the planning and construction stages.
The rapid growth of small breweries in Alberta is thanks to the Alberta Gaming & Liquor Commission, who did away with minimum production requirements back in 2012, which drastically lowered the investment required to open a brewery.
Tool Shed Brewing was the first to set up shop in Calgary after government regulatory changes made it possible, and are often emulated by startup brewers while bootstrapping their own operations.
Alberta’s success may be rubbing off on Saskatchewan, long a bastion of prohibition-era government regulations. Our neighbour to the east has announced the opening of 50 privately owned liquor stores, with plans to eventually phase out all the government-run liquor stores. Long-term readers may recall the dark days of the AGLC retail stores, until the Klein government privatized the booze retailing industry back in 1993.
Alberta is usually considered the shining beacon in a sea of darkness when it comes to booze retailing, with privatization quickly leading to the largest selection of unique brands in all of Canada.
Indeed, those dreary AGLC locations always stank of stale beer, due to their requirement to accept empties for recycling, and the short hours, small selection, and surly government workers were illustrative examples of everything that was wrong with having the government act as a booze retailer.
Your humble narrator has been filling his evenings and weekends with pilgrimages to the tap rooms attached to most of the new craft breweries in the province, with over 20 visited so far.
While space constraints prevent listing them all, there were a few gems bear mentioning. Banded Peak Brewing, located adjacent to the old cemetery on MacLeod Trail in Calgary, is widely available on tap and in cans. My favourite way to enjoy their beer is fresh from the brass teats in their taproom, which is open Thursdays through Sundays for your sampling pleasure.
The Plainsbreaker Pale Ale is their flagship, made with Alberta wheat and barley, which are perfectly balanced with west coast hops for a highly aromatic pale ale.
If you are making a trip to Edmonton, be sure to visit Bent Stick Brewing, started up by a foursome brewery staff from Alley Kat, long considered the granddaddy of craft brewing in our capital city.
My favourite is the Throwin’ Shade, made in the style of a Cascadian Dark Ale, with lots of dark roasted malts and robust notes of pine and grapefruit from the generous hop additions.
If you happen to find yourself heading south, swing through Turner Valley for a visit to the hard-to-spell Brauerei Fahr, the most authentic German brewery you will find this side of Düsseldorf.
Armed with an entrepreneurial bent and a PhD in Biochemical Engineering, Jochen Fahr found inspiration from the small German village of his childhood, and has transplanted that long history right here in Southern Alberta.
Unsurprisingly, all brews faithfully adhere to the Reinheitsegot, also known as the German Beer Purity Law of 1516, now five centuries old and still going strong.
The Fahr Away Hefeweizen is a cloudy and unfiltered wheat beer, made with Weihenstephan yeast from the oldest continuously operating brewery in the world.
The crisp sweetness from the wheat is nicely balanced with notes of clove and banana from the unique yeast strain, making this a patio-friendly beer that can be enjoyed all year round.
Whatever your preference, there is an Alberta beer out there for you, so make 2017 your year of new beer!
