The Food Issue
2015
Grains
West
40
Waghray take small-batch brewing to a
whole new level.
“We like it because it’s so hands-on
and we have so much control,” Leon
said. “At our size, every step—from
unloading the grains off the back of
a truck to dropping off the cases of
bottled beer at a liquor store—we have
control over.”
Despite its small size and low profile,
Dandy has already developed a sterling
reputation for quality in Calgary cra
beer circles. For Sherman, Dandy’s
success is a testament to the positive
impact the AGLC regulation changes
have had on the brewer community in
the province.
“They’re home brewers who have the
tiniest system,” he said. “That’s the best
part—guys like that can now come and
challenge every brewery to raise the bar.”
As Sherman, Heier and Leon
transitioned from home brewing to
commercial production, they quickly
recognized that making the jump from
hobby to business is easier said than
done.
“You don’t understand how to scale
up from your homebrew system until
you do it,” Sherman said. “Where in
the brew you add ingredients makes
all the difference in the world, so the
timings of the things that happen when
you’re brewing five litres compared to
when you’re brewing 2,500 litres is very
different.
“The other thing is you just have
no concept of the sanitation of a
brewhouse on a large scale. I don’t care
if a beer gets infected in my basement—I
dump it out. But when it’s $10,000 of
barley, you can’t screw it up. I can’t
afford to dump a batch, so you have to
get things perfect in here.”
Many of these challenges were
overcome with the support of the
brewer community, both within Calgary
and across the province. When one
brewer hits a snag, another is usually
quick to offer a helping hand.
“In our first few months, as we were
ironing out our kinks, if we didn’t get
a bottle shipment on time, [we’d] call
Wild Rose [Brewery] and they’d have
a palette delivered to us. When we
started brewing, half our grain didn’t
make it in time for the brew, so we
called Village [Brewery] and they were
more than happy to sell us a couple
bags,” Leon said. “It’s crazy how tight-
knit and supportive the community is
across Alberta.”
That tight-knit brewer community
includes professional and amateur
brewers alike. The latter are currently
enjoying a home-brewing renaissance
of sorts. The practice of home brewing
has come a long way in the last several
years, making it more accessible than
ever for casual cra beer enthusiasts
who want to find out how the sausage
gets made, so to speak.
Neil Bamford, co-owner of The
Vineyard, a Calgary homebrew and
winemaking store, has been home
brewing since the early 1980s.
Originally, he did it because he was a
student trying to save money, but since
then he has become vice-president of
finance for Calgary’s Cowtown Yeast
Wranglers homebrew club and one of
the top home brewers in Canada. He
has witnessed first-hand how rapidly
interest in home brewing has grown,
and how it has become popular among
more than just cash-strapped students.
“At the store, the shi in the last five
years has been from probably about 80
per cent wine and 20 per cent beer to
80 per cent beer and 20 per cent wine
now,” he said. “You still get the young
kids coming in and doing it to save
money and have beer on the weekends,
but you get a lot more older and middle-
aged people that just want to make a
good-quality cra beer.”
Calgary, in particular, has become a
hotbed of quality home brewers. The
Yeast Wranglers average around 200 to
250 members per year, but members of
the wider home-brewing community in
the city likely number in the thousands,
Bamford said. The Yeast Wranglers have
At Tool Shed, Graham Sherman and Je Orr use a small homebrew system to test new recipes.
Some beers go through as many as 15 test batches before they are ready for release.
Photo:TylerDifley
