122-975 Academy Way, Kelowna B.C.
T: 778-753-1968
WHATS GOING ON IN THE BREWERY?
FEB 2021
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Well, February certainly flew by. The shortest month of the year is now behind us and I, for one, am looking forward to the warmer weather that has been teasing us over the past few weeks. Warmer weather means patio beers in the sunshine(!) so our brew schedule is shaping up to fill the demand for light and fruity sessionable beers.
Later this month will see the return of our sour, which has unfortunately been sold out for the past few weeks. We have some interesting plans for this batch so you will likely see some tasty, fruity concoctions alongside our regular features. Making sour beers is always a fun (although stinky…) experience and I love how the sour flavour compliments any fruit additions. We live in a great place for fresh local produce so we’ll definitely be experimenting with whatever we can find this year. You can expect to see the sour back on tap in some shape or form in a few week’s time.
Our Trader’s Cove IPA that we featured in last month’s blog entry seems to be doing very well. It is now available in various liquor stores around town and beyond so keep your eyes peeled. We also have a good stockpile left at the brewery so pop in for a taste, or for some to take away. We have already brewed our second batch using this recipe so I think this will be another mainstay of ours to add to our regular tap list.
You may have seen me outside the brewery this month, adding a touch of colour to some of our kegs. Like everything we do here, there is no automated system for decorating our kegs and everything must be done by hand. Several hours of spray-painting later and we have some very pretty kegs to send out to various establishments around town. You can find our beer on tap in a whole host of places; from Kelly-O-Brian’s downtown and on the Westside, to Freddy’s brewpub; from the Owl in Osooyoos, to The Copper Mug in Penticton, and The Brown Bridge in Princeton. Sounds like a good excuse for a road-trip! One day I’ll have to do a tour and string them all together…
Until next time
JAN 2021
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We made it to the new year! We’re all hoping that 2021 is a much more positive year in general. I, like many, am missing the people I have been unable to see and places that I have been unable to go to over the past year. That being said, 2020 was a great first year for our brewery and we’re thankful for everyone that has come out to visit or that has picked up our beer from the liquor store shelf.
I’m going to lead off with the exciting news that our Very English Porter is now available, both in cans and in our taproom! This is the second batch of what was the third beer that we ever made at KBC and I’m happy to say that it turned out just a great as the first. This is our first time canning this beer and we have some great Britain-themed labels which you can spot for sale behind the bar in our taproom!
4 PACKS
AVAILABLE NOW
Here’s a little description to whet your appetite: “The Very English Porter is a rich and complex dark brown ale with flavours of chocolate and coffee, all balanced out with some classic English hop varieties.” I love brewing darker beers; the aromas from the roasted malts fill our brewery on brew-day and I can’t get enough of it. Sometimes I’ll walk in and out of the building, just to experience again and again that first moment when you walk into a brewery on brew day!
Another exciting release that we have in the pipeline is the latest iteration of our IPA. Whilst the previous batches have all been good, I always had the feeling that it could be even better. I think that with this latest batch we may have made that breakthrough. Bitterness is back, and for this one I went heavy on the dank and potent North American west coast hops. For those of you that like the Hazy Pale Ale, but that wish we had a beer that went a little further, this may be the one for you! Coming in at 56 IBU, this beer has a lot to offer with its bitterness, but I made sure to hit it with a hefty dry hop charge so that we still get a lot of those aromatics. I guess this would be somewhat of a fusion of a NEIPA and a WCIPA but you’ll have to come in and give it a try for yourself. As well as tweaking the recipe, we also now have a bespoke can label. Known as the Trader’s Cove IPA, you’ll be able to find this one in our taproom in the next couple of weeks and in certain liquor stores!
Finally, what do we have on the horizon? February is a fairly short month so there is a lot to squeeze in. We have a couple of ideas in the works for new beers, but nothing that is confirmed just yet. Mostly, I think we’re just looking toward the impending fruit season and trying to come up with some fruit and beer pairings that would work well together.
As always, feel free to swing by anytime and say hi. I’d love to hear your feedback on our new releases.
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- Josh
DEC 2020
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Hello, and welcome to a new regular section of our website where we are hoping to give you some more information on what we’re up to in the brewery at KBC. This will give you some insight into how we do things here and a sneak preview of what’s on the radar for the next few months!
My name is Josh, and I have been the head brewer at KBC for just over a year. I’m the guy in the wellies, covered in assorted brewing gunk, that you will often see working away behind the glass in our brewhouse. We love having such an open space to brew in and being so close to our patrons while we make what they are drinking! Feel free to shout over the glass if you have any feedback or just want to say hi. In times gone by I would have invited you in and shown you around, but alas, for now we have to keep our distance.
So what have we been up to this month? For starters, December 17th marked our 1 year ‘brewversary’ of the day when we made our very first batch of beer! Our first beer was a New England style IPA which came in at 6.6%, used a boat-load of delicious Citra hops, and which eventually became our Hazy Pale Ale.
Hitting this one-year milestone made us reflect back on the year that we have had (one which honestly hasn’t gone exactly as we had originally thought!) and to be thankful for everything that we have achieved so far. I love some interesting stats, so here are a few numbers from our first year brewing:
Quite the year! Our anniversary brew was a second batch of the Very English Porter, a beer that we first brewed back in February. There has always been a heated debate around here as to whether the Stout or the Porter was our better dark beer (and the jury’s still out) but at least you’ll be able to try both on tap and decide for yourself sometime in mid-January.
In other recent news, the eagle-eyed of you will have noticed an upgrade to our brewhouse that happened earlier this month. Our new addition is the giant, 1000L, shiny silver kettle that you can see standing where our old 300L kettle used to be. This upgrade is one that I am very relieved to see come to fruition (if you ever want to ask about the logistics of brewing 900L of beer in a 300L kettle, I would be happy to regale you some other time…) and really opens up some interesting possibilities for future beers.
We also ran an interesting new service this December where we offered people the chance to order personalized cans to give as Christmas gifts for the holidays. All you have to do is send us a photo, choose from one of our templates and we do the rest. Come to the brewery after a couple of weeks and pick up your cans filled with our beer and decorated with your label. We were doing this as a trial, but it proved so successful that we will be launching it for birthdays and other special occasions throughout the year. Contact us if you are interested and we can fill you in on all the details!
And with that I’m back off to the brewery to replenish our supplies that have dwindled significantly in the Christmas and New Year rush. Thanks to everyone who has shown their support by coming to the brewery or by buying our beer elsewhere. We have had an amazing first year and look forward to welcoming you back again in 2021 with some old favourites and some new recipes too. Cheers!