Peak Beer and New Breweries for 2018
Recently an article on the CBC website caught our eye, more like raised a few eyebrows. The article claims that Vancouver has hit “peak beer” and is the opinion of the article that the BC market is becoming saturated with craft breweries, is considered a mature market, or in other words, continued growth is not sustainable. Funny!
Cautionary click bait terms like “peak beer” can be damaging to the perception of an industry that shows no signs of slowing down – in fact the opposite is true if you look at recent numbers coming from the BC Liquor Distribution Branch and Beer Me BC – craft beer sales and consumption continue to rise in BC year after year. One needs only look to our Cascadian friends to the south in Portland Oregon for inspiration on what is truly possible for the BC craft beer market, where a whopping 67% of draught beer consumed in the state is produced by local, Oregon breweries. Not to mention that Portland has almost 3 times the amount of breweries as Vancouver. So are we hitting “peak beer” or just getting started? We’ll leave that to the consumer to decide.
While the doomsday crowd can have their peak beer, we’d rather focus on some exciting new additions to the Vancouver craft beer community expected to open in 2018. Plenty of rumours are swirling and here’s a list of some new breweries to watch for, and some to hope for!
T&B Brewing Co.
We first launched this story last month and anticipation continues to rise for what promises to be an exciting new concept in the historic Opsal Steel Building. With the news that ex-Bridge Brewing Head Brewery Kerry Dyson will lead brewery operations for the newest addition to Tap & Barrel’s line up of restaurants, you can expect some fantastic beers from this new Vancouver brewery.
www.vancouverbrewerytours.com/blog/tap-and-barrel-launches-tb-brewing-co/
Electric Bicycle Brewing
It’s no secret the brightly coloured building on 4th Ave. is getting ready to open their doors to the thirsty Brewery Creek crowd. Watch for a unique space and interesting beers, and a welcomed addition to walking brewery tours in the area.
www.electricbicyclebrewing.com
Wild Eye Brewing
The North Shore craft beer community continues to grow with Wild Eye Brewing. Currently with 6 breweries to call their own, it’s been many years since shore folk needed to cross a bridge into Vancouver to get great beer. Located just over the 2nd Narrows, follow their growth and watch for updates on their Instagram account
www.wildeyebrewing.ca
Phantom Beer Company
Spooky! Announced just 2 months ago, another brewery is coming to East Vancouver called Phantom Beer. Details are mum for Phantom Beer Company, so follow their Instagram account and sign up for their newsletter for updates
www.instagram.com/phantombeer
Kitsilano Brewing Co.
Will this brewery open or is it still in the dream phase? Who knows, but either way we wish the team behind Kitsilano Brewing all the best, and please, please make this happen!
www.facebook.com/Kitsilano-Brewing-Co-1867795466870101/
Superflux Beer Co.
Ok we don’t know for sure but rumours are out there, one could say it’s only a matter of time until Vancouver’s most popular contract brewers find their own space. This wouldn’t be a big deal right??
www.instagram.com/superfluxbeer
Do you have the inside scoop of any new breweries coming to Vancouver? If so leave a comment below!
The Infamous Hop Circuit Returns!
/in Brewery ToursYeast Van Brewery District Presents the 3rd Annual Hop Circuit
Brought to you the Yeast Van Brewery District, each business offers free behind the scenes brewery and distillery tours, a scavenger hunt to keep things interesting and of course tonnes of food trucks to keep you fuelled for the day’s adventures. The event take place from 1-5pm.
Our tips for a successful day? Start EARLY and learn to like line ups! Each year most breweries are full to capacity with line ups waiting to get in. Also be kind to the brewery staff and show your appreciation with tips – it’s like the Super Bowl of craft beer events at the breweries and staff work very hard to keep you hydrated!
Who is the Yeast Van Brewery District?
Made up of owners, brewers and key staff of all the breweries and distillers of East Vancouver, the the Yeast Van Brewery District gets together regularly and discusses how to market and attract more people to this truly one of a kind craft beer destination.
