“It smells like Saturday morning at grandma’s,” says Jim Gibbon, co-founder of Amber’s Brewing Co., as he reaches into a barrel of pressed malt. He munches on the nutty grain that’s something like a breakfast cereal, “Try some.” Its sweet scent wafts through the microbrewery’s 11,000-square-foot space, signalling that a new batch is in process. The method of flattening the malt and running hot water through it opens the grains, extracting their natural sugars to produce wort, a primary ingredient in beer.
A buzzer interrupts the microbrewery’s steady hum. It’s Murray, the friendly farmer here to pick up the recycled malt to feed to his cattle. For Alberta microbreweries like Amber’s, “support local” is a strict philosophy. But while there’s much communal backscratching, there’s also a struggle for expansion beneath the surface of it all.
The proper term for microbreweries is craft breweries, meaning that the process is done by hand — from measuring to mixing. Microbreweries are small, but it isn’t just size that sets them apart from big breweries, it’s process. Large breweries use a continuous brewing, whereas microbreweries, working with chemical- and preservative-free ingredients, do batch brewing — one batch at a time.
“We make a batch of beer, so every batch is almost like a vintage, and it takes skill to ensure that they are consistent,” explains Neil Herbst, who co-owns Edmonton’s oldest existing microbrewery, Alley Kat Brewing, with his wife, Lavonne. Herbst says this artisanal form of beer-making gives every batch of beer a unique, fresh taste that keeps it interesting.
Herbst’s company also strives to support local initiatives: The malt comes from Alix, Alberta and the filtered water is 100-per-cent from Edmonton. Even the labels and boxes are printed on the prairies.
Discounting chain brew pubs, Alley Kat, Amber’s and Roughneck Brewing Co., located in Calmar, make up the craft brewery population of the Edmonton area. (Over the years, other companies have come and gone, the latest being Maverick Brewing, which, due to a financial roadblock, was tapped dry in 2007 after just two years of business.) Three is a paltry number, especially when compared to the Vancouver area, which has over 10 microbreweries, according to the British Columbia Beer Guide.
And it’s not just the total number of microbreweries that is meagre. The staff at each is small, too. Amber’s Brewing employs a team of three, each of them wearing a variety of hats. “I’m a repairman today,” jokes brewmaster Joe Parrell, climbing down from a vat. “Later, I will be dragging cardboard to the blue bin.”
“We want people to drink beer because it tastes good, not because you can buy a pack of 24 for 20 dollars,” explains Gibbon, who created Amber’s in 2007 as part of an MBA project when he was a student at the University of Alberta. “We want to give people another option, to taste something different.”
In trying to get ahead of the larger breweries, microbreweries have to rely on taste, not shiny, holographic cans or free T-shirts. “It’s always a battle with the big guys,” says Gibbon. “We don’t have massive marketing budgets to plaster across the TV and radio. But once people taste it … that’s the trick.”
Post new comment