More Local Coverage

http://www.seemagazine.com/article/city-life/lifestyle/suds-in-the-city-4466/


Suds In The City
Locals carving out a niche in the beer business, one drinker at a time.

Published July 22, 2010 by Maurice Tougas in Lifestyle


It is a market dominated by brewing behemoths, multinational giants who have a take-no-prisoners attitude, it’s a wonder that anyone would go into the beer making business.

But if you don’t consider Molson or Budweiser to be your competition, the challenge isn’t quite so daunting. Turns out, there are plenty of beer drinkers our there, enough that a couple of Edmonton microbrewers are making a go of it, and a third has thrown its bottle cap into the ring.

alley kat

Now celebrating its 15th year, Alley Kat has carved out a craft-beer niche for itself, starting in Edmonton and now province-wide. To celebrate its anniversary, Alley Kat has been releasing a new beer every two or three months.

“They’re a little more edgy in terms of style, a little more experimental,” says Neil Herbst, co-owner of Alley Kat along with his wife, Lavonne. “We’ve done smoked porter, Belgium-style triple, a ginger beer ...”

Clearly, Alley Kat isn’t afraid to experiment, without going overboard and producing something that won’t fit in the Alberta marketplace. Alley Kat products can be found in 230 locations in Alberta and, of all places, South Korea.

“We’ve been very happy with the growth (of the company),” says Herbst. “This last year we haven’t grown as much as previous years, but we’re still well on the positive side.”

An avid home brewer, the idea of developing a microbrewery fermented in the back of Herbst’s head for several years. When his government job vanished, Herbst seized the opportunity to take a package and turn his micro dream into reality.

Although successful by microbrewery standards, Alley Kat is a mere amoeba in the sea compared to the brewing giants who rule the foamy seas. But Herbst doesn’t really consider the Molson’s and Budweiser’s of the world to be competition, except for their ability to lock up locations.

“A lot of what we do is not really competitive. We don’t overlap a lot.”

When you’re up against companies that spend hundreds of millions on promotions compared to, well, zero, that’s pretty much the only attitude you can take. Besides, the companies appeal to different market niches.

“They’re (Alley Kat drinkers) people who are looking for beer with flavour. They’re essentially connoisseurs, although I don’t think the beer people would see themselves as quite that uppity.”

This is not to say that the two markets are mutually exclusive.

“A lot of times people treat themselves. They might be drinking Bud Light as a kind of lawnmower beer, but if they’re having company over or they’re down for one beer in the evening, they’ll upgrade to our beers.”

Alley Kat employs 10 from its 9929-60th Ave. location, and produces four craft-brewed, flavourful beers — Aprikat (apricot flavoured beer), Alley Kat Amber brown ale, Charlie Flint’s organic lager and Full Moon pale ale. Past seasonal beers, produced for a short time only, include such intriguingly named products as Razzykat Raspberry Ale and Olde Deuteronomy. The current summer seasonal is called Brewberry, and it is available at the Blue Chair cafe among other locations. The Sugarbowl recently hosted a cask ale night, and Slow Food Edmonton’s annual Beer and Boar BBQ takes place on Aug. 8 at the brewery.

amber’s

Jim Gibbon got the idea for what would Amber Brewing when he was in the MBA program at the University of Alberta. Today, his Amber Brewing produces four brews and a grog (a lime cooler)

“I thought Edmonton needed a very, very pro-Edmonton brewery. Alley Kat has been around for 15 years, and they’re wonderful. But I just wanted to do something that is a little more Edmonton based,” says Gibbon, a bred-to-the-bone Edmontonian whose family has been in the city for several generations.

Buying the equipment from a defunct microbrewery that had been sitting idle for about eight years, Gibbon moved to the equipment to its present location at 9926-78th Ave. and set up shop. Cementing the link to Edmonton, one of his first products was Lunch Pail Ale, featuring the Edmonton-born-and-bred cartoon character Bub Slug, complete with a drawing of the High Level Bridge waterfall on the label.

Gord Demaniuk is Amber’s brew master. A former brewer with the big breweries, Demaniuk found himself out of work when the big boys merged and cut employees. He started his own brewery in Canmore, called Bow Valley, which, despite winning awards, failed. Eventually he met up with Gibbon, and was hired on earlier this year to refine the existing product line and ensure consistency. For example, he thought Sap Vampire Maple Lager was a little too sweet, so he changed the formula so it now has just a hint of maple ... and, in keeping with the product’s name, is now red.

“I’ve added my touch to a lot of them,” says Demaniuk. “What I wanted to do was broaden its appeal.”

Gibbon says Amber products are not “aggressively flavoured, just differently flavored.”

Gibbon says Amber has a beer for every meal of the day — the Sap Maple Lager is the breakfast beer, the Lunch Pail Ale is, clearly, for lunch, and the multi-award-winning, best-selling is Australian Mountain Pepper Berry Lager is what’s for dinner.

Gibbon estimates his product can be found in about a third of Alberta’s liquor stores. As well, Amber makes beers specifically for restaurants, like, the “cinnamon and cardamon” brew available in the five restaurants in the New Asian Village group.

“We have some really good places that are carrying us,” says Gibbon, who is also Amber’s only salesman. Slow and steady is the only way to grow a microbrewery, he says.

“Look at Maverick,” he says, referring to the splashy but now defunct microbrewery. “They had three salesmen, two microbrewers and all this staff, and they were gone in 18 months.

“We’re fighting like crazy, but we’re getting there.”

yellowhead

Yellowhead Brewery may be Edmonton’s baby microbrewer, but they’re working with big boy equipment.

Emerging from the ruins of the short-lived Maverick brewery, brew master Scott Harris has inherited massive equipment with a capacity to produce a million litres a year, so there’s no concern about outgrowing their space any time soon.

Yellowhead, backed by Edmonton architect Gene Dub, opened officially in May with a blessing, a European tradition brought over by its Edmonton-born, German-trained brew master. The blessing might just scare away the bad vibes left over from Maverick, the microbrewer that tried to go macro in a hurry.

The gleaming brewery, the workings of which are visible from street level, is located in a heritage building downtown on 105th Street and 102nd Avenue that dates back to 1914.

Like Amber, slow growth is the business plan of Yellowhead, which adopted its name from Edmonton’s first brewery, established in 1894.

“We’re just trying to establish one flagship brand right now,” explains Yellowhead rep Leon Hunter. “We just one to focus on one, easily recognizable product.”

Brew master Harris got his training in Germany at Domens Tecknicum, a brewing institute. The taste of Yellowhead, which he describes as “a good, crisp, clean lager beer” is his creation.

Making the beer is one thing, getting it into stores and bars is another. In keeping with their go-slow approach, Yellowhead is available only in a five select liquor stores, and only in 500 ml. European-style bottles that sell for about four dollars. The primary focus, Hunter says, is getting the beer on tap in bars and restaurants.

Ultimately, Yellowhead would like to emulate the success of Big Rock, the Calgary brewer that was once a microbrewer, but is now definitely a big-time player. But for now, the company is concentrating on becoming known in Edmonton, and they’re doing that one beer drinker at a time; they’re participating in Sip!, a new beverage and food venue at Capital Ex. The brew has found its way into local restaurants Culina, and Skinny Legs and Cowgirls.

“For a small, independent microbrewer, that’s the kind of people we are targeting first, people that would support a local upstart,” says Hunter.