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FEWDECADES AGO, BEFORE BIG ROCK BREWERY
became the behemoth it is today, barley farmer Richard
Nordstrom took a tour of the updated Canada Malting
factory in Calgary. He was pleased to see his good-humoured
friend Ed McNally was on the same tour.
Seeing some malt packed up and ready for shipment,
Nordstrom did a little wisecracking.
“I jokingly said, ‘This must be Big Rock’s,’ just sort of kidding.
But when we walked over, the invoice on the batch said ‘Going
to Big Rock Brewery.’
“You should have seen the Irish glint that came into old Ed’s
eye,” Nordstrom said with a chuckle.
Ed McNally passed away at the ripe old age of 89 in August
of 2014, following a life that defies concise description. He was
a journalist, a prominent Calgary lawyer, a breeder of exotic
cattle, and a tireless opponent of the Canadian Wheat Board’s
monopoly on grain.
And this was all before he launched the pioneering Big Rock
Brewery at age 60, sparking the cra brewing craze that has
swept the country.
Nordstrom, a retired farmer and past president of the
Western Barley Growers Association, first met McNally in 1984.
He had just joined the association’s board of directors, to which
Ed also belonged.
“He was just a real good, hardworking, ordinary guy who
genuinely had concern for the farmer,” said Nordstrom. “And
that was why he was on the board: to do his best to help with
the issue of the Canadian Wheat Board having a monopoly,
and the farmer not being able to sell his malt barley directly to a
maltster.
“He was concerned about the Wheat Board fiddling and
fooling with the domestic and export prices, and saw a lot
of injustice there,” Nordstrom went on. “He was a real free
marketeer.”
It was around that boardroom table that Nordstrom first
heard McNally mention beer.
“More than once, Ed had said, ‘You just can’t get good beer
in this country,’” Nordstrom said. “And he was mad, saying he
would start up his own brewery, but we all just kind of laughed
at him. He was 60 at the time.”
But had the room known a little more of old Ed’s story, this
ambition may not have seemed so unlikely.
Ed’s father was born in Ontario, and was a gi ed surgeon
who attained his medical degree at age 20. He served in the
First World War, during which he met his love—a Scottish
nurse—and took her back to Canada. There, Dr. McNally was
dispatched westward by the Canadian government. He was
assigned to set up three First Nations’ hospitals in Alberta, and
settled in Lethbridge.
Among Dr. McNally’s patients was the well-known Sick
family, owners of the Lethbridge Brewing and Malting
Company. Founded by German émigré Fritz Sick, the brewery
produced a much-loved beer called Alberta’s Pride, known as
“the beer without peer.”
During his boyhood years, Ed became fast friends with
Kim Sick, heir apparent to the Sick brewing empire. The two
remained lifelong friends, and McNally was distraught when
Kim told him of his plans to sell the brewery to Molson in 1958.
“Ed was just appalled,” said his wife, Linda McNally. “He
said, ‘You just can’t do that, it’s awful!’”
The sale of the brewery was a major blow to the people of
Lethbridge, Linda said, explaining that Ed never forgot the
disappointment in the community as Alberta’s Pride was taken
off the market and replaced with Molson Canadian.
“It was something all the Lethbridge people were so proud
of,” she added. “There was a real sense of pride, and suddenly
it was taken over by a very large eastern company.”
The disappointment Ed and the broader community felt stuck
with him for the next 25 years, resurfacing thanks to a German
friend named Otto Leverkus. Leverkus had a passion for the
Canadian West, but would always lament how he missed the
fine-quality food and drink of Europe.
“He used to say, ‘Oh, I love Canada, but the beer! And the
cheese!’” Linda said. “Otto used to just shake his head.”
It was 1984 and Leverkus complained the big brands were
bland, watery and, for the most part, all the same. Plus, they
were full of strange ingredients and chemicals that violated the
Reinheitsgebot
—the 1516 Bavarian Purity Law, much beloved by
German beer drinkers. The
Reinheitsgebot
stipulates only four
ingredients may be used in beer: water, hops, barley and yeast.
Ed was 60 at the time, and had been retired from practising
law for the better part of a decade. In fact, he had already
transitioned careers yet again, this time into breeding exotic
cattle at his ranch.
Winter
2015
grainswest.com
23
The formidably talented EdMcNally changed
the face (and taste) of beer
BY JEFF DAVIS • PHOTOGRAPHY COURTESY OF BIG ROCK BREWERY
A