Brewing Craft Beer in a Lucky Camper Van While on the Road with our Partners Black Rock Brewing and iKegger, New Zealand

It Should be Simple

We've set ourselves a challenge. Can the Two Cowboys brew craft quality beer while on the road in a campervan? We tried it out this summer in New Zealand with mixed results. We've learned a lot and saved ourselves quite a bit of money not having to buy beer in New Zealand.

We enlisted a group of beer friends to take the beer-show on the road. Brewers Coop provided us with our favourite Black Rock Concentrated Wort, Hops and the right Yeast for a juicy Riwaka IPA. iKegger New Zealand provided the gear to show how simple it is to pressure ferment and serve beer in simple kegs and we travelled with Lucky Camper Vans. 

We have three installments documenting our journey below.

This is part of the TWO COWBOYS' EPIC GLOBAL TRAVEL & CULINARY EXPERIENCE - 2019! 

Ep1

Ep2

Ep3

DO YOU WANT YOUR BUSINESS OR COMMUNITY FEATURED?

Some Background

Riwaka Hops (Riwaka™) is a real standout. It has powerful grapefruit “citrussy” characters that are literally breathtaking. If you want to say “New Zealand Hops” in your beer, then this variety says it all. The pure weight of the oil character experienced during selection carries right through to the glass. It is a punchy addition to the new world styles of Pales Ale and  New Zealand Pilseners.

We combined additional Riwaka Hops with Black Rock's specialty crafted Riwaka Pale Ale kit as if it didn't have enough of a hop kick already. Black Rock Crafted Riwaka Pale Ale is already dry-hopped with Riwaka hops. This kit is quite scarce to get because the hop is so in demand all over the world and it means if Black Rock can get their hands on it, then they brew a batch. Usually, all the kits are sold long before it comes out of the brewhouse.

We brewed the recipe with a specialty US ale yeast, Safale US-05. To get closer to the hazy ale style and a creamy finish with more volts, we also added a kit of unhopped concentrated Wheat Wort.

Our strategy was to use two Cornelius kegs with a spundling valve similar to our Beer Cowboys Brewing Kit bundle. Obviously, these are in Canada, so Andrew from iKegger stepped up with the gear, taps, connectors and whatever we needed to get on with the job. He runs a neat business that brings people closer to kegging and transporting their beer, which is in our opinion a much better strategy than bottle maturation. It also means you can drink your beer as soon as it is done fermenting. It stays carbonated.

We knew at the outset that temperature control was going to be a challenge. Lucky for us, it is summer in New Zealand with mild sunny days, and it turned out not to be too hard to get the beer fermented and carbonated under pressure. The fact that it was an Ale that wasn't too sensitive to hotter temperatures also helped to speed up the process. To do the cold-crash we had to borrow a fridge for a few days, which meant we could pay a visit to some good friends in Onemana with a promise of fresh cold beer at the end.

Observations

New Zealand is not just the land of milk, honey and sheep. It is also a hotbed for craft beer. We are amazed every time we visit just how passionate kiwis are about their beer and about making their own beer. We would be too if we were charged up to $25/litre for beer. Thanks to astronomical excise and overbearing duties Kiwis stepped up to liberate their beer by finding all kinds of ways of making it themselves.

We see the taxation burden grow in our country (Canada) too and we cannot be happier than to introduce our friends all over the world to making one's own beer. As we've discovered, making your own beer actually also means creating a better beer. We've had misfires. It doesn't always go to plan. Most of the time though it is pure deliciousness.

Thanks to our partners we can continue to push the boundaries of excellent beer brewing and our travel experiences along with it. We thank them for it.

Hendrik

Beer Cowboy

We earn our livelihood by producing great content and supporting inspiring people, businesses, and communities. Please book us here so we can tell your story too.

Photos

Hop Shopping

Beer Machines 

Cowboy Growlers

Blankies!

Best Place to Bew!

Hacking All Grain Brewing with Kiwi Ingenuity and Simple Affordable Tools at Bevie in Auckland, New Zealand

Hacking Our Beer

How do you take the beer brewing process, and make it accessible to the average Joe? Simple, you hack it!

The processes for brewing quality beer have been refined over centuries and continues to evolve even today. From an outsider's perspective, it appears to be safeguarded by an eclectic club of weird scientists set on excluding ordinary folk from the inner circle. They mumble of gravity, sparging, yield, steeping and other incomprehensible nomenclature. They keep their brewing secrets close, their recipes even closer, and their influence as wide as it can go within their brewing circle of friends. 