Andina Brewing
www.andinabrewing.ca
Bomber Brewing
www.bomberbrewing.com
Callister Brewing
www.callisterbrewing.com
East Van Brewing Company – New for 2018
http://www.eastvanbrewing.com/
Hastings Mill – New for 2018
http://www.patspub.ca/
Luppolo Brewing Company
www.luppolobrewing.ca
Odd Society Spirits
www.oddsocietyspirits.com
Off the Rail Brewing co.
www.offtherailbrewing.com
Parallel 49 Brewing
www.parallel49brewing.com
Postmark Brewing
www.postmarkbrewing.com
Powell Street Brewery
www.powellbeer.com
Resurrection Spirits – New for 2018
http://resurrectionspirits.ca/
Storm Brewing
www.stormbrewing.org
Strange Fellows Brewing
www.strangefellowsbrewing.com
Strathcona Beer Company
www.strathconabeer.com
Drinking Locally in the Great White North
/in Brewery ToursBrewery Tour Guide Gone Wild
Recently our very own brewery tour guide Cyndi took a trip up North to her hometown of Fort St. John and of course, had to discover what the craft beer scene had to offer! Turns out it’s really cold, and really good. 🙂
Beards Brewing Co., Fort St. John
“Well it’s 22 below and I don’t give a #*%&, got a heater in the truck, just saw a moose, and I’m up for a brew-e-o”….. OK you gotta be from the north to think that’s funny.
Upon arriving at the brewery, set up in the industrial park at the south end of town, we were happy to see their open and airy tasting room, flooded with warm bright sunshine streaming in the windows. If you close your eyes you could almost think it was summer in here. We were lucky enough to be treated to a behind the scenes tour by the brew-master himself, Ryan Nosek. The space is tiny but efficient and they produce enough beer to keep thirsty locals coming back for more.
Favourite Beer
If you’re ever in the north or planning a trip up the Alaska Highway, I highly recommend a stop at Beards Brewing Co. Soon you will also be able to combine it with a trip to the Mighty Peace Brewing Company which is slated to open just around the corner from Beards in the spring of 2018. That is, if spring ever arrives!
Written by: Vancouver Brewery Tours Special Northern BC Correspondant and Tour Guide Extraordinaire, Cyndi Dallow
Brewery Creek Walking Tours are Back!
/in Brewery ToursSpringtime
Sunshine. Warmer weather. Cherry blossoms. Spandex-clad cyclists. All of these mean one thing… spring in Vancouver has returned once again, and with it comes the return of Vancouver Brewery Tours’ own Brewery Creek Walking Tours! Head out with some family or friends on a lovely walk around the Brewery Creek area of Main Street. You don’t need a cicerone to tell you it pairs very well with: record crate digging at one of the city’s coolest record stores, vegetarian lunches at some of the best foodie stops Vancouver has to offer or trying on vintage threads in all the retro consignment shops.
Tour Details
Brewery Creek Walking Tour – Main Street Brewing Company
These tours are held twice a week on Wednesdays and Fridays. Wednesday’s tour meets at 2:00pm at Brassneck Brewery. We go over how beer is made before plunging into our first delicious flight! Breweries also visited on Wednesday include: Faculty Brewing Co. and Big Rock Urban Brewery. On Fridays we meet a bit earlier to ensure that everyone is getting their weekend started right! The tour group will assemble at 1:00pm at Faculty Brewing Co. for an academic start to this Brewery Creel walking tour. Afterwards, wade upstream to the area’s own historically situated Main Street Brewing and Brassneck Brewery.
For more details, or to book, please visit: https://vancouverbrewerytours.com/tours/public-tours/brewery-creek-walking-tour/
Private/Custom Walking Tours
These are perfect for private groups as well. Grab your friends, coworkers, teammates or neighbours and bring them out to taste some of the freshest beer being produced right here in Vancouver, BC. In a private group tour you get to choose the breweries you visit (based on availability of course) and customize it any way you’d like. Custom groups can even head into East Vancouver (Yeast Van) for the tour. With a high concentration of breweries around the intersection of Commercial Drive and Powell Street, Yeast Van is a superb destination to stroll and sip your way through a local craft beer flight (or three).
