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This episode of the Cascadian Beer Podcast has

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been made possible by the BC Ale Trail. Arrive

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thirsty, leave inspired at the BCAleTrail. ca.

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Welcome to the Cascadian Beer Podcast. My

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name's Aaron and I'm a Cascadian. In this podcast

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series, I highlight the breweries of Cascadia,

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a region that has a strong presence in the international

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beer scene. Cascadia is a vial

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region in the Pacific Northwest on the North American continent.

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It's made up of the US states of Washington and Oregon, as

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well as the Canadian province of British Columbia. If

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this is your first time here, welcome. I hope you enjoy

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this episode and I hope you hit subscribe

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wherever you listen to podcasts, that way you'll never

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miss an episode. I'm in the provincial

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capital of Victoria, not too far

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away from friends of the podcast Swans Brew Pub

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and Spinnaker's, both of which are other

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historic breweries in the city. My

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guest today opened in 1996. Canoe

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Brewpub is located in an historic hundred year old building,

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close to the Victoria waterfront by the Johnson Street

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Bridge. In recent years, they've had some major

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renovations done to the space with a few

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more on the way. I sat down

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with their brewmaster.

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My name's Kyle York. I'm the brewmaster at Canoe Brewpub.

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All right, cool. Beautiful building. This is a massive

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space. It's kind of tucked away in the back,

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but you can see your tanks going on

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out there, so what's the size of the brewhouse?

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The brewhouse is a 20 (hypalitre) brewhouse with five

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fermentation vessels and seven bright tanks.

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And we actually pour off the bright tanks.

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We don't use kegs here at the brewery.

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All right, cool. So then the

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question, how did beer find you?

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Beer found me ... my

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background is in restaurant management and

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the restaurant I was working at made the mistake and give me two weeks

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off and I volunteered for the Victoria Brewers Society

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in their first year of working.

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I came down here and was leading an event,

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chatted with the general

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manager here and then ended up getting

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a job for the summer as a

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server and bartender, and then

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decided I want to go to brewing school. So I went

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over to Kwantlen Brewing Program over in Langley, did

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the inaugural first two years of the

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brewing program there. So I've a diploma

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in brewing and brewing operations. And then

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came back, was a part- timer here,

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as well as a server on the patio

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inside in the dining room and all that stuff. Then

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slowly decided I wanted to work my way just

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full- time into the backend.

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All right, cool. So, how long

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have you been the head brewer then here?

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I took over his head brewer here in May. So

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previously, I was here for about two and a half years under Daniel

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Murphy who had been here for seven or eight years.

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And then previous to him was Sean Hoyne, who everybody

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knows owns obviously Hoyne

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Brewery. So Daniel,

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he didn't look like he was going to leave. So I actually went over to Twa

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Dogs Brewery over in Saanich for about eight

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months and I was heading up to

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head brewer there. And then the opportunity sewed

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up to, for me to come back here and take over operations

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here, which I just couldn't pass up. It was an opportunity

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of a lifetime.

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All right, cool. And so like it's a

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massive space. I mean generally speaking,

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normal nights, I mean you're somewhat full,

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reasonable, comfortable crowds. Like what

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kind of styles of beers do you produce

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to fit in with that crowd that comes

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here to enjoy your pub?

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Yeah. My philosophy is producing beers

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that are fresh, don't

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bog you down too much. I like to live a

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fit West coast lifestyle. I'm out hiking, I'm not

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running, I'm working out. I don't want to be hung

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over the next day. I want to even maybe

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have a beer after work and then get home and maybe go for a run

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or something. So I like lower

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alcohol, refreshing bright

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beers though. Lots of vibrancy to them.

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Lots of flavor. And that's my

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kind of take on it. We produce

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a vast array of beers we have from

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a helles to a whip beer. And then we

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have an IPA all the way to a Baltic

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Porter in the wintertime. So I don't think we really

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hone in on one region specific, but

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because of the people coming into our brewpub, we've

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learned over the years, kind of what they're looking for. A

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lot of people from Seattle and Portland

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all across Canada, lots of tourists

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is our kind of our big jam here. Another huge

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patio outside and you

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kind of cater to them. What are they going to be ordering

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and also trying to create some

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fun beers in the summer. This summer I did some

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colorful beers. I did a purple blueberry

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beer, I did a a pink... Our

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first kettle sour here. They did a boysenberry

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kettle sour and it was a really cool thing teller. Just

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something fun in the summer that really shines

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on the patio here.

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All right. And do you have any cask

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engines at all that you work with?

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No cask engines? No, our setup

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is we don't have a cellar that's chilled

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at all. So unlike Spinnaker is that they have

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all their setup over there. We literally just have

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those seven bright tanks that are all hooked up to the taps.

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So we have three different bars that we pour from to

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help with alleviating the stress of the servers

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and allowing them to really

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give exceptional service to the guests. But

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yeah, so I'm stuck with the seven bright tanks for the moment.

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I'm working on maybe increasing

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our tank volume or tank capacity

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and then hopefully then we'll be able to offer some

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more options to people.

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Yeah. So like how, how much of an expansion than

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are you talking?

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I would love to do like...

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So if we have seven break tanks now, I'd love to do

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like six or seven half of those size.

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So we're turning over the options

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that are in them a little more frequently.

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But it also gives us maybe

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six or seven new lines on the

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draft lines.

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I'm in conversation with Kyle York of Canoe Brew

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Pub. I just want to thank the BC Ale Trail really

5:39

quick. And you know, Victoria is a real

5:41

historical hub for BC craft beer and

5:43

the best way to discover what else you can find is by visiting

5:45

the BCaletrail. ca. The

5:48

BC Ale Trail showcases many parts of the province.

5:50

And on the website you'll find recommended itineraries

5:52

for each region, a comprehensive list of every

5:54

craft brewery in BC, a calendar of beer

5:57

events, and a blog with lots of great stories.

5:59

The regional Ale trails include local breweries,

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pubs and restaurants along with other

6:03

activities the area has to offer. So

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whether you're planning a weekend trip or just being a

6:07

tourist in your own backyard, let the BC ALe Trail

6:10

guide you to your next beer adventure. Arrive

6:12

thirsty, leave inspired at the bcaletrail.

6:15

ca. And thanks again guys for supporting this episode.

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Now let's jump back into the conversation with canoe

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brew pubs, brewmaster Kyle

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York. So summertime,

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obviously busy tourists, but

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like you said, fit West coast lifestyle. If somebody

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was coming to visit Victoria, what are some of your

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favorite things to do when you're in Victoria?

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East Sook Park, one of my favorite places to visit in Victoria,

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the the cliff views over the ocean is

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just gorgeous. And then you can just run

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around the coast trail there. I do a lot of hiking

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up Mount Finlayson in biking. The [

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Galloping Goose 00:00:06:46] . I live out in Langford, which

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is what about 15, 20 minutes out of Victoria.

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So I like to bike in. It's about a 20 kilometer

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bike ride, bike into work bike out, bike home. It's

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just phenomenal. There's so much to do and you can do it year

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round. I'm just a little bit of a wuss when

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it comes to the cold weather.

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Yeah. Yesterday was blowing a gale. I mean did you bike

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yesterday?

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I did not bike yesterday no.

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So from here, what's, what's

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the craziest beer style that you've

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managed to pull off in this pub? Do you have much

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room for experimentation like apart from

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that, blueberry beer that you mentioned?

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Yeah, like I said, the kettle sour

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was the first soured beer we had done here.

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I kept it as a kettle sour to keep all of the bacteria

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like contained in the brew

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kettle. We don't have a lot of space. We have a lot of

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brick, we have a lot of wood and being

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a brewpub, we are putting out a

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big volume of beer that is sitting in a

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bright tank for an extended length of time sometimes.

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So I don't want to go too crazy and start

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accidentally souring anything. We don't have a lot

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of space to have backup hoses and backup

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equipment and stuff like that. So we don't have a separate

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area to do a souring facility.

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We also don't have anywhere to hold barrels. So

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maybe in the future there's options to just

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maybe grab another space somewhere that we

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can do some barrel aging stuff and have all of our sour

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stuff there and maybe a little like separate packaging line or

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something. But for now pretty

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much kettle sours is I think is as far as I'm

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going to go. And I like to keep them just slightly tart.

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Just something nice in the patio. Just adds a little bit

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of a crispness and tartness to that sunshine.

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And so then who's inspiring you to make better beers

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and stuff like around like Victoria

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and the province and whatnot. Do

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you get to check out many other beers?

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Yeah, well being in Victoria, such a small

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place, we know each other like we all know

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each other, right? So I'm seeing what Spinnaker's is putting

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out, see what (Swans) is putting out. They're our two

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closest... Phillips, they just opened the new tasting

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room. It was about a year ago I think. And

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honestly it revitalized like my interest

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in them. They'd been putting out some small batch stuff

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that's really cool. So I've been seeing kind of what

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they're doing, obviously checking on Instagram,

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seeing what the really hip Vancouver market's

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doing. And just trying to keep up. And

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we know that we're in a little bubble here. So we're a couple of

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years behind Vancouver, which is probably a

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couple years behind Portland or something like that. So seeing

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what's coming up through the pipeline is really useful.

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And then kind of a catering

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your recipes to that is the plan.

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And what would be some advice that he could give an

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inspiring brewer to

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make better beer?

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I think

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just getting people

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to taste your beer, taking constructive criticism.

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You can't learn anything if you do everything right

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every time. I mean I'm presenting

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my beers to the management team here and our staff.

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And I get better feedback just

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going to the guests that are sitting at the tables and be like, "

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Hey, what do you think?" And sometimes it's good, sometimes

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it's bad. Usually it's usually it's good, I'm not going to lie. But

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taking that feedback and changing it

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in your next recipe. The bonus of being a

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brewpub is we're not packaging a lot of stuff.

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So consistency wise

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I get to play with recipes from batch to batch to batch

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and can always honing

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in and always changing it just slightly to

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really dial in everything to where

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I want it to taste like.

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All right, cool. Well thanks Kyle for your time. Really appreciate it.

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Yeah, thanks so much Aaron.

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Big thank you to Kyle, really appreciate his time

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and it's such a beautiful space and I'm

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looking forward to the further developments

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that they have in the works. And you know what,

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I'm going to hit that patio in the summer. I

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love going to Victoria and I'm definitely going to

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be back on that patio in the summertime. Big

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thanks again to the BC Ale Trail for making this episode possible.

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Check out everything they have, including

10:17

previous BC brewery episodes of this podcast

10:20

on their website bcaletrail. ca.

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If you want to follow this podcast along on social media,

10:25

you can we're at facebook. com/ Cascadianbeer

10:28

on Twitter @ CascadianBeer and on Instagram @

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Cascadianbeerpodcast. For more episodes of this podcast series,

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subscribe in your favorite podcast app, or

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hit the website cascadian. beer.

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Thank you so much again for your time. I really

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do appreciate it. And until next time, remember,

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support your local.