Profiles

Half Cocked Brewing Opening This Week in North Grant, NS

Posted by acbbchris on 2017-08-03
Posted in: Profiles. Tagged: Half Cocked Brewing. 1 comment

Half Cocked Brewing is a small brewery launching this week in North Grant, located 6 kilometres North of the town of Antigonish, NS, on Highway 245. Partners Greg Oicle and Matt Thompson have been enjoying flavourful beers for years, during their travels and work across the country, and have “come home to roost” in the region. We caught up with Greg and Matt to learn more about their interest in beer, the first offerings from Half Cocked, and their plans for the future.

Can you tell us a little bit about yourselves?
Brewer Greg Oicle and Hop Grower Matt Thompson have partnered at the old Oicle chicken farm, which will be the location of the brewery and hop farm.  Greg, a St FX alumnus and geologist by trade,  spent time in the oil patch before moving to Ontario.  Matt, a recent transplant to Antigonish, moved back to the motherland after a near decade in Victoria BC where he honed his arborist skills, and grew as much food as humanly possible.

How did you get into the world of beer?
Greg: I had a Howe Sound Devil’s Elbow IPA in Fort McMurray (probably due to its huge size) and really enjoyed it. I then starting buying that and Granville Island stuff, because it was all that was available there.  In Ontario, I got into Flying Monkeys, Collective Arts, Muskoka, etc and haven’t looked back from there.
Matt: The first craft beer I had was likely an early Picaroons keg in residence in Fredericton. Before moving out west, I was heavy into the Pics Irish Red and Best Bitter.  In Victoria, I was quickly seduced by the hops; a fresh Driftwood Fat Tug IPA is still near the top of my list.

What made you decide to take the step into opening a brewery?
We had been homebrewing because it was too hard to get the beer we wanted in town.  We enjoyed Big Spruce but it was still a 2 hr drive away.  After a while, we thought our brews were getting pretty good and friends were also encouraging us to go in that direction.  We knew we weren’t the only ones interested in local, fresh, beer, and live in a community that really supports local businesses, so we decided to go for it.

Half Cocked Brewing, formerly Oicle Chicken Farm

What is the ethos of the brewery?
We craft American style ales with quality ingredients.  Obviously, taste is important, but also getting the most out of all the ingredients.  We started brewing with Horton Ridge malt almost the same time we got the Sabco BrewMagic in order to get our recipes right where we want them.  Often, the sweetness of the malt gets overpowered by hop craziness, so we strive to keep it a big part of the flavour profile.

Can you tell us about the beers you plan on offering initially? Any seasonals or beer “series” in the works?
We are launching with five beers this week:
Cock of the Walk – 6.5% India Black Ale (or black IPA). A nice combination of dark malt roastiness, big hop flavour and nice bitterness.
XPA – 6% Extra Pale Ale.  A floral and citrus nose leads to a sharp hop bite, followed by a biscuity sweetness and drinks like your favorite West Coast Pale.  Brewed with a grist featuring Horton Ridge 2 Row, bittered with Warrior while Centennial, Citra, Mosaic, and Cascade are added for flavor and aroma.   Matt swears this beer stays on your palate 2 or 3 sips longer than most beers, but we will let you be the judge of that.
Pete’s Sake– 4.5% Blonde Ale. Very approachable.  Perceived bitterness is minimal, light and refreshing.  We all know a Pete; small town guy who drinks the same beer his dad does, enjoys supporting local, wants to get on that craft beer wave but doesn’t know where to start.  Well, we brewed this beer for Pete’s Sake!
Fruit Cocked Ale – 5% Fruit Beer. Our take on a Radler, it comes in higher than a trad rad at 5%, and is made with grapefruit juice.  The name was suggested to us by a local homebrewer and while perfect, Greg maintains we would have thought of it on our own someday.
We will be experimenting with IPA and Double IPA recipes, as well as doing a harvest- or fresh-hopped beer from Matt’s already-established plants at his home, and going forward with hops grown here in our hopyard.
The first of these beers is a 7.7% Imperial IPA, which was also the first beer brewed under our much-awaited excise licence.  It is a sneaky little troublemaker, featuring hop darling Mosaic crafted using 2 Row, Munich, and Vienna malt from Horton Ridge, appropriately called Wait for It.

How will folks be able enjoy your beer?
We will be easing into it filling growlers once or twice a week, as stock permits.  Once we see how quickly it moves out of the barn, we may begin to circulate some kegs around the region, and start hitting up the Farmers’ Market circuit.  Plans for a tasting room are in the works sometime in the next year, along with what we are sure will be a much needed size increase in our system and production capacity.

Chicken (currently raw) and Beer

Do you have some initial accounts in the area lined up to serve your beers?
Like we said, it’s gonna be a little while before the beer can leave the barn, but when it does you can be sure it will pop up on the guest tap at the Townhouse in Antigonish and possibly at the Horton Ridge tap room.  Our XPA and Cock of the Walk IBA both have malt bills which are predominantly Horton Ridge malts.

Have you had any assistance from other breweries/people in Atlantic Canada?
Like most of the new breweries that have started up the last year or so, we have done a lot of visiting/brain picking/pestering of most of the breweries in the province.  All have been very welcoming and supportive as we have worked our way towards opening.  Terry and Rose at the Townhouse deserve special mention, Terry allowed us to brew on his BrewMagic a couple of times, so we could get some feedback on our recipes and start to brew up a little buzz for the brewery.  Jeremy at Big Spruce heard from us a lot in the beginning and helped encourage us to go for it,  Jeff Saunders from Bad Apple Brewhouse showed us how much you can do on your own, Mark and Sean at Lunn’s Mill helped us with a lot of the start up logistics and let us pour for them at Beer and Bites to get a taste of the other side of the table.  Most recently Greg got to spend some time with Greg Nash of Unfiltered and talk water chemistry and all things brewing.  We’ve been to TataBrew, Uncle Leo’s, 2 Crows, Tidehouse, Backstage, Sober Island and everyone has been very positive and helpful and we cant wait to be a part of such a vibrant industry in our province.

Where do you hope to see your brewery in the next 2-3 years?
Hopefully with a 7-10 barrel system, cranking out delicious brews and serving pints from our own tap room.  We would like to tap into the potential of our area and put as much of the 9000 sq ft barn we occupy to use.  We plan to have year round events, there are already 5 km of trails behind the barn that are perfect for snowshoeing or cross country skiing.

David Oicle, Matt Thompson, Greg Oicle, and their Sabco BrewMagic

For the beer nerds:

What type of system will you be brewing on?
We are starting on the Sabco BrewMagic, it’s a 1/2 barrel (60 litre) system, so we know we will be working our butts of in the beginning.  Our yearly output will be approximately 80 barrel, or 100 hectolitres.

Care to share some info on your homebrewing history?
Greg and his brother Dave had been homebrewing for a couple years now, which started as trying to brew a beer they really liked, prompted by having a somewhat limited selection in the NSLC at the time.  That quickly became more focused on developing recipes we liked and thought other people would like as well. When we got the BrewMagic in October, we really started to focus on specifics as we dialed in our recipes.

Do you have a favorite beer style, beer, or brewery you enjoy drinking?
Greg: My tastes in craft beer started with the biggest IPAs I could get my hands on.  The higher the IBUS and ABV, the better!  My tastes have changed a bit and I’ve learned to appreciate more styles.  Now I can usually go for a well crafted pale ale.  Collective Arts Rhyme and Reason is a favorite as well as the American Pale Ale from Bad Apple Brewhouse.
Matt: That’s a tough one, I like IPAs of course, but definitely enjoy a variety of sours and strong dark beers like Imperial stouts and Barleywines.  While I enjoy a variety of beers and breweries from around the world/country/province, I would be lying to you and myself if I didn’t say I’d love to crush DOA at Charm School in some kind of wonderful Groundhog day scenario.

How about favourite style or ingredient to brew with?
We are currently enjoying making big hoppy IPAs for fun and pushing our little system to the limit.  We have also enjoyed using the unique malts coming out of Horton Ridge and tailoring our beers to get the taste profiles we desire

Now that we’ve got everyone thirsty, how can they enjoy your beer?
We are launching our first five beers tomorrow (Friday, August 4th) at the Townhouse in Antigonish, and will be on-hand to talk shop and beer from 4pm. We hope to have our first growler filling days at the barn in early August (but having written that down, anything can happen now). Stay tuned!

Thanks to Greg and Matt for taking time out of their busy schedule to tell us all about Half Cocked! Keep an eye on Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram for the latest releases and news, including their first growler sales later this month. Congratulations guys!

Heritage Brewing Now Open in Yarmouth, NS

Posted by acbbchris on 2017-06-15
Posted in: Profiles. Tagged: Heritage Brewing. 3 comments
Heritage Brewing Company celebrated its soft opening this past weekend at 19 Kirk Street in Yarmouth, Nova Scotia. Heritage is the brainchild of four friends from the Yarmouth area, who, after years of homebrewing and toying with the idea of going pro, decided to make good on their plans. We caught up with partner Jason Murphy to learn more about Heritage’s past, present, and future.

Can you tell us a little bit about yourselves?
We are four friends who decided to get together and open this brewery, all hailing from the Yarmouth area. Jeff and Albert are both teachers, Jason is a vice principal, and Drew works in heating and ventilation.

How did you get into the world of beer?
Albert and I (Jason) went to an NSTU function, where various businesses were invited to come and promote their products. The Yarmouth Brewing Centre (an excellent homebrew supply shop in town) was there, and sold us on the idea of “Just Add Yeast And Water” boxed beer kits. We thought we were making great, cheap, beer and were feeling pretty good about ourselves until we went to Rudder’s and had their IPA! It was an excellent beer, and we decided we needed to do better than our boxed kits. We bought two turkey fryers, a mesh bag for BIAB and some grains, hops, and yeast. Over time, we have slowly built up from a 5 gallon homebrew BIAB system with plastic bottles for packaging, to a 55 Gallon Blichmann RIMS system and kegs.

What made you decide to take the step into opening a brewery?
We have been talking about it for years, we love the craft beer we have tried around the province, but one thing we kept saying was that our beer was as high quality as some of the bigger craft breweries. I (Jason) have always been a bit self-conscious about our beer, but as we kept giving more and more out, to more and more people, we kept feeling more confident and encouraged to move forward with it.

What is the ethos of Heritage Brewing Company?
We want to show our pride in our community ,and our love for beer. All of us are from Yarmouth; some of us moved away for a number of years, and have come back to settle down and have families.
I think our logo is a play on the idea of our love for beer combined with a well-known Yarmouth landmark. We had a friend who came up with the idea, and a great local artist (Danielle Mahood) who drew it up for us.
We, like other small breweries, believe every town should have a locally-owned and -operated brewery. We want people to buy beer, and talk about beer, with the people that actually make their beer! We want to be a part of a positive change in our downtown area and help build the economy in our home town.
As we start to release names for our beer you will also see many of them reflect the history and culture in Yarmouth.

Do you have an approximate opening date?
After our soft opening this past weekend, we will be open Thursday afternoons 4-8PM and Saturdays 10AM-4PM. We will make it a rather quiet affair, to see what kind of kinks we run into, before we do a grand opening in the next couple weeks.

Can you tell us about the beers you currently have available?
We are starting with an Amber Ale, Blonde Ale, Session IPA and a Stout. As a small brewery, we believe we have the flexibility to respond quickly to our customers’ tastes and we have excellent Cream Ale, Double IPA, Porter, Brown, Red, and Strawberry Rhubarb Wheat recipes all ready to go. (In fact, we have our Red and Cream Ale in fermenters at the moment, along with Rhubarb in the freezer).
We are really excited to offer our Strawberry Rhubarb Wheat. We made it last summer, it was so much work and so messy we swore we would never make it again no matter how good it was. After tasting and giving some away, the feedback was so positive we have already started freezing rhubarb and tracking down strawberries.

What are your plans for distribution? How can folks enjoy your beer?
We are offering growler fills (both 0.95 and 1.89 litres) on site, along with tasters (4oz). We have been in discussion with local establishments to have our beer available to customers on tap and in bottles, distributing bottles to restaurants in the coming weeks. We do not have a tap room at this time, but we do have hopes and plans for expansion.

Have you had any assistance from other breweries/people in Atlantic Canada (or elsewhere)?
Yes, I think it is really important to thank the guys at Tidehouse Brewing Company. We have sent them an awful lot of messages and questions and they have been extremely helpful and quick to give advice.
Alan from Meander River Farm and Brewery allowed us to spend a day there talking beer while he gave us tips and pointers, which were really helpful in completing our business plan.
As fellow teachers, we made contact with Schoolhouse Brewery as well, and Cam was more than willing to talk beer with us, and give us advice that we really appreciated.
We have been blown away with the support other craft brewery have been willing to give us and are really excited to be part of this industry.

Where do you hope to see your brewery in the next few years?
We hope that our system will be too small to keep up, and we will be able to expand rather quickly and add a taproom to our brewery.

What type of system are you be brewing on?
Currently we have an electric 180 litre (1.5 BBL) system, with 8 fermenters. We hope to produce and sell at least 350 litres per week.

Do you have a favorite beer style, beer, or brewery you enjoy drinking?
I think all four of us have slightly different favourites, though our single hop Citra Session IPA is one of our personal favourites.
Between the four of us, we have been to a lot of craft breweries, especially between Yarmouth and Halifax, and we have found something we like at each one.

How about favourite style or ingredient to brew with?
I am a fan of heavily-hopped beers, and dark roasty beers. The Citra and Chinook hops are my favourite to work with, and our customers will taste that with our Citra Session IPA. We will also start off with a great Stout followed by a Porter and Brown ales, that will showcase my passion for dark beer.

Thanks to Jason and the Heritage crew for sitting down with us and giving us a behind-the-scenes look at their new brewery. As mentioned above, drop by the brewery today (and every Thursday) from 4-8PM and Saturdays 10-4PM to grab a taster and growler, and keep your eyes peeled on their Facebook and Twitter pages, where they’ll be sharing the newest beers available, and the details of their Grand Opening Party. Congratulations!

Horton Ridge Malt & Grain Company opening a brewery and taproom June 1

Posted by acbbchris on 2017-05-31
Posted in: Profiles. Tagged: Big Spruce Brewing, Horton Ridge Malt & Grain, Sea Level Brewing, Tatamagouche Brewing. 2 comments

 

Horton Ridge Logo

The Horton Ridge Malt & Grain Company opened in Nova Scotia’s Annapolis Valley in 2016, the first commercial malt house in Atlantic Canada. Owner Alan Stewart has been farming and running Stewart’s Organics for more than 30 years. Malting Organically-grown grains from their own fields, as well as other farms, their variety of malts and adjuncts have found buyers across the Maritimes. On Thursday, June 1, they are opening a small brewery and taproom at the Malt House, to showcase their malts in beers brewed onsite, as well as by their customers. Six taps have been installed, three of which will feature Horton Ridge brews. For the other three, Organic stalwarts Tatamagouche Brewing and Big Spruce Brewing will have dedicated taps, and the final spout will rotate through beers from other breweries that use Horton Ridge malts. We caught up with Alan to ask him some questions about how they decided to start brewing, their initial offerings and plans for the future.

Can you tell us a little bit about yourself?
I am sixth generation farmer in Hortonville, with the oldest certified organic farm in the Province. I ran away from the farm after high school to get several engineering degrees, but beat it back to Hortonville upon graduation.

How did you get into the world of beer?
We came into the beer business by way of its most important ingredient, malt. We opened Atlantic Canada’s first craft malt house a year ago.

What made you decide to take the step into opening a brewery?
Malting always made sense to me, it is a farming maneuver; we are harnessing the natural processes that occur during the germination of the seed. I did not know much about brewing, but what I did find out after a while that our malt was significantly different from macro malt that the craft brewing industry depends on. Recipe substitution was not the answer, replacing industrialized macro malt with floor malt is like replacing industrialized enriched white flour with stone ground whole wheat flour. We wanted to be part of the process whereby recipes were developed around our malts. It also did not hurt that we have a highly visible location next to Highway 101 in Nova Scotia’s bread basket with a quickly developing culinary scene.

What is the culture of the brewery?
Our brewery tag line is “From Grain to Glass”, we will be making beers from malts made on-site. We consider ourselves a malt house first, and a brewery second. Our goal is to highlight the role of agriculture in brewing by showcasing the growing and malting of grains. Another important aspect of what we do is to increase the economic footprint of brewing by allowing brewers to replace imported malts by those made here. In the fullness of time, the economics will get even better as we develop our malting grains growing capabilities. We have been able to access regionally grown grains (mostly from PEI) more quickly than we had anticipated, very happy for that. Since we have been farming organically for so long, we did not hesitate to have the organic philosophy extend to our malting and brewing operations. In our opinion we are providing the opportunity for brewers to extend their “craft” value chain. There is a cultural discontinuity of a “craft” brewing industry that relies on industrialized macro malt.

Can you tell us about the beers you plan on offering initially? Any seasonals or one-offs in the works?
We have two beers nailed down. The first is Malt House Ale, it is made of equal parts of our Two Row, Vienna & Munich malts. It is hopped with Summit. It is intentionally malty with a pronounced bready finish. The second is Rye’s Up Local, made from 50% PEI barley, 25% PEI wheat & 25% of rye that we grew ourselves. We would like to round out the pan Atlantic aspect of this beer by accessing a suitable hop from New Brunswick. We have recently started malting oats from PEI, so we are working on an Oatmeal beer. We have a good working relationship with our neighbour Just Us! Coffee, so you can look for beers finished on coffee, tea and chocolate.

Where will people be able to enjoy your beer?
We will be selling our beers out of our taproom only. We will sell them in flights, pints & growlers & bottles.

Do you have some initial accounts in the area lined up to serve your beers?
We have absolutely no plans to sell our beers outside of our taproom, with the possible exception of winter growler sales at the Wolfville Farmers Market (where I was a vendor for 23 years). We purposely undersized our brewery to leave room to bring in beers that our brewery customers make with our malts. At least half of our taps will be those beers. All of the beers served out of our taproom will be based on our malts.

Have you had any assistance from breweries in Atlantic Canada?
We did not want to get drawn into the “beer style” thingy right off the bat, we wanted to let the beers end up where our malts took them. To that end we employed the DIY approach. We certainly appreciate the support from our largest malt customers, Big Spruce and Tatamagouche Brewing.

Where do you hope to see your brewery in the next 2-3 years?
 At the moment we have no plans to scale up, we want to continue to highlight malt forward beers to our taproom patrons and malt customers, and to provide an outlet for the beers made by our customers.

Switching gears to the brewing system, what type of system will you be brewing on, and what is your expected output?
We have a 120 litre system from Stout Tanks & Kettles, brewing 3-4 times per week during the summer.

Can you tell us about who will be running the brewhouse?
Our brewer Stephen Mastrioanni has been brewing for 2 years, and has been brewing with our malts from day one. He has a good handle on the malt.

Do you have a favorite beer style, beer, or brewery you enjoy drinking?
I do happen to like malty beers, have gotten over hops. My “go to” brewery is Sea Level, it is close by, and I appreciate Randy’s support along the way. I also look forward to the offerings of Tata & Big Spruce that we bring back after making deliveries there.

How about favourite style or ingredient to brew with?
Of course, for us, it’s all about the malt.

Thanks to Alan for answering our questions and sharing the details on the new brewery and taproom! Current plans are to have the taproom open 7 days a week from 11am to 8pm. Bar snacks will be available, including pickled eggs “powered by” free range hens who are fed a malt-based chicken feed sourced from Horton Ridge. They’ll also be offering 1 liter growler fills (Horton Ridge beers only) – they’re happy to sell you one or you can bring your own (clean!) one to be filled. So if you’re in the area or planning a trip that way, be sure to drop by 2504 Ridge Rd in Wolfville (the Malt House is visible from Exit 10 on the 101), and keep your eyes peeled to their Facebook, Twitter and Instagram pages for the latest news and events.