Beer Guy: January February 2018

Highway 16 Revisited

by Peter Bailey

At Alberta taverns in 1974, the price of a standard eight ounce glass of beer was 20¢. Five glasses for a buck. On the down side, the beer was not ale or lager, it was just draft. Watery, tasteless draft.

These memories come from Neil D. Martin in his autobiographical novel, This Ain’t the Ritz. Martin recalls touring Alberta in the seventies as the drummer for Captain Nobody and the Forgotten Joyband. In 1971, the new Lougheed government set about modernizing Alberta’s liquor laws. Dancing remained illegal, but the Alberta drinking age was lowered from 21 to 18, which meant an influx of young people into beer parlours where they wanted rock ’n roll with their beer. Bands like Captain Nobody could make a decent living playing music. Martin wrote that each small town “had at least one hotel with a tavern and every tavern had a stage. We played ‘em all.”

One of them, the Gainford Hotel, about an hour west of Edmonton along Highway 16, was legendary by the time I had a beer there in 1983. It appeared not to have changed since it opened in 1958, including the stuffed coyotes, rabbits, lynx and birds watching you drink. In an obituary for the Gainford’s owner, Joan Kereliuk, upon her death in 2012 at age 90, musician Danny Hooper called her the Iron Lady of Alberta Bar Rooms. Alas, the Gainford Hotel only outlived Joan by a year as in 2013 Alberta Health declared it “dangerous to public health” and ordered it closed.

We need not mourn the loss of small town taverns like the Gainford. Rural Alberta is showing the way with new craft breweries and taprooms. Back in the day a ski trip to Jasper via Highway 16 meant a coffee in Edson, a burger in Hinton and a lager in Jasper. Today there’s Bench Creek Brewing in Edson, Folding Mountain Brewing in Hinton and Jasper Brewing in Jasper.

I was sceptical when I heard someone was planning a brewery located in the woods near Edson. But since their launch in 2015 Bench Creek has made me a believer. Their White Raven IPA has joined Alley Kat Full Moon as a house beer in my fridge. Behind the great brews are owner Andrew Kulynch and Head Brewer Warren Misik. Andrew was a serious home brewer with 37 acres of land north of Edson. Warren was part of the first graduating class of the Olds College Brewmaster program. Together they are making some of the best ale in Alberta.

Folding Mountain are the new kids on the brewery block. Founders and co-