Before 2013, Alberta wouldn’t provide a licence to a prospective brew house unless it could demonstrate the ability to produce 500,000 litres of beer a year. 

“It’s tough because you get to self-doubt. You get imposter syndrome. I’m just some random guy,” Sherman said. “If nobody could change those laws up until now, why would I be the guy to do it?” 

But change it he did. Now his company, Tool Shed Brewing, is consistently named among the top breweries in Calgary and its capacity is over two million litres of beer a year. 

A high-tech overachiever 

Sherman traces the history of Tool Shed Brewing to his days working as a communications tech advisor in Afghanistan between 2007 and 2010. 

“I’m just a nerd that got hired by the government and military customers to go into the war zone and design and implement NATO secret clearance-level tactical communication networks,” he said. 

He lived in Afghanistan on and off during that period. When he’d come back to Calgary, he and his friend, Jeff Orr, who he worked with in Afghanistan, would focus on hobbies that included making gourmet coffee, barbecuing meat and brewing beer. 

Sherman freely admits that he probably took every single one of those hobbies too far. 

He had a coffee roaster shipped from Italy. He had to change the electrical loads to make it usable in Canada, but even then, it couldn’t be used while the washer or dryer were running. He described the setup, which allowed him to access the roaster and assign roast profiles from outside the network, as “ridiculously geeky.” 

He applied that same geeky fixation to his barbecue operation. 

“My barbecue actually has a probe in the ambient air and in the meat. And I designed this algorithm that looks at the differential of those two set points and knows exactly, based on the current environment, when the ribs will be ready. And it’ll send you a tweet,” explained Sherman.

“There’s an infrared camera so you can see the ribs cooking, and there’s even a little fan that blows on the charcoal and keeps the temperature within a perfect half-degree of temperature control.” 

That may seem obsessive but it’s hard to argue with success. And he’s had some pretty good success with his barbecue brand, Notorious P.I.G. 

“Last year we went to the world championships as the Canadian National BBQ team, and we won a gold medal,” said Sherman. “And we actually qualified again for this year.” 

These endeavours all took place in an eight-by-15-foot tool shed in Sherman’s backyard. Hence the company name. 

“The biggest thing that I noticed was that all the hobbies that I was getting into had a common theme: bringing people together,” he said. “And when you start making beer, wow, that really brings people together.” 

For Sherman, there was also something cathartic about brewing beer with his buddy. They shared some harrowing moments while working in Afghanistan and found that connecting with someone who went through the same things was therapeutic. 

“We’d been through so much in Afghanistan. It was terrifying. We had a lot of really close calls,” said Sherman. The first time he heard rockets fired into his camp, he couldn’t sleep a wink, but he eventually arrived at stoic acceptance. 

“Eventually everyone comes to this realization that, ‘if it’s my time, it’s my time,’” he said. “Then you can sleep through the rockets. That’s a crazy thing to get used to.” 

Sherman’s younger brother is a professional brew master in Australia. So when he set his sights on setting up a brewery in his tool shed, he called his brother for advice. 

“No way, I’m not helping you with this,” was his sibling’s response. “You’re going to get divorced over this.”

In an attempt to dissuade Sherman, his brother described a list of equipment he’d need and emphasized the endless work involved.

“I think he was trying to talk me out of it, but I was loving everything that I was hearing,” said Sherman. 

His brother eventually did offer tips, and Sherman got the homebrew operation up and running. And, just like his coffee and his barbecue, people loved his beer. 

“At one point, I said to my buddy, ‘this is the best thing ever,’” said Sherman. “‘People are coming from all around to spend this great time together. I think maybe we figured out the secret of life.’ 

“I know it sounds over the top but passion goes into creating something with your hands, and when people try it and they lose their minds, there’s nothing better on earth.” 

Bureaucratic fight

Sherman quit his job and decided to make brewing beer his full-time vocation. That’s when he slammed head-on into Alberta’s archaic liquor laws. 

Essentially, the Alberta Liquor and Gaming Commission (ALGC) responded with, “sorry, it can’t be done. It’s always been this way.”

That response infuriated Sherman. He compared it to arguing with his kids. 

“All the greatest breweries around the world come to Canada trying to get their hands on this barley — Sierra Nevada, New Belgium, Oskar Blues, and even as far away as Sapporo in Japan,” said Sherman. 

“In fact, from my house, I can look out the window and see this beautiful tract of land with combines rolling up and down it. It’s one of the best barley operations in the world. I can see those guys pull that barley off the field from my house, and I can’t brew with it in the city that I live in. It’s madness.” 

It was a gut punch. 

Sherman remembers going home after hearing the response from the ALGC and thinking about the pickle he was in. He had quit his job and his next mortgage payment was due in a few days. Doubt began to sink in. Maybe his brother was right. 

But defeatism wasn’t going to pay the bills. He was determined to make lemonade from the lemons the ALGC had served. But it wasn’t going to be easy. 

“Ever try to change a provincial law? It does not happen before your next mortgage payment comes due, that I can tell you.” 

But Sherman found a workaround. He changed his business plan and applied for an importer’s licence rather than a brewer’s license. The new plan didn’t run afoul of ALGC regulations. 

“The moment I got that licence, I grabbed all this beautiful barley and drove across the border to British Columbia. I went to a brewery just outside Vancouver that let me brew my beer in their facility. I brewed my beer, drove back home and imported my own freakin’ beer to Alberta.” 

Sherman put 660,000 kilometres on his Toyota pickup truck while driving between Calgary and Vancouver. And when he wasn’t driving back and forth, he was imploring the ALGC to change its ways. 

“It’s insane. But I think the nice thing was, it was perfectly insane,” said Sherman. “It wasn’t me saying, ‘do you realize what I would have to do?’ It was me saying, ‘look what I’m doing.’” 

Sherman researched the topic with his trademark zeal and shared that research with the ALGC at every opportunity. 

“There’s a report from the Economic Development Board of Canada saying every dollar you spend on local craft beer contributes $1.12 to that local economy,” said Sherman. “And of course it does. It supports the malt house, the truckers, the farmers and the brewers.” 

All of the driving and haranguing the ALGC eventually paid off. In 2013, the commission changed the law. 

“They sent out a tweet that day that said, ‘Congratulations Tool Shed, no more minimum brew requirement,”’ said Sherman. 

To be fair, the Alberta Small Brewers Association had been arguing for a rule change for years, so Tool Shed wasn’t in the fight on its own. But the timing and the ALGC congratulatory tweet suggest Sherman’s tenacity played a significant role. 

In the decade since the law was changed, Alberta’s local craft breweries went from 12 in 2013 to 187 today. 

“Everyone is using local barley, and everyone is supporting the farmers. It was a tremendous win for all of us.” 

Tool Shed is now housed in a 50,000-square-foot building in Calgary, and its capacity quadruples the ALGC’s previous minimum requirement. Its beers are available across the country, the customer base is growing, and the facility is becoming a destination in Calgary. 

“We’ve always had a tap room here. But one of the other things that we were able to change in Alberta is that we’re the first brewery in Alberta where the tasting room in the back is right on the brewing floor,” he said.

“So the tanks are right there, and it’s kind of steamy, loud and obnoxious, but you can smell the hops, you can see the steam, and you can watch the beer being brewed as you’re having a beer and some barbecue.” 

That’s right. He’s managed to shoehorn his BBQ brand into his facility. The restaurant was an upgrade done during the pandemic. And true to Tool Shed ideals, it uses only Alberta-sourced meat products.

The restaurant is called Notorious P.I.G. but it serves pork, beef, chicken, sausages and just about everything on a grill. 

“We even have some vegetables,” joked Sherman. 

The post From backyard beer to big time brewing appeared first on Alberta Farmer Express.

A $9.6 million investment by Labatt Breweries of Canada will see the Banded Peak Brewing Co. expand its 4,800 square foot brewery by an additional 7,000 square feet. 

The company is also increasing staff by 68 per cent with new positions in front of house, logistics and brewery operations. 

The expenditure also includes a bulk grain silo to reduce plastic use in malt shipping as well as improved brewing equipment throughout the facility.

Banded Peak Brewing Co. has been owned by Labatt since 2020.

“We’re proud to be able to contribute to our community through this investment,” wrote Chad Patterson, vice president, craft and high end with Labatt Breweries of Canada in a December 13 news release.

“From day one, Banded Peak has brewed local craft beer for Albertans and beyond, and this investment from Labatt will enable the necessary next steps to ensure that Albertans can continue to enjoy locally-brewed Banded Peak beer for years to come.”  

Colin McLean, co-founder of Banded Peak Brewing, was “thrilled” the investment will allow the company to bring Calgarians more selection.

“This investment cements the fact that we are steadfast in our commitment to producing our beer locally, with new jobs, local ingredients and the type of innovation that continues to make Calgary a great place to live and work.” 

The 176-year-old Labatt Breweries of Canada is owned by Belgian multinational Anheuser-Busch InBev.

Banded Peak Brewing opened its brewery and taproom in Calgary in 2016 to serve a growing market for taproom culture in the city. They championed the establishment of the Barley Belt, a district with Alberta’s highest concentration of taprooms.

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Carlsberg Group on Wednesday announced an all-cash deal worth $4 per share for all shares of Waterloo Brewing, which bills itself as the largest Canadian-owned brewery in Ontario and a pioneer of the current “craft brewing renaissance” in Canada.

The deal still requires court approval — and approval from TSX-traded Waterloo’s shareholders, although Carlsberg has already signed up Waterloo company directors and officers holding a combined stake of about 39 per cent, with “irrevocable” support and voting agreements.

A committee of Waterloo independent directors is also recommending the remaining shareholders vote in favour of the deal, on which the two companies expect to close early in the first half of the new year.

In business since 1984, starting as Brick Brewing and rebranding in 2019, Waterloo Brewing produces the Waterloo line of premium craft beers and a “value” brand, Laker.

It also holds the Canadian rights to Seagram Coolers and the LandShark and Margaritaville beverage lines, and already has been producing Somersby cider in Canada on Copenhagen-based Carlsberg’s behalf since 2020.

“One of the priorities of our SAIL’27 strategy is to grow our business in attractive markets where we are small today, such as Canada,” Carlsberg CEO Cees ‘t Hart said in a separate release Thursday. Buying Waterloo Brewing, he said, “significantly improves our growth prospects in the Canadian market.”

“This exciting opportunity will scale our business in Canada. The brand portfolios are complementary. Local sourcing will secure long-term robustness of supply, and increase commercial flexibility and speed to market for innovations, step-changing the way we operate,” Carlsberg Canada managing director Anders Rud Jørgensen said in the same release.

Waterloo Brewing’s portfolio of “long-standing co-packing relationships will benefit from these combined operations,” he added.

“We’ve enjoyed a close relationship with Carlsberg and are excited about becoming part of one of the largest brewing companies in the world,” Waterloo Brewing CEO George Croft said in Wednesday’s release, adding the the board “is confident that joining Carlsberg is the best long-term solution for our employees, partners, customers, consumers and community.”

Waterloo on Wednesday also announced results for its third quarter ending Oct. 30, reporting declines in both net revenue and gross profit in what Croft described in a separate release as “a challenging year for the industry.”

Waterloo said it’s “continuing to see consumers trade-down as a result of ongoing inflationary pressures,” which has led to sales growth for the Laker brand but has “negatively impacted the company’s premium beer brands and ready-to-drink products, which is putting pressure on gross margin.”

Waterloo has since raised the price on its single-serve 473-millilitre Laker cans, a change it said is “consistent with the balance of the industry and will have a significant and positive impact on gross margin in the fourth quarter.”

The company also reported renewals with “strategic” co-manufacturing partners, which it said will result in about $18 million of combined revenue over the extended terms of those contracts.

For its last full fiscal year ending Jan. 31, 2022, Waterloo had booked $5.803 million in net income on $180.825 million in gross revenue, up from $3 million on $156.8 million in the previous fiscal year. — Glacier FarmMedia Network

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“The acquisition we are doing today is very important for the future growth of Royal Unibrew in the Americas region,” Royal Unibrew CEO Lars Jensen said in a statement.

“We are adding capacity in Canada, which is also close to our U.S. business and over time we expect to serve most of Canada and partly United States from Amsterdam Brewery,” Jensen added.

The vast majority of Royal Unibrew’s revenue is generated in Europe. In 2021, around 11 per cent of the company’s net revenue came from its international segment, which includes the Americas, according to its annual report.

Royal Unibrew, whose own brands include Royal, Lapin Kulta and Faxe, noted Amsterdam maintains a “solid position in on-trade in Toronto” through its two retail stores and two brewpub restaurants in that city.

Amsterdam was founded in 1986 as a Dutch-themed Toronto brewpub and expanded following its 2002 acquisition by Jeff Carefoote, who previously worked for major brewers Molson and Miller in Canada and the U.S.

The acquisition is expected to close in the third quarter of this year, paid on a debt-free basis, Royal Unibrew said. It expects the deal to be earnings-per-share accretive within the first year of ownership.

— Reporting for Reuters by Nikolaj Skydsgaard; includes files from Glacier FarmMedia Network staff.

CORRECTION, July 18, 2022: Royal Unibrew on July 17 published a statement of correction, lowering the acquisition value. The initial announcement on July 15 had valued Amsterdam Brewery at about 300 million Danish crowns (C$52.8 million).

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The changes, which took effect May 11, come at the request of the Nova Scotia Federation of Agriculture (NSFA) — which has said that owners of small farm-level processing facilities shouldn’t be treated the same as multi-million-dollar processing plants, in terms of the required fees and regulatory approvals based on larger volumes of waste to manage.

The smaller operations will now be regulated through standard wastewater approval requirements, the province said.

The province said its Office of Regulatory Affairs and Service Effectiveness estimates the changes will save each on-farm business $308 per year.

“These changes reduce red tape while ensuring that environmental standards are met,” Environment Minister Timothy Halman said in a release. “With input from industry, we are better aligning regulatory approvals to environmental and business needs.”

These activities include construction, operation or reclamation at sites “associated with small farm operations” involving:

• poultry, red meat, inland fish, dairy or dairy products, vegetable, or fruit processing plants;
• distilleries or wineries;
• breweries that produce 150,000 litres or more of alcoholic beverages per year;
• fish meal plants; and
• food additive or supplement manufacturing plants.

Regulatory changes such as these are occurring across the country to better align with smaller farm processing facilities, the ministry said via email.

“Other Canadian jurisdictions are, or are in the process of, moving to a model of regulation for these industries that better align regulatory approvals to the environmental risks,” ministry spokesperson Tracy Baron said.

— Liam O’Connor reports for Glacier FarmMedia from Saskatoon.

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The two-day course (to be held March 23-24 in Red Deer) is being put on by the Canadian Malting Barley Technical Centre in collaboration with Alberta Barley.

The event features a number of presentations by well-known experts on barley selection and analysis, the malting process, and brewing as well as breeding of malt barley, the global malting and brewing industries, and exporting malt barley.

For details and registration info, go to albertawheatbarley.com (click on the Media pull-down menu and then Events).

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“It will be an extremely tight and difficult year for the malt processors and ultimately for the brewers as well,” said Peter Watts, managing director of the Canadian Malting Barley Technical Centre (CMBTC) in Winnipeg.

“Not only did the hot, dry summer lead to a significant reduction in yields, it also impacted quality,” said Watts, noting higher protein levels were a big issue this year.

The rains that eventually came hit right at harvest time, “adding insult to injury” by leading to quality downgrades.

Total Canadian barley production in 2021-22, which includes feed barley, was estimated at 7.1 million tonnes by Statistics Canada. That compares with the 10.7 million tonnes grown the previous year.

Preliminary data from the Canadian Grain Commission show average protein levels for barley selected for malting in 2021 coming in at 12.8 per cent. That’s the highest of the past decade and well above the 10-year average of 11.7 per cent.

Maltsters typically like lower-protein barley, and Watts noted they are expanding their specifications in order to account for the higher protein levels. “Stuff that normally wouldn’t be accepted, will be accepted this year,” said Watts.

Higher-protein malt barley create processing challenges, including reducing alcohol extraction levels, altering water absorption, and leading to hazy beer.

The larger brewing companies may adjust their recipes to use more adjuncts, such as rice or corn, to compensate for the tighter barley supplies, but Watts said craft brewers don’t have that option.

The CMBTC is currently working with higher-protein samples to come up with modifications maltsters and brewers can use to adapt to this year’s crop, Watts said.

Some export customers do like higher-protein malt barley than is typically used in North America and would be a potential buyer for higher-protein grain in a year with more normal yields, but Watts expected export movement would be down in 2021-22.

“We’re just so short this year, there isn’t enough malting barley to go around,” he said.

“We’re in uncharted territory… people are not often forced to work with this kind of quality.”

While there will be challenges, one possible bright spot to come out of the year was the fact that maltsters will be forced to work with newer varieties that they may not have selected in the past, offering opportunities for those varieties to gain traction, Watts said.

Research into how the different varieties fared this growing season was ongoing, he added, with results and recommendations for 2022 to come shortly from the CMBTC.

— Phil Franz-Warkentin reports for MarketsFarm from Winnipeg.

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“The markets are definitely getting more prominent for Alberta hops,” said Jenelle Bjarnason, who owns Hop To It with husband Shayne. “It’s still a new industry, so there’s still some hesitation for growers and brewers. But our hops are showing to be just as reliable as Yakima Valley (in Washington state) and just as high in quality.

“So we’re just getting the word out there that Alberta is growing hops, and they’re very, very good-quality hops.”

The Bjarnasons began growing hops on their 25-acre farm near Lacombe in 2018 after looking for a crop they could grow without much land or extra machinery. In 2019, they planted a half-acre on trellises fashioned from 18-foot-tall telephone poles, with another half-acre the year after.

“It doesn’t sound like much, but when they grow up to 18 feet every year, it’s more about volume than square footage,” said Bjarnason, a director with the Alberta Hop Producers’ Association.

“Every year, we cut them down, and every fall, they’re back up to the top again. They can grow a foot a day in the summer getting their way to the top. It’s a really interesting plant.”

But it’s also not for the faint of heart, she added.

VIDEO: From bine to divine: Watch below how hops are harvested

Hops are labour and input intensive, and for the first two years, produce next to nothing as they establish their deep taproots.

“Before we got into it, we knew they were definitely a long-term investment,” said Bjarnason, who is also an agronomist. “Hops aren’t a weekend crop. They’re a very needy crop, and you’re not going to get a return on them for seven to 10 years.

“They’re not an easy plant to grow by any means. They’re a ton of work — the very definition of a labour of love.”

Because hop plants take three to five years to reach full maturity, the couple got only about 10 to 20 per cent of production the first year and about 40 per cent the year after. But now in their third year, they’re starting to see the fruits of their labour, despite a hot, dry summer.

“We’re still learning what our plants can produce, but ultimately, we should be looking at 15,000 to 18,000 pounds a year,” she said.

Most will be used in the burgeoning local craft beer sector.

“It’s really cool to see — almost every little town has a brewery presence. It’s really great to be able to give them a more local option for their hops.”

Fresher ingredients, better product

Local is the “backbone of this whole craft beer movement,” said Matt Willerton, co-owner of Blindman Brewing in Lacombe.

“It’s a lot more fun to use what we have in our backyard,” he said. “It’s easy to go to a big hop producer in Yakima Valley — and we do, do a lot of that, don’t get me wrong — but it’s fun to challenge ourselves with the varieties that are growing in our climate.”

Brewers are notoriously picky, however, so there was some apprehension buying from a new hop producer, even if they were as local as it gets.

“We almost made them prove to us that they were going to be able to grow good hops when they first started,” said Willerton, who participated in last month’s harvest at Hop To It.

“They were excited and hopeful, but the crops weren’t there yet. Now they are, and the difference in the hops that we harvested this year compared to last year is huge.”

Small hop farmers are able to focus more on quality, said Bjarnason. The hops are hand-sorted to make sure only high-quality crops make it into the beer.

“You can hide a lot in a pellet, so if you can trust more where your hops are coming from and know the people putting them in, it makes a big difference,” she said.

And this year’s quality is high, partly because more mature plants produce more lupulin, the pollen that gives beer its hoppy taste and aroma. But it’s also because Alberta has “almost perfect conditions for hop growing.”

“We’re really excited for this season and this harvest,” said Bjarnason. “I think they’re going to make fantastic beer.”

Freshtival beer festival

Some of the hops harvested last month went straight into a fresh hop beer at Blindman Brewing for the upcoming ‘Freshtival’ in Red Deer County.

“Fresh hop beer is definitely a very seasonal thing — we pick the hops, we sort the hops, and the hops go into the beer usually that day,” said Bjarnason. “If you don’t get it in the beer, you’ve got to dry your hops right away, or they will go rotten. It’s a very time-sensitive procedure.”

These fresh hop beers have a bit of a different flavour.

“It would be comparable to using fresh herbs as opposed to dry herbs. It just tastes fresher.”

Willerton agreed.

“Bringing it back as close to the roots as possible just makes a better product,” he said, adding even local dry hops offer a fresher taste than those sourced from elsewhere.

“We’ve found on the malt side that barley that’s malted fresh ends up having a fresher quality to the end product. We’re still in the early stages of that with the hops, but I imagine it will be very much the same thing.

“Our beer is best drank as fresh as possible, so for all the ingredients that go into it, the fresher the better.”

At least 15 craft breweries will be working with local hop growers to produce fresh hop beers for the Oct. 21-24 festival at Craft Beer Commonwealth near Red Deer.

Willerton hopes the event will give both hop growers and craft brewers an opportunity to showcase the high-quality products being produced locally.

“People just like to support local and be part of that community,” said Willerton.

“The story has been told over and over again about how lucky we are to be in Alberta with the high-quality barley we have, and it’s cool to be able to add hops to that story now as well.”

The post Hops gaining ground here — and craft brewers couldn’t be happier appeared first on Alberta Farmer Express.

“Canada has a global reputation for its clear skies and clean water,” said Don Tse, a beer writer and consultant who operates Far Out Exporters with wife Michele and business partner Jeff Orr.

“Over 90 per cent of the beer is water. The malt barley grown in Canada is globally recognized.

“In the craft beer world, America leads the charge and Canada is second.”

The company is marketing beer produced across Canada, but since it’s located in Calgary and the trio knows craft brewers here, they have a special focus on Alberta suds.

Tse initially imported beer brands into Canada but as the domestic craft beer industry took off, opportunity beckoned.

“My wife and I really love to travel,” he said. “We would travel all over on the import business side, visiting breweries and things. Along the way, we met a lot of beer buyers in other countries. We just knew a bunch of people, and so we’ve been contacting them… It’s about knowing people.”

The pandemic has put a damper on the market, but Far Out Exporters has shipped craft beer to Australia and recently sent a shipment, including beers from Alley Kat Brewing Company in Edmonton and Inner City Brewing in Calgary, to Sweden.

“Every country has had some kind of lockdown,” said Tse. “Because of that, every country has had a big push to support small local business, which is great, but it doesn’t help me in my business of exporting beer.”

Still, a shipment to the U.K. is in the works and the company is in talks with Ukraine and reaching out to contacts in Europe. The U.S. is also a target although it’s “a difficult market — it has weird labelling requirements.”

Canada’s reputation for high-quality food and top food safety standards helps but other factors come to the fore.

“There are certain countries that have a fascination with Canadian wildlife,” he said, noting one of the beers in their portfolio is Grizzly Paw, brewed in Canmore and has a bear on one of its beers.

“That type of thing plays really well in Australia and Germany,” said Tse. “It sounds silly, but a beer made with maple syrup does well overseas.”

The two big trends in craft beer worldwide are Indian Pale Ales and kettle sours.

“We brew those really well here in Canada. It’s funny how countries like Germany have centuries-old tradition of brewing beer, but they brew the beer they’ve always brewed. So they look to North America for these IPAs and sour beers. That seems to be very popular.”

When he first got started in the beer industry, Orr said Albertans felt left behind by places like Vancouver, Portland and San Francisco, which had flourishing bar and craft scenes. But 10 years later, the variety and quality of beer coming out of the province is up there with other flourishing beer scenes.

“The goal here is to show people that we’re not just late to the game and trying to figure it out,” he said. “We’ve picked things up and have a stellar offering. You don’t get any fresher than having the barley come from up the road.”

Sophisticated buyers are looking for technical prowess and at beer reviews to see what they would like to try, added Orr.

“Our job as exporters is to try and bridge that gap a little,” he said. “We live and reside in this market, and recommend beers that they are looking for. We maintain a portfolio of beer that we would get behind and enjoy.”

While it’s “very early” days for their company, the outlook is bright, said Orr.

“In terms of beer and exports, Canada has not really put an emphasis on craft beer (but) I think there’s huge opportunity for marketing beer made in Canada,” he said. “It will surprise people.

“There’s a lot out there that people don’t see from other places right now. That’s exciting for me.”

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“We paid $60,000 last year just buying CO2 in bulk,” said Kirk Zembal, co-owner of Blindman Brewing in Lacombe.

“If you’re using that much CO2 and producing that much CO2 on site, it’s pretty easy to make a business case for why you should just capture the stuff you’re producing already and reuse it.

“It’s one of these low-hanging fruits where there are really positive financial returns and lower emissions.”

Breweries might not be top of mind when you think about major emitters, but during the brewing process, CO2 is created as a byproduct of the yeast consuming the sugars as it’s fermenting. Typically, it is vented, but using carbon capture technology allows Blindman Brewing to clean that CO2 and compress it for use in processes such as carbonating beer or purging kegs.

“We’re kind of a perfect utilization space for the circular carbon capture and reuse,” said Zembal. “We can expect to capture between 50 to 100 tonnes of CO2 in a year. That’s likely to be essentially all of the CO2 we would be producing through fermentation.

“We should be able to capture nearly everything we produce, and then use everything we produce as well.”

And because the CO2 produced by fermentation is biologically sourced and cleaner than, say, an industrial boiler that emits that gas through combustion, it’s much easier to reuse it.

“The CO2 we produce is essentially pure CO2, so we just have to clean it up a little bit and then reuse it. The cost and complexity to do that is way lower,” said Zembal.

The project, which received $102,000 in funding through Emission Reduction Alberta’s Food, Farming, and Forestry Challenge, will be the first in Canada to use this type of technology in a brewery. At a cost of about $140,000, the equipment should pay for itself in two to three years.

“That’s where the ERA comes in — it basically de-risks the project,” said Zembal, who hopes to have the equipment up and running by fall. “We are still a small craft brewery. We don’t have money just lying around for stuff like this. That’s definitely where the ERA helps out. We’re not taking such a big risk.”

Blindman Brewing is also working with Olds College to gather, validate, and disseminate the project data.

“We hope that our 1,100 brother and sister breweries across the country will be installing this, or similar equipment, down the road,” said Zembal. “We want to demonstrate this technology in a way that breweries across the country can really trust the data so they can make their own decisions.

“That way, it’s not just me saying, ‘Hey, you should buy this, it will pay itself off and cut your emissions.’ It’s me saying, ‘Look at the data — here’s how much it costs to run the thing and here’s the volume of CO2 that was captured and reused.’”

That’s just what it means to be part of the craft brewing industry in Canada, he added.

“It’s built into the ethos of craft beer — we just want to do better,” he said. “Everything we do, we try to do better, and that includes things like sustainability.”

It’s not unlike the ag sector, Zembal added.

Like farmers, craft brewers are “plugged into the community and really value sustainability.” Blindman, for instance, is part of a pilot project to help reuse and recycle the PakTech plastic carriers used in its packaging process. It will also be installing solar panels on the roof of its facility this spring.

“There’s such an opportunity for the ag sector to reduce emissions on behalf of everybody, and we’re the same,” said Zembal.

“We want to do what we can to really reduce our emissions — especially this low-hanging fruit. Anything we can do just helps out everybody.”

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