While brewing good quality beer used to be a regular kitchen affair, a couple of hundred years ago, it slowly evolved into dark science, out of reach for ordinary people, like the Two Cowboys. Now, with the help of some simple equipment like a kettle, a pump, some tubes, and good ingredients like grains, yeast, hops and water, a company called Bevie, in New Zealand, managed to apply modern-day control-flow systems, and a mobile app, to unlock the highly complex all-grain brewing processes for ordinary people.

This is part of the TWO COWBOYS' EPIC GLOBAL TRAVEL & CULINARY EXPERIENCE - 2019! 

DO YOU WANT YOUR BUSINESS OR COMMUNITY FEATURED?

They call it the Grainfather. It takes the best brewing practices from craft breweries and puts them into a simple to use, all in one system, to ensure anyone can brew a professionally produced craft beer, no matter their brewing experience.

You can also turn the Grainfather into a microdistillery by changing the top parts and adding the Still Spirits Alembic Pot Still Attachments. It is highly illegal to distill liqueur without a license in Canada, while pot smoking is now allowed (...go figure!). We are just saying that you can make fuel for your car or truck from your Grainfather brewing activities if you should ever need it. If you store the fuel in an oak barrel lying around, to keep it safe, it is between you and the RCMP to work out who gets what share when they come knocking.

There are many all-grain brewing equipment manufacturers and lots of equipment for brewing beer on the market. If you buy quality, it is expensive. People are spoiled for choice if they know what they are doing. Herein lies the problem - you need to know what you are doing! Short of learning from an expert or enrolling in beer school, it takes time, trial and error, and lots of learning to work out the best way for brewing beer from grains.

The innovation of the Grainfather is that it is a highly affordable, all-in-one system, for producing an excellent quality wort that you can ferment in the ways you prefer. It also drastically reduces your learning time and eliminates many costly brewing mistakes.

The one-pot brew system may not even be the most innovative around because there's been many that copied the approach and tried to improve on it. Some may also claim that not even Grainfather can be credited for coming up with the approach, although Kiwi's have been known for their innovation in all kinds of industries.

What struck us about the Grainfather is the innovation that Bevie put into the control of the brewing process. The smarts are in the software, not the pot! It offers the ability to a brewer to dial in an exact recipe and then execute it flawlessly, with a built-in controller, and the help of a mobile app on their phone or iPad.

Good brewing's foundation is precision and repeatability. Couple this with good ingredients, great water, and perfect fermentation, and you are on your way to consistently delicious craft-style beer and the envy of the neighbourhood. Not only do you get to execute the brewing tasks flawlessly, but you can also collaborate with other users, all over the world, on recipes and outcomes so that you have a massive database of brewing information on hand for your perfect beer. It gives new meaning to brewing with your mates!

Apparently, Bevie also has an answer for fermenting and serving your beer and provides you with another shortcut by having portion perfect fresh ingredient packs ready for a variety of standard brews. That is a story for another time.  

Observations

The brewing process is getting hacked. People are now liberated to brew their own craft quality beer consistently from grains with simple equipment and software that not only dramatically reduces the learning curve but assist in controlling the quality of the execution.

I don't want my beer to be made for me. If I did, I will just go and buy it from the next brewery or liquor store. I want to make my own beer, simply, affordably, consistently, and deliciously from available ingredients. That is what true beer liberation is about.

There are no gimmicks with the Grainfather offering a "one-push button dark magic beer brewing box". It is old-fashion grain brewing done right. They should have called it the "BigBrother" of beer. The whole solution comes in under $1,000 with free support and an ever growing database of brewing/distilling knowledge and beer recipes. It allows you to make a batch of 23 litres of beer with the ingredients of your choice.

Herein lies the problem. We want to brew more during the few weekly hours we can dedicate to this delicious hobby. Apparently, Bevie is working on a system that can do three times the volume of the existing Grainfather, and it will likely still be an electric system you can use in your shed. Yeehaaa!

The Two Cowboys has been on a journey for the last three years to liberate our beer. Bevie is giving us another option with the Grainfather to get closer to drinking what we make ourselves. We cannot wait to tell you what more they have installed for average people like us, on our beer and do-it-yourself journey.

Hendrik

Brewing Cowboy

We earn our livelihood by producing great content and supporting inspiring people, businesses, and communities. Please book us here so we can tell your story too.

Photos

Smart Pot! 

One Pot

Learning Fast!

Outperforming Craft Brewers with New Zealand's Best Concentrated Wort - Black Rock Brewing

Beer Liberation, Rebooted

You can see New Zealand's phenomenal standard of home-brewed beer side-by-side with some of the best craft brews on offer at the Dunedin Craft Beer and Food Festival. Frankly, it is hard to know the difference. Thanks to Black Rock Brewing's concentrated wort ingredients a lot of people are discovering that they can now brew their own beer.

We had to know more about these homebrewers, and a food festival half-way around the world was as good an excuse as any for the Two Cowboys to make the trip.

DO YOU WANT YOUR DESTINATION OR BUSINESS FEATURED?

If you've been following our travels, you will know that we are on a mission to free our beer from the mystery of brewing, excessive regulation, and over taxation. In Canada, the Federal Government even sneaked in an automatic annual tax escalation for beer. We are feeling violently prohibited all over again as we get de-ja-vu flashbacks of the 1920's prohibition movement that swept the continent. In some instances in Canada, eighty cents on the dollar of beer goes for compliance, excise, tariffs, distribution and taxation.

We love beer, and we've realized that short of adopting or investing in our own craft brewery (which implies that you become a de facto public servant and tax farmer), the best way for us to have a freshly brewed beer at a reasonable price, is to take charge and do our own brew.

We are no weird scientists and don't have the time to tinker with the complex chemistry of sugars and yeasts. That is why we've been on a mission during the last two years, to find out how we can make the best beer in the simplest possible way.

Before long we, like everyone venturing into the art of brewing, we were lured by equipment manufacturers claiming their device is the next fool-proof solution to revolutionize the making of our own fresh beer. Not so fast. There is more to the story.

The real discovery is that brewing beer is no different than frying a sausage or making a good cup of tea. It takes a little longer, but there is a simple method behind it all. As with your sausage sizzle or a cup of tea, the equipment makes it easier. However, if you start with a bad raw sausage or a no-good flat and old tea, no amount of gear and gadgetry will save you from an undesired result. It is all about the ingredients.

Start With Good Ingredients

Here comes the old value chain conversation. If you want to bake a cake, where do you start in the value chain? Do you start by planting your own wheat? Maybe, you buy grain and start by milling it. Most people start by buying a good quality flour from a reputable supplier and build their prize-winning creation from there with added ingredients and a fool-proof process, combined with some talent. The same goes for any consumable item that requires a substantial amount of value to be added before the end product can be created. The value chain should be your friend or you will take a long time to make it, coupled with all the risks along the way.

Beer is no different. You can grow your own barley, malt it, mill it, sparge, mash, boil and ferment it, or you can start with a quality wort (in the middle of the value chain) that guarantees a reliable outcome. You can work your beer magic from that point onwards by flavouring it, fermenting it, and serving.

Commercial breweries are no longer farmers and maltsters. They too are now entering higher up in the value chain. Instead, for their foundation ingredient, they rely on the maltsters to provide them with base malts. Base malts are blended (like flour) to provide a consistent foundation for every style of brew. The brewer can trust that it meets quality and consistency expectations. Specialty malts are then added for character and flavour with hops (also sourced) and the required type of yeast (also sourced) for fermentation.

The homebrewer can purchase base malts, hops and yeasts like his professional counterpart and he will still have to contend with the small variations of how the malt sugars will behave through the brewing process. The alternative is to leave it to the wort manufacturer and trust that the base wort meets expectations. This is only one more value-added step in the process entrusted to someone else.

There are people like Black Rock Brewing that are manufacturing base worts for brewing at home or commercially. The homebrewer, and increasingly the craft brewers are sourcing wort and adding value to it as a base ingredient through specialty malts, hops, fermentation techniques and maturation.

The beer value chain is fragmenting with the explosion of craft brewing. It opened up an opportunity for wort manufacturing, and we as beer lovers and budding brewers are better off as a result. We can now source the best wort and make our own fresh beer fairly simply with basic equipment like a fermenting bucket and recycled glass bottles.

It the Beer Any Good?

We've seen time and again that when anyone, homebrewer, microbrewer, craft brewer, and even large-scale commercial brewers start with a solid foundation for their beer, like a well-manufactured base ingredient of wort, one cannot tell the difference between a beer fermented in a bucket and one done in a commercial brewery.

Professional brewers and craft brewers don't like us telling you this. If you don't believe us, then you should save some money and make the trip to New Zealand with us. We will show you. Kiwis know how to do it Downunder, and we are lucky to break the news and be able to show you what we've discovered.

Enjoy our feature from the Dunedin Craft Beer and Food Festival. Thank you for Black Rock that made it possible for us to be there and to brew our own fresh (New Zealand) beer - even in Canada!

Hendrik
Beer Cowboy

We earn our livelihood by producing great content and supporting inspiring people, businesses, and communities. Please book us here so we can tell your story too.

Photos

The Range

The Creations

The Crew

Fermentation

Filming

Two Cowboys: Getting Back to Beer Basics with Glacier Hops Ranch in Whitefish, Montana, USA

The Original

Sometimes, the way it's always been done is not necessarily the best way. Maybe, it is better to do it the way it was intended. For example, perhaps, our brewers are flavouring our beer wrong. There may be a better way. The way it used to be done, with fresh hops.

Heritage and culture are vital ingredients in identity. Communities are built around identities. Acceptable behaviours, a shared set of values, the types of food people eat, their behaviours, mannerisms, and the beverages they drink, are all part of what makes a community different from the next.

Glacier Hops Ranch and Hopzoil™

Black Rock Brewing, NZ Challenge

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Over the last few years, the craft brewing industry, the world over, has been challenging traditional norms in brewing and beer. Rules that may not be as traditional as many would have us think. Partly, because some of the true heritage of brewing was destroyed during the last century through market consolidation, over the top "identity" positioning, and through excessive regulation and prohibition movements.

The activity of brewing and drinking beer has gone from being in disrepute or simply being outlawed and over-regulated with a few providers of generally produced "bland" beverages, to becoming part of a cultural reawakening with a loyal community and following. The good news is that people are brewing again and drinking more craft beer. We are now benefitting from flavour experiences denied to most of us until quite recently here in Alberta. Unfortunately, not all are good. Many are getting better, which is encouraging. It can get much better.

This poses an interesting question. What was the intended flavour of beer before it all went wonky in the western world? If we should step back in time, one or two centuries, what would beer have tasted like, and if we could have tasted it, would we have like it?

As with all "old" and traditional recipes of a beverage, baking or dish preparation, the quality and state of the ingredients are essentially what determines its character. The method holds the key to success. You should not really mess with either. As far as technique goes, it can take a lifetime to perfect.

Here in lies the challenge. Can we brew beer with fresh ingredients? Yes, we can. Not many people have had the privilege to have tasted fresh beer, brewed with fresh malt and fresh hops. It is possible. We had it. It is amazing! Beer, as we know, has a limited lifespan. It is essentially liquid bread that goes stale over time, accelerated by exposure to light, oxygen. Some styles require maturation. Even in these cases, fresh ingredients make all the difference.

So, just how fresh can we get with ingredients for our beer.? We are brewing today with malt and hops that both went through preservation procedures that are of the oldest and most trusted methods in the world. Both are dried and shipped to brewers all over. In the case of hops, it fundamentally alters the characteristics of the ingredient, as we've learned from Tom Britz at Glacier Hops Farms. He's been on a mission to find another way to keep hops "pure" for the brewing process.

He's developed a non-destructive way to extract the hops parts we use for brewing through distillation. It opens up all kinds of possibilities that holds the promise of fresher and more authentic tasting beer. The question we were left with was, "does it taste better?".

The verdict: "For sure!" We are a fan, and we are so much a fan that we think it is going to change the beer world - for the next century, maybe. For next year, for sure!

Observations

Hops Oil (the way it is done by Glacier Hops Ranch under the brand name Hopzoil™) is a pure essential oil made from fresh hops, steam-distilled right out of the field at harvest time. They are using a proprietary process to capture all of the fresh, intense, essential oils found only in fresh hops - the good stuff that is mostly destroyed through drying - and leaving all the biomass behind.

As we know, dry-hopping can be frustrating and expensive during the brewing process. Brewers that tried Tom's oil have learned that by using Hopzoil™, they can reduce filtration losses, along with reduced labour, freight, and storage costs, and increase yield and aroma, leading to more profit out of every batch of beer brewed. This means it makes good business sense.

Does it make the beer better? Hopzoil™ provides an intense freshness that cannot be replicated with dried processed hops. The result captures the complex “fresh hop” aroma and flavour. This means that you can get a year-round freshly hopped beer taste for your beer. A taste that lasts longer than when you would have dry-hopped.

We tried it. It is a beautiful product, and in the Two Cowboys opinion, you need to buckle-up. This is going to change the (beer) world. We are glad to be part of the story.

Hendrik van Wyk 

Hops Cowboy

We earn our livelihood by producing great content and supporting inspiring people, businesses, and communities. Please book us here so we can tell your story too.

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Hops Prair

Hops Cowboy!

Many Cowboys

Beer Mobile

Better Beer

Nice Beer. Yeah,  Right!

Two Cowboys: Elevating Craft 2018 at the Montana Brewers Association in Missoula, MT, USA

Maturing Beer

Can beer and brewing mature? It is an industry that is as old as civilization itself. However, in North America and Canada, the market is going through substantial growth as entrepreneurs and brewers are allowed back into the market to make, create and explore the incredible life of craft beer and brewing commercially.

With it comes success, challenges and above all, an opportunity for innovation.

DO YOU WANT YOUR DESTINATION OR BUSINESS FEATURED?

We attended the Montana Brewer Association's Elevating Craft Conference last week (2018).

What a pleasant surprise to see how their industry is growing and maturing where the euphoria of new licenses has worn off, and people are now more serious about their craft and the business of beer.

After two decades of craft beer, better businesses are succeeding, and an ample amount of good (great) beer is produced and consumed. Craft beer consumption in the USA continues to grow as a segment of the market. Still, there are up to two new breweries opening daily in the USA. This continues to be serious stuff!

Even more encouraging is to see how the Montana Brewer Association and its stakeholders are working together to grow the opportunity of great beer from a regulatory, educational, marketing and positioning perspective. Is it becoming easier to brew in Montana and elsewhere in the USA? Not necessarily, but people are learning how best to do it as small businesses, and slowly making their mark in numbers across the country.

The conference covered several aspects of the business of beer that should interest every brewer and brewery owner. From how to clean and inspect your keg stem to how to establish a brewing laboratory for managing the quality of your processes and products. It was indeed education and is definitely an event to consider attending if you are in the industry or the area and love the business of brewing beer.

We've seen that Canada, and in particular the Alberta Province, is still mainly going through the growing pains of establishing their craft beer industry. They have a lot to learn from markets adjacent such as Montana.

In general, the good news is that Provincial Governments in Canada are relaxing regulations for people to do craft beer. Unfortunately, while doing it, they are dressing up their contributions as the second coming to Canadian producers and beer drinkers. Not so fast, we say. In Canada, fledgeling breweries struggle to put out quality products (we know, we've drunk a lot of bad beer, already) and to remain afloat without grants, protectionism and handouts (some would say, what is new in Canada, eh?).

The very people that crow about their contributions to "help" craft is the ones in the way of craft beer and brewing's success. We are all for "free your beer". There should be a free and open market with opportunities for entrepreneurs to make the best products they can and to succeed in their businesses because they are doing a good job, not because some bureaucrat anointed them for success with a license and a grant.

The focus should be on good beer and sound principles for managing a beer business. This was the overwhelming theme of the conference and our takeaway from the event. Once the beard dress-up and bureaucratic meddling subside, the business of beer is a serious business. The breweries with a customer focus, good marketing, local presence and with a quality product are the ones that should and do succeed in Montana.

Observations

Two presentations stood out for us. John Holl, the Senior Editor of Craft Beer and Brewing Magazine, made a point about the need for breweries to tell their stories. In doing so, they can build customer loyalty and become intimate with their customers. This was music to our ears as we work to tell more stories of breweries and beer in the places we visit as the Traveling Cowboys.

The second presentation that caught our attention was one by Tom Britz from Glacier Hops Ranch. You heard it right. They have hops ranches in Montana! He is pioneering the production and use of freshly distilled hops oil for application in craft beer. It is an exciting story that we have to pursue further. Stay tuned for more on this new "revolution" in hopping beer.

We appreciate the invite from Matt Leow (Executive Director, Montana Craft Brewers Association), and the opportunity to attend the conference. We will be back for sure. We love the people we met and enjoyed the beer!

Now, how many breweries are there in Montana that we still need to visit? Stay thirsty my friends!

Hendrik van Wyk 

Hops Cowboy

We earn our livelihood by producing great content and supporting inspiring people, businesses, and communities. Please book us here so we can tell your story too.

Photos

Sustenance

Keynote

Medical Stuff

Great Montana Beer

Two Cowboys: New Zealand Beer in a Can Made Perfectly Every Time with WilliamsWarn in Dunedin, New Zealand

Kiwi In A Can

We all know that beer doesn't travel well. Light, movement and temperature fluctuations are some factors contributing to the rapid degradation of the flavour profile of freshly brewed and fermented beer. How can you then send beer halfway around the world and ensure that it is as fresh as it should be the day it is poured?

I think WilliamsWarn in New Zealand has the answer. They send New Zealand's best brews as malt extract in a can all over the world, and leave the last steps of the beer making process - fermentation, pouring and consumption - up to their customers. At the same time, they liberate their brewers from some of the heavy-handed taxations that accompany man's oldest beverage.

It's like the tea and coffee business. The manufacturer does all the work with the best ingredients they have, and all you have to do is add water or pull a shot of espresso. In the case of WilliamsWarn, add water and yeast, give it a little time, chill and pour yourself a clean, crisp, fresh New Zealand beer!

At Speights with WilliamsWarn

Award Winning Home Brewer - Nick Koppers

Chef Jason van Dorst - Experimental Brewer

DO YOU YOU WANT YOUR DESTINATION OR BUSINESS FEATURED?

We were hosted by Sean Toohey of WilliamsWarn at Speights Brewery. He wanted us to see first-hand, where the deliciousness of WilliamsWarn's beer came from.

The brewery is in one of New Zealand's iconic beer locations - Dunedin. It is rich in history and famous for its "Pride of the South" branding. James Speight, Charles Greenslade and William Dawson handed in their notices at Well Park Brewery in 1876 to establish their own brewery in Dunedin’s Rattray Street. Dawson was the brewer, Greenslade the maltster and Speight the businessman. The rest is history, as they say.

Today, the business is part of the Lion Group of companies. Not only do they still brew the famous Speight’s Gold Medal Ale, but the facility is now also a key producer of malt extract for food producers, craft, micro and home breweries the world over. Almost as much as half the capacity of the facility is dedicated to this niche line of products that are made uniquely and exclusive with New Zealand brewing ingredients. Yes, you heard it right. New Zealand hops, malt and specialty grains are added to the famous water from the spring underneath the Brewery to produce perfect wort extracted in a can of malt, and then they send it to us here in Canada courtesy of WilliamsWarn.

WilliamsWarn's patented BrewKegs unlock this Kiwi goodness for us when we add water and yeast, and a little hops to taste, and send us on a taste journey back home to our Island, and to the people that are proud of their South and their beer.

Observations

The beer business is complicated. Brewing is even more tricky. You can be a lover of beer and hate everything that comes with the industry. It is tricky not only due to the way it is done but because of the players, grandstanding, dress-ups, technologies, regulations, taxations, ingredients, branding, tariffs and more.

Amongst all this complexity of what should be a relatively simple matter - like baking bread - we are sincerely thankful for someone that can obscure it all, and deliver to us a simple, failure proof way, we too can take charge of our beer.

What we've learned now, thanks to our visit to Speights, is that not only does WilliamsWarn liberate us and our beer by making it simple and easy to make our own beer, it also sends us goodness from home, extracted in a can of malt. What an ingenious way to do it!

Thank you for our New Zealand beer - in a can!

Hendrik van Wyk

Beer Cowboy

We earn our livelihood by producing great content and supporting inspiring people, businesses, and communities.

Photos

Old School

Kiwi In A Can

Happiness

The Crew

The Place

The Original

Man with Horse

Beer Cowboys

Two Cowboys: The Story of Alberta's Maltsters at Canada Malting in Calgary, Alberta, Canada

Where Beer Begins

As the saying goes, "Behind every successful man, there is a loving and supportive wife". The same goes for brewing: "Behind every perfect glass of beer, there is a devoted and talented maltster".

Brian Dunn from Canmore Brewing Company puts it best when he says that brewing beer is relatively easy. Brewing good beer is not that hard either. Doing it consistently, over and over, again and again, is a real challenge. Then, you realise as craft brewer that you have to rely on the help of your maltster.

The maltsters understand the grain. They are the people that provide excellent breweries with a consistent foundation and reliable platform from where they can tailor their clients' favourite brews. Without them, every brew is bound to be different. Gone are the days where the brewery planted the grain, grew the hops, malted the barley, made the beer, distributed and served it. Today, every step of the value chain is fragmented and specialised. With the revival of craft brewing and distilling all over the world, it is even more evident that over-ambitious fledgeling breweries underestimate their reliance on right quality ingredients and trustworthy ingredient providers.

There is a straightforward recipe for a successful craft brewery to keep its patrons and stay in business. Make delicious beer consistently. If your batches deviate in taste and vary in quality, you risk alienating the very customer you've just won over from the brewery down the road. Big breweries know this. Craft breweries are learning it the hard way. Merely to have a brewing license is not a recipe for success. You have to make delicious beer and do it consistently.

See the full documentary here at http://www.twocowboys.tv

DO YOU YOU WANT YOUR DESTINATION OR BUSINESS FEATURED? 

In the late parts of 2016, just as Alberta's late-blooming craft brewing and distilling industry took off, we embarked on something we referred to as the great Alberta Beer Run. We wanted to meet the heroes and heroines of Alberta's craft liquor revival. We tried to take in the elixirs of joy, meet the license anointed, grant selected and subsidised entrepreneurs who overcame the regulatory perils of liquor production in a Province still suffering from a prohibition hangover. We planned to proclaim their success to an audience in waiting. Alberta finally arrived in the world of craft beer and distilling, and they are here to stay! Hooray!

Once the euphoria subsided in 2017, and we recovered from our hangover and after-taste of bad experimental brews, we discovered a whole different side to the story. A typical epiphany of craft played out for us like it did for craft disciples in other jurisdictions as well.

What we discovered was that brewing is actually easy. Beer is just beer. The best beer is fresh beer. The guy with the beard may look like the brewer but probably isn't. Your "local" beer may not be that local. If you are a brewery or distillery, your contribution to tariffs, excise and taxes make you a de facto public servant. We've found community dress-ups and craft impersonators. The sales droning of glacier-fed water, terroir authority, farm-to-glass spiels and the countless self-celebratory awards became monotonous with every sip of gin and with every ale we drank in the hope for something, anything genuinely inspirational and authentic to reveal itself.

Then it hit is. Behind all this make-believe of craft is a rock solid foundation that is also the foundation for businesses before and much more substantial than craft. All of these players rely on the simple ingredient for the success of their business. The maltster is the one person all of them have in common. Malt is the foundational ingredient before flavouring with hops, botanicals, barrels and any other concoction that makes it into your drink, and Alberta produces it. That is the real inspiration and the genuinely authentic story of how Alberta's maltsters are fueling the fire of creativity for brewers and distillers beyond our province.

The story is bigger - much bigger. It is the story of Alberta's place in the world of brewing and distilling, and no one is telling it. That is why we are showing it.

Alberta, Canada has a strong grain producing history thanks to the flat topography of its landscape, its fertile soil, sunny summers, and the pioneering hardiness of its people. The Province's farmers plant and grow the best barley and wheat in North America. It is this grain that is sent all over the world to make some of the world's best beer and whiskies. It is also the grain that is helping to fuel the explosion; some may say the revival, of craft brewing in North America.

However, there is a less glamorous side to the story. A contribution that begs to be highlighted and must be shared. A role that remains obscured in the beard boding, hipster culture wielding world of craft. It is the role of the maltster. Before Alberta's grain becomes beer and whisky, it needs first to become malt, which is the foundational ingredient in any brew. Someone is malting our grains and we need to know who it is. We are telling the maltster's story.

The role of Alberta's Maltsters goes back to the late eighteen hundreds with a company called Canada Malting. Today, this company is the most significant malt company in Canada, producing approximately 400,000 metric tonnes of malt per year. They are sending it to brewers and distillers around the world. Alberta's maltster has been fueling the beer industry, and more recently, the craft beer and distilling industry in a substantial way, and they are planning to continue to do so.

Observations

We thank the people we could feature in this documentary for an opportunity to include you in this story. We appreciate the commitment that you've made to the Two Cowboys, and for allowing us to get to know you and your businesses better. Some of you even became loyal friends and clients over the months we've put into filming this production.

The most significant lesson we take away from our work producing this documentary is a realisation that one should invest in the people that invest in you. That is what we endeavour to do every day. The businesses that embraced us made this documentary possible. As a thank you, we hope the exposure they get from our work contributes, even if it is a small part, to their future success.

This documentary is entirely self-funded. No one paid us to do it. We did it because of our love for beer, and for our people.

You are:

• Canada Malting
• Alberta Small Brewers Association
• Theoretically Brewing
• Olds College Brewery
• Canmore Brewing Company
• RAW Distillery
• Wild Rose Brewery
• Eau Claire Distillery
• Banff Ave. Brewing Co
• Last Best Brewing
• Alberta Beer Festivals
• Our loyal beer supporters and suppliers such as WilliamsWarn.
• Farmers, Brewers and Maltsters of Alberta

Hendrik van Wyk

Beer-Loving Cowboy

We earn our livelihood by producing great content and supporting inspiring people, businesses, and communities. We use Patreon to publish our premium content. Please become a patron at http://www.travelingcowboys.com if you want to see more of this and other local maker stories.

Photos

Alberta's Maltsters

Heritage

Prairie

Choice

Branding

Creativity

Experimenting

My Fresh Beer

Two Cowboys: Filling our Beer Growlers with (A Lot of) Fresh Beer at Our Local in Canmore, Alberta

But, Is It Any Good?

We've been on a craft beer crusade over the last two years. It happened for two simple reasons. Firstly, we discovered fresh beer. Secondly, Alberta Province finally stepped into the 21st Century by allowing small commercial craft brewing. Suddenly, we were spoiled for choice, and crucially, we discovered that we too are entitled to an opinion.

While drinking our way through craft brews and visiting breweries in the Canadian West and as far as New Zealand, we've made an undesirable discovery. Not all beer is created equal. Most of what is brewed and labelled as "craft" is merely failing expectations.

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Let's Talk About Fresh Beer. 

It was a revelation to discover (from a very senior and internationally well respected consulting brewer) that beer goes stale a lot quicker than breweries want you to know. Some beer you should drink within a week or fortnight after the brew. Some can still be in good shape with flavour developing up to three weeks, but then you are stretching it. After that, don't bother unless you are really in need of refreshment. Beer is like bread. Best when it is fresh.

There are ways to make beer last longer (staying fresh for longer). Keeping it in a keg, in the dark, sitting quietly at the right temperature or by adding some stabilizing agent, are ways to do it. The problem is that once it is transported or hits bottles or cans, beer is pretty much done for it. It won't live up to expectations if you are a connoisseur.

Beer's freshness is affected by some factors such as temperature, movement, light, oxygen, etc. The official story is that beer that is appropriately handled, bottled or canned has a shelf life of six to nine months. Expiry dates on your favourite brand typically reflect the beer to be good for up to that time. What it means is that you are unlikely to fall violently ill from the beverage. However, it is no guarantee of freshness or taste.

Here is the revelation: A freshly brewed beer, less than four weeks old, at your local tap room, poured from a chilled keg, is in the best condition for enjoyment. Try it for yourself. Buy the can. Pour a pint from the keg. Drink both. Which one tastes better? Voila! (No, it is not the beer-gas that is the difference.)

This is why we are in complete support of local brewing and local beer. Like you baker and your butcher, your local brewer (if he knows what he is doing) is your best source of fresh beer. Even better if they have a taproom because not only is it your oasis for beer, it is also the local happy place that brings people together and cements friendships.

Observations

Canmore Brewing Company is our favourite local brewery and we are proud of having Brian Dunn and his team in our town. The brewery officially opened on 1 December 2016, a full year ago. We were there when it began. We were there when the tap room opened. I think we kicked the door off a day ahead of schedule. We were there when they participated in Canmore Uncorked, there for the Calgary Beer Festival, and we are there almost every week (sometimes several times) when we are in town for a pint and to get our ten growlers filled.

Over the last year, Brian kept tinkering with the recipes and sometimes we were elated with the results as he mustered new flavours and developed his menu. We also shared in the disappointments and loyally helped to drink those away.

The one thing that stands out for us about Canmore Brewing's beer is that it is not a mad-science experiment (Craft Breweries tend to get a little carried away sometimes). Instead, it is our comfort food. The last thing we want is for someone to fiddle with the recipe when we've fallen in love with it. Brian respects us and honours our wishes. There are seasonal brews. Some are quite good.

However, the locals appreciate Canmore Brewing for doing a few brews really, really well and we hope Brian keeps it that way.

Hendrik van Wyk

Beer Cowboy

We earn our livelihood by producing great content and supporting inspiring people, businesses, and communities. We use Patreon to help us gain from our work. Please become a patron at http://www.travelingcowboys.com if you want to see more of this and other stories.

Photos

Vegetables

Family?

Ice Beer

Snow Beer

Beer Sale

Fresh Beer