Take a walk with Vancouver Brewery Tours; it’s the best way to earn those beers!
Electric Bicycle is Open
/in Brewery ToursWhat is Electric Bicycle Brewing?
Electric Bicycle Brewing will be a brewery experience like no other! We’re delivering an ideal combination of outrageously good beers with gourmet grilled cheese sandwiches, a great atmosphere and grooving music. Elon Musk wants to go to Mars, but we want to take you the outer reaches of the beer universe. Electric Bicycle is a spot where your co-workers lose their inhibitions, your in-laws learn to love you, and boss finally gives you that raise. The tasting room has high tops, comfortable booths and long table seating for larger groups, even a few spots at the bar for you and your future ex-so-and-so.
We’re a team of young, passionate beer enjoyers that want to shake up the Vancouver brewing scene. We love discovering new music, local and innovative art and great beer! We’re currently hiring too, so you could be part of this great team. Drop us a line if you’re looking for the best job ever!
What was the inspiration behind starting Electric Bicycle brewing?
It started with the name; they used to build electric bicycles here.
We love all our friends and their awesome taprooms and great beers, but we also love our local record shops and art spaces and we are passionate about bring these great things together. We’ve developed a space with an electric atmosphere, loud decor, rotating art & local music with a beer list that will make your jaw drop & your mouth water.
What made you choose the historic Brewery Creek as your home?
While we were looking at few different locations, we knew this was the spot when we saw it. We love all of the new (and old) local businesses in the neighbourhood and decided it was the exact spot we wanted to be. Close proximity to the other breweries makes it easy to tour from spot to spot, you could say we did it for the people. It is also great that it’s located right off the bicycle route at 20 East 4th.
What beer styles are you initially going to start with?
We’re currently in the middle of super secret recipe development, but we can tell you that our focus is on pushing stylistic limits and delivering flavor forward thirst quenching beers. We’re also going to be launching a rotating line called “Think Tank” based on customer suggestions so send us your wildest desires and hopefully we’ll make your dreams come true!
How can we stay in touch and follow your progress?
If you want to hear about out what we are up to, make sure to follow us on Instagram @electricbicyclebrewing, on Facebook at /Electricbicyclebrewing and on twitter at @ebbeervancouver.
UPDATE May 2018
Electric Bicycle Brewing is now open!
Andina Brewing Company Celebrates 1st Anniversary
/in Brewery Tours¡ Salud mis amigos !
Beer is too often associated with only a handful of European countries: Germany, the Czech Republic, Belgium and the United Kingdom. Somehow these players have become the most well-known in the game, however, beer has been enjoyed for millennia all over the world. Canada, Japan, Spain and New Zealand are examples of countries with booming beer industries and surprisingly, the Seychelles and Namibia are in the top 5 countries internationally in terms of per consumption per capita (114.6 liters/year and 104 liters/year respectively).
Enter the Andina Brewing Company!
On March 2, 2018, the Andina Brewing Company celebrated their first anniversary of being open for business in the giant, yellow building on Powell Street. They bring a refreshing take on brewing to Vancouver’s craft beer scene with flavours, music and influences from South America. The Andina Brewing Company was started by two Colombian brothers (Andrés & Nicolàs Amaya) who named the brewery after a typical woman from the Andean mountain range, an Andina. You can see a mural of their heroine La Pola (a Colombian slang term for beer and a reference to revolutionary folk hero Policarpa Salavarrieta) painted on the outside of their building and on all of their canned products. If you enjoy Latin music, come in on Thursdays to hear local band Cumbia Galera groove the evening away (one of the many reasons we love sending private groups here on Thursdays!).
