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

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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

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Hop Shopping

Beer Machines 

Cowboy Growlers

Blankies!

Best Place to Bew!

Getting Slapped in the Face with a Hoppy Rag at Deep Creek Brewing Co in Auckland, NZ

Hoppy Beers

If you say "hoppy beer" to anyone that doesn't know beer, they think of bitter beer.

Bitterness is a typical characteristic of some European style beers. The lighter beers of the Pilsner and Lager styles thrive on a bit of bitterness to quench your thirst. Some readily available mainstream commercial beers which used Pilsners and Lagers as their foundation for their taste profiles perpetuated this play on bitterness. We think it is to the detriment of the beverage's reputation. Beer should be better.

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In the early days of craft brewing, the brewers also managed to get bitterness wrong (some still do). You often end up with tonsil-throttling gill-destroying bitterness in an American or Indian Pale Ale, with a healthy dose of excuses claiming that if you cannot stand the heat (bitterness) in the kitchen (craft brewery's beer), then you better get out (drink some Bud, bud). Bitter is cruft!

No, it is not! Hops have many roles to play in beer. It imparts bitterness. It has a preservation effect to keep beer yeasts happy. Most importantly, Hops is about flavour. Flavour is all about profile and balance.

What people are discovering, with more beer choices on the market, is that bitterness is only one part, although an important, part that hops play in the flavour profile of a style. We believe there is a much bigger part, which most beer drinkers don't really know about, understand or appreciate. It is the ability of Hops to impart unique flavours to beer.

If hops flavouring is where the rubber hits the road for a good beer, it is also where the wheels come off. For all the angelic flavouring qualities the immaculately expensive hops from all the corners of the world bestow on our favourite beverage, they have one unfortunately quality. They are masters at escaping. As soon as you get them into beer, they have this one unfortunate peculiarity. They pull a vanishing act.

It has driven many a brewer to drink trying to solve this simple dilemma. They can pull off a juicy, citrussy cloudy ale with perfection, only to discover their creation became just another flat clear pale ale three weeks later. If you know what they know, and we know, you will drink the beer when it is fresh and ready. Choose your timing wisely. A week later and it is no longer be the master creation it was intended to be because the Hops flavours departed.

What if you can make the perfect beer and still have it perfect for weeks and months later with the same breathtakingly beautiful aromas and flavours, as the day it came cold crashed from the fermenter?

You can now. The world of beer is about to change forever. Steamed distilled Hops Oil makes it possible. It is popping up everywhere - even in New Zealand, and it is making the beer better. We've had our own disasters brewing with it. However, with a little practice, refinement and restraint we have discovered a whole new world of taste in beer - the way it was meant to be.

For more about Hops Oil, have a look at this entry in our Blog about Glacier Hops Ranch and their HopzOil Product.

Observations

On our recent whirlwind tour of New Zealand, we crashed into Scott Taylor of Deep Creek Brewing Co., at the Dunedin Craft Beerfest. We did a double take when he mentioned that they have a beer, a very popular one, that they made with Hops oil.

Now, there is Hops oil and then there is Hops oil. We were skeptical. But, he had our attention when he mentioned that it was steam distilled oil from fresh New Zealand hops. Apparently, they bet the Hops farm, bought a whole bunch of fresh hops from a farmer in the South Island and got a lavender oil distillery in Christchurch to distill them some oil. Next thing is, they are selling out on Hops Oil beer!

We thought that that North American craft brewers were the pioneers. In typical Kiwi fashion, they knocked something up in the barn and before you know it, the Kiwis are not just keeping up with the Jones', they are leading the charge!

Meet Paul, Scott and Jarred.  They’re the original guys behind Deep Creek Brewing Co, the craft beer brewery from Auckland, New Zealand. Deep Creek was born from a long-term friendship and a burning desire to produce flavour fuelled handcrafted beer and bring it to the kiwi masses (and people as far as Norway) to enjoy.

We loved their beer and their innovation. They have a pretty good restaurant and bar in Browns Bay, North Shore, Auckland too. We will be back with more from Deep Creek. In the meantime, enjoy the video and let them know the Two Cowboys sent you!

Hendrik
Hoppy Beer Cowboy

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Napkin for the Juice

Go for Brew and Eats

Flavour Palace

Juicy, Juicy!!

Good Fair!

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

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Hops Prair

Hops Cowboy!

Many Cowboys

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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.

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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.

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Sustenance

Keynote

Medical Stuff

Great Montana Beer

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

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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

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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.

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Vegetables

Family?

Ice Beer

Snow Beer

Beer Sale

Fresh Beer

Two Cowboys: Getting to Know New Beer Friends at the First Annual Alberta Craft Brewing Convention, Red Deer, Alberta

It's 'Bout Community

We gathered in Red Deer, Alberta for the first annual Alberta Craft Brewing Convention on 28 and 29 March 2017. What was planned for a 100 attendee event by Alberta's Small Brewery Association turned into a whopping 300+ attendee gathering.

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Red Deer is in the centre of Alberta. Canadians consider Alberta barley to be the heart of the brewing universe. There is a new gold-rush on the prairies, and this time it is for golden liquid gold.

Beer Gold 

It makes a lot of sense considering that the Province, and Canada in general, are late comers to craft brewing and distilling game. The country is finally discovering local beer thanks to a relaxation of regulations. It is something that stems from and still lingers due to a legacy in prohibition, controls, tariffs and a continuing governmental infatuation with "sin" taxation.

All this cannot stem the newfound enthusiasm of more than 50+ Alberta craft breweries that already made their debut recently. Judging from the attendees at the convention, more breweries are to come. Even the Alberta's Finance Minister took time out to celebrate the newly found economic optimism with a handout (rather, a partial hand back) to brewing and distilling entrepreneurs in a Province where many businesses are still languishing in the doldrums of the 2015 oil price shocks.

Alberta's infamous booze entangled history is well documented. Maybe it is finally time that beer and whisky production is recognised as a responsible business, grown-up and the economic staple of a diversified Albertan economy. Booze production may just be the next provincial cash cow. It is already on track if you listen to the folks at the convention. Then again, they were well lubricated with free fresh beer when we quizzed them about the industry's viability.

The people that pumped oil a short while ago are now boiling, mashing, fermenting and tapping. Everyone claims ambitiously and boldly to be a first in something. The first nano-brewery, first craft malting company, first sour producer, first up in the morning, first to put poetry on their cans, first on the corner and first to market with the next creative concoction dreamed up during a late night booze-fuelled brainstorming session. We'll leave the jokes about beer and beards for another time.

Observations

Experts claim that Alberta can and should produce a lot more beer. The market is nowhere near saturated with craft breweries according to Alberta's Small Brewery Association's President, Terry Rock. The question will be if there are enough drinkers for all this creativity? Will the capital that is pumped into these optimistic ventures actually return a profit?

Two things we know about beer. Like bread, you need to enjoy it is fresh. Like a good Alberta steak, it is best when you share it with friends.

Will the economics stack up around the craft brewing and distilling industries in Alberta? We don't know that yet. We have the foundation in our well-established grain and century old malting legacy. Maybe it will. There are bound to be winners and losers. What we do know is that all this enthusiasm is ensuring we get to drink fresh beer with our friends at our local. Sounds like heaven, doesn't it?

That is why we are on the Great Alberta Beer Run to get to know our breweries and brewmasters. To separate fact from fiction, and to learn who plays dress-up and who are the real community players. There is a lot of road ahead and a lot of beer to sample. As you've also probably gathered, there is also a lot of interesting stories to tell and large claims to be validated. Most of it comes with a little ridiculousness and a whole lot of fun in every glass.

What a glorious time to be in Alberta!

Enjoy our coverage of the event. See you on the road for a cold one.

Hendrik van Wyk
Craft Beer Brewer and Drinking Cowboy

Other material from the convention:

1. Speech from Hon. Joe Ceci, Minister of Finance for Alberta (Video)
2. Keynote - Tony Magee, Lagunitas (sponsored by Rahr Malting) (Video)
3. Art Froehlich Interviewed by Jim Bladon of ATB Financial (Video)

We are a content company. We earn our livelihood from producing great content about inspiring people and their stories. We use Patreon to help us earn from our work. It allows us to have a closer relationship with our collaborators and grow our audience. 

If you Sponsor us on Patreon: http://www.travelingcowboys.com or Donate to our cause on GoFundMe: http://www.forwardthefavour.com we can do a lot more for you, your business, event or community.

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Delegates

Two Cowboys: Our Own Fresh Beer From the WilliamsWarn One Vessel Brewing Innovators in Hastings, NZ

Fresher Beer

(Learn: **** Inspire: ** Amaze: *** Live: *****)
(The Two Cowboys - Subjective Rate-o-Meter.)

Canada is not one of the top beer drinking nations. Surprised?

It is Canada's most popular beverage by far but we're not drinking enough as a nation. According to our trusted informant at Wikipedia, Canada is ranked 39th in the world with around 63 liters of beer per person per year. New Zealand, Australia, and the United States are all out-drinking the Canucks.

We were wondering why?

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Society owes an enormous debt to beer. Because of beer, we have civilization. Yes, there are health and nutritional benefits to consider. It is the social benefits of drinking beer that has helped to substantially advance civility.

Beer may just have kept us from wiping out each other. Over time, it became much more pleasurable and life-prolonging to meet our foes in battle at a game and then have a "cold-one" afterward. If you know the Canadian Hockey culture, then you will completely grasp its significance. Instead of death by axe and sword on the battlefield, it became puck and stick on the ice, finished with a beer. In the warmer climates, the principle is the same. It all comes down to having a beer after the game. It keeps everyone alive and in good spirits for the next round.

How is it then that Canadians, a sporting nation like any other, are not consuming their allotment in beer? The answer is simple. A lack of "fresh" beer!

Beer oxidizes over time. When it does, it gets a "papery" or flattened-out flavour. Beer doesn't “spoil,” or become unsafe to drink, just less pleasant. How long your beer will remain drinkable depends on many factors. The conditions under which you store it, the style and whether it is canned or bottled all contribute to its expeditious deterioration. Light and oxygen are the enemies of beer.

If your beer has gone from the brewery to a hot truck, to a cold storage facility, to the floor of your local grocery store, it loses flavour more quickly. As a general rule beer keeps the longest when stored at a constant cool temperature and handling is kept to a minimum. The best beer is fresh beer consumed within seven days from brewing, which hasn't been moved, touched and even bottled. Here's the elephant in the room: "Breweries know this! That is why your draft tastes better than the bottle."

It made us think about how we can regularly get our hands on truly fresh beer, short of pulling a heist on the brewery or bribing the local brewmaster?

We tried brewing our own beer. The results were less than stellar, and we abandoned the mission for the local grocery store six-pack after a month of trying. We made friends with our local brewmaster and picked up a keg from the brewery. We sourced some CO2 gas from the local beer gas guy. Hooked it all up to a kegerator from China and pulled the lever. A mouth full of foam is all we managed after fiddling with the regulators for a week.

The only strategy that has worked consistently so far is a significant investment in Growlers that we get refilled every other day at the local brewery. Even this is hit and miss depending on the age of the beer in the keg they sell.

Observations

We kept looking for a better solution, and I think we've found it with Ian Williams and the folks at WilliamsWarn. They cracked the code and solved our fresh beer problem. It is something that has since turned our beer world literally upside down.

WilliamsWarn has an appliance (like a coffee machine) that makes fresh beer on tap. And, it does it better than our local brewmaster (don't tell him yet). Here's the real surprise. You can do it all yourself, at home, from the best ingredients in the world, with nearly no specialist knowledge.

The folks at WilliamsWarn generously hosted us in Hastings at their assembly plant to give us a good look at their new BrewKegs and stocked us up on fresh beer. Our real surprise was to see how these BrewKegs is revolutionizing craft brewing in brewpubs, delicatessens, and restaurants all over New Zealand.

Let's just say, North America and Canada's nearly 5,000 craft breweries better buckle up. Fresh beer is in town. Prepare for your world to be challenged.

We are going to track and enjoy it every step of the way.

Hendrik van Wyk
Brewkeg Brewmaster in Training Cowboy

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We are a content company. We earn our livelihood from producing great content about inspiring people and their stories. We use Patreon to help us earn from our work. It allows us to have a closer relationship with our collaborators and grow our audience. If you Sponsor us on Patreon: http://www.travelingcowboys.com or Donate to our cause on GoFundMe: http://www.forwardthefavour.com we can do a lot more for you, your business, event or community.

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Hand Crafted

The Future of Beer

Kiwi Ingenuity

Buckle Up

Simple

Best Beer Friends