I drove up the QE2 to Edmonton last weekend to visit some friends, and made sure to make a few stops on the so-called Alberta Ale Trail to visit a few of the small-town craft brewers that are sometimes overshadowed by the high density of breweries located in the big cities of Calgary and Edmonton.
After pulling into the Siding 14 Brewery and tap room in Ponoka, I was glad that I had resisted the temptation to stop earlier in Lacombe at Blindman Brewing, giving me more opportunities to enjoy the tiny little sampling glasses before hitting the road again.
The name of the brewery is an homage to early Alberta history, and provides hints to how the town was born. In the 1890s, the main rail line in Alberta ran between Calgary and Edmonton, owned by the unimaginatively named Calgary-Edmonton Railway Company. There were several locations where there were two lines of track known as sidings, where one train could pull over to allow an oncoming train to pass.
These sidings were numbered, and frontier towns would spring up around these sidings. The Town of Ponoka grew up around siding 14, adopting its current name in 1904, which was taken from the Blackfoot term for elk, which are still abundant in the area.
Many of the 100+ craft brewers that have appeared in Alberta over the past decade tout their dedication to locally grown ingredients, but Siding 14 has taken that to an entirely new level.
Between them, the partners in Siding 14 own a nearby barley farm, as well as a hop farm in Penticton. They also run all their water through reverse osmosis to control the mineral content for each recipe. Since beer is made up of water, barley, hops, and yeast, it seems Siding 14 is making pretty much everything except the brewing yeast, which is an industry controlled by just a few funky fungus suppliers worldwide.
Like many of the Alberta’s craft brewers, the story of Siding 14 begins with a passionate and dedicated amateur homebrewer who takes the plunge into going pro, much to the delight of the people of Ponoka.
I popped into the brewery a little after lunchtime on a Saturday, and it the 50-seat tap room was already buzzing with activity, thanks to the tap room’s convenient location right downtown, making it a popular haven for locals since they opened their doors back in 2017.
In keeping with the brewery name, all the brews have train-related names. There are 6 core brews, plus a rotating selection of seasonals and experimental one-offs.
Of the regular lineup, there are 3 easy-drinkers that will not scare off those macrobrew fans who were raised on a steady diet of Coors Lite, and 3 more assertively flavoured options for the beer snobs of the world.
My travel companion was of German extraction, so enjoyed the Crossbuck Kölsch, official beer style of the city of Köln, also known as Cologne in English-speaking countries. While most German beers are lagers, Kölsch is fermented at warm temperatures with a top fermenting yeast like an ale, then conditioned at cold temperatures like a lager, providing a unique style that brings out the complex flavour profile of an ale, with the clean and crisp finish of a lager.
For the bitter beer fans, the Ten Wheeler IPA will not disappoint. My wee sample glass was awash with aromas of pine resin and citrusy floral notes from the generous hop bill, balanced by three types of malted barley that gave the brew a golden copper hue.
Faithful readers will not be surprised to hear that my favourite was the Coal Pusher Stout, with a colour as dark as the hands of those shovelmen who laboured on the coal-fired locomotives of years gone by. The roasted malts provided notes of coffee and molasses on the nose, with burnt chocolate and toasty grains on the palate.
The dark brews like Stouts and Porters are my go-to styles when visiting a new brewery, and the creamy finish of Coal Pusher Stout ensure that a six-pack went into the trunk of the car for me to share with friends at my destination.
Fortunately, Siding 14 is widely available in cans across Alberta, so look for them at your friendly neighbourhood bottle shop if you cannot make the trip to Ponoka!