If you think you’ve tasted all that beer has to offer, we highly recommend a trip to this brewery. They are busy brewing quality beers with all sorts of South American ingredients and we don’t just mean the Chilean Patagonia malts.
Don’t worry; there isn’t fruit in all of their products (although their Conchita Kölsch uses Colombian coffee). They also brew more traditional beers such as a pale ale, milk stout and blonde IPA. Another delicious reason to visit Andina’s tasting room is the food! Such incredible and unique offerings to snack on while sampling their brews. Their take on nachos, or pachos, uses plantain chips instead of corn chips and of course you can find classic Colombian arepas, ceviches and empanadas. If you’d like to visit the Andina Brewing Company then book a spot on our Wednesday tour, we’re there every week OR request a tour on your next Priavate Tour.
Explore Vancouver with Motorhome Republic
/in Brewery ToursNot only is Vancouver a renowned destination for travelers with a mix of scenic mountains, abundance of outdoor activities, world class cuisine and more, the city is also considered one of the top craft beer destinations in North America. Vancouver is also a short distance from beautiful Whistler, the Okanagan Valley and Vancouver Island making it a perfect launching destination for RV and motorhome enthusiasts.
To learn more about how Motorhome Republic can help you plan your next RV adventure, visit their website here:
https://www.motorhomerepublic.com/canada/vancouver-rv-rental
Latest List of Vancouver’s Best Breweries
/in Brewery ToursBest Breweries Latest Rankings
The latest list of the best breweries in the city was recently released by our friends at TripSavvy (www.tripsavvy.com). These lists are published fairly often by all sorts of different websites, magazines, social media influencers and of course, from within the local beer community itself. Do we happen to like this list in particular because we work with 9 out of the 10 breweries listed… you bet it is! Tourism is a big industry in this city, and if tourists are using this list as a starting point, they’re doing pretty great!
Breweries
A lot of the usual suspects are on the list, Brassneck, Strange Fellows Brewing, Parallel 49 and Main Street Brewing of course. We are also delighted to see our other good friends up there: Vancouver legend Steve Forsyth’s Off the Rail Brewing, the always cool Postmark Brewing, a personal fave Powell Brewery, every cyclists favourite Bomber Brewing and of course, the perennial local rock stars at Storm.
We are very luck to live and drink in such a rich community of amazing breweries. While this list is hardly exhaustive of the amazing beer that is being brewed here. We are okay with the word getting out a little bit! The sun is shining, and that means summer is here. Grab some friends and join us on a Vancouver Brewery Tour. We visit all of these breweries
and more!
Read the whole article here: https://www.tripsavvy.com/vancouver-breweries-and-tasting-rooms-3955014
Peak Beer and New Breweries for 2018
/in Brewery ToursPeak Beer and New Breweries for 2018
Recently an article on the CBC website caught our eye, more like raised a few eyebrows. The article claims that Vancouver has hit “peak beer” and is the opinion of the article that the BC market is becoming saturated with craft breweries, is considered a mature market, or in other words, continued growth is not sustainable. Funny!
Cautionary click bait terms like “peak beer” can be damaging to the perception of an industry that shows no signs of slowing down – in fact the opposite is true if you look at recent numbers coming from the BC Liquor Distribution Branch and Beer Me BC – craft beer sales and consumption continue to rise in BC year after year. One needs only look to our Cascadian friends to the south in Portland Oregon for inspiration on what is truly possible for the BC craft beer market, where a whopping 67% of draught beer consumed in the state is produced by local, Oregon breweries. Not to mention that Portland has almost 3 times the amount of breweries as Vancouver. So are we hitting “peak beer” or just getting started? We’ll leave that to the consumer to decide.
While the doomsday crowd can have their peak beer, we’d rather focus on some exciting new additions to the Vancouver craft beer community expected to open in 2018. Plenty of rumours are swirling and here’s a list of some new breweries to watch for, and some to hope for!
T&B Brewing Co.
We first launched this story last month and anticipation continues to rise for what promises to be an exciting new concept in the historic Opsal Steel Building. With the news that ex-Bridge Brewing Head Brewery Kerry Dyson will lead brewery operations for the newest addition to Tap & Barrel’s line up of restaurants, you can expect some fantastic beers from this new Vancouver brewery.
www.vancouverbrewerytours.com/blog/tap-and-barrel-launches-tb-brewing-co/
Electric Bicycle Brewing
It’s no secret the brightly coloured building on 4th Ave. is getting ready to open their doors to the thirsty Brewery Creek crowd. Watch for a unique space and interesting beers, and a welcomed addition to walking brewery tours in the area.
www.electricbicyclebrewing.com
Wild Eye Brewing
The North Shore craft beer community continues to grow with Wild Eye Brewing. Currently with 6 breweries to call their own, it’s been many years since shore folk needed to cross a bridge into Vancouver to get great beer. Located just over the 2nd Narrows, follow their growth and watch for updates on their Instagram account
www.wildeyebrewing.ca
Phantom Beer Company
Spooky! Announced just 2 months ago, another brewery is coming to East Vancouver called Phantom Beer. Details are mum for Phantom Beer Company, so follow their Instagram account and sign up for their newsletter for updates
www.instagram.com/phantombeer
Kitsilano Brewing Co.
Will this brewery open or is it still in the dream phase? Who knows, but either way we wish the team behind Kitsilano Brewing all the best, and please, please make this happen!
www.facebook.com/Kitsilano-Brewing-Co-1867795466870101/
Superflux Beer Co.
Ok we don’t know for sure but rumours are out there, one could say it’s only a matter of time until Vancouver’s most popular contract brewers find their own space. This wouldn’t be a big deal right??
www.instagram.com/superfluxbeer
Do you have the inside scoop of any new breweries coming to Vancouver? If so leave a comment below!
Proud Sponsor of The Lotus Cycling Club
/in Brewery ToursVancouver Brewery Tours Joins with The Lotus Cycling Club
Vancouver Brewery Tours is excited to announce our sponsorship of The Lotus Cycling Club for 2018. As a Service Sponsor for the upcoming riding season, club members have access to discounts on all our brewery tours, because what goes better than a well-deserved beer (or a few) after a long ride?
We’re proud to partner with one of Vancouver’s premier cycling clubs which include over 100 cycling enthusiasts. The Lotus Cycling Club has been promoting healthy and active lifestyles in the community for the last 4 years and 2018 promises to be the club’s biggest year yet.
Want to join? Registration is now open and can be found here: www.lotuscyclingclub.com/join-lotus-cycling-club
The Lotus Cycling Club
contact@lotuscyclingclub.com
604-619-8101
Valentine’s Day Brewery Tour – Love at 1st Flight
/in Brewery ToursThis year we’re celebrating Valentine’s Day the only way we know how – with lots of beer! Our 5th annual Valentine’s Day Brewery Tour “Love at 1st Flight” takes you on a tour of our most romantic breweries and includes an evening of beers over candlelight, a full meal and a special sweet treat made just for you.
The romantic, beer fueled adventure begins at Postmark Brewery to learn about all things beer while enjoying the comforting ambience of the Settlement Building. The journey continues to Luppolo Brewing for more beer and an Italian inspired meal to be enjoyed with your new tour friends. The journey ends on a sweet note in North Vancouver at Deep Cove Brewers and Distillers, where the chef has a custom made brownie dessert to compliment some of the beers you’ll be drinking.
A limited number of tickets to the ‘Love at 1st Flight” tour are available for $89 plus tax per person. Seats can be booked online HERE, and may be reserved by phone at 604-318-2280, or by email to info@vancouverbrewerytours.com.
Tour Details
Love at 1st Flight – A Valentines Day Brewery Tour
Wednesday February 14th
4pm-8pm
Meet Up: 3:45pm inside Waterfront Station
Transportation Included
Includes full meal, all beer and dessert
$89.99+tax
Buy your tickets here: