Two Delta breweries have shown they can brew with the best in all of Canada after earning a total of four awards at the Canadian Brewing Awards Conference earlier this month in Halifax.
Four Winds Brewing and Barnside Brewing competed against more than 2,100 of the best beers in the nation of beer-drinking hosers.
Barnside Brewing won a silver medal in the barley-wine-style category for its Batch No. 200 Estate Barley Wine ale.
Four Winds Brewing won silver in the North American-style-pale-ale category for its Four Winds Pale Ale.
That beer is one of the first they ever brewed a decade ago and is a tribute to the beginnings of craft beer in B.C. The beer is on tap in all Cactus Club restaurants.
Adam Mills, with Four Winds, said the brewery has won in the past but with recent growth in craft beer across the country, the competition has been tougher as hundreds of new breweries come on line.
Four Winds just marked its 10th year in business on June 1.
“Ten years into our existence, winning three awards in one year is great, tremendous, very happy with it,” Mills said. “I think to be recognized by your peers and professional judges is a great thing.”
Four Winds also claimed a bronze medal in the American-style-IPA category for its beer labeled Greg, named after the company’s co-founder, Greg Mills.
Greg died in 2020 and his sons named the beer in his honour.
Underneath the label that bears his name it reads, “In Loving Memory.”
“Greg is the type of beer that Greg would have enjoyed while watching another West Coast sunset. This one’s for you, Dad!” it says on the beer can.
Four Winds won another bronze medal in the session ales category with its La Maison beer.
For Barnside Brewing, it’s been a one-two-three medalling performance since the farm brewery opened in January 2020, where almost 40 people now work. The brewery, on 60th Avenue, grows 90 per cent of its ingredients, including its own hops and barley, on farmland settled a century ago.
In 2020, Barnside earned a silver for its imperial oatmeal stout and in 2021, earned a bronze for its Honeycomb Pale Ale.
“We’re very excited about it. Our Batch 200 Barley Wine was sort of a release for our third anniversary. We made it before our second anniversary, then barrel aged it for 13 months in anticipation of a delightful beer, and we’re happy it got silver,” said consumer engagement coordinator Sabrina Witter.
Barley wine ale is considered a strong ale and similar to a wine and showcases the malt flavours instead of the hops. The ale, made completely from their own ingredients grown on the farm, is aged for 13 months in blackberry brandy barrels.
“So it makes it almost … ice-wine like,” adding it’s not hoppy and has a toffee flavour to it, Witter said.
“Each year, we’ve been fortunate enough to win a Canadian Brewing award. So we’re getting a little bit of recognition here … for having Delta as a great spot.”
Nearly 800 craft brewers, beer professionals, suppliers and industry experts attended the Canadian Brewing Awards Conference, now in its 21st year. A total of 2,171 submissions were received from more than 400 breweries from across Canada, coast to coast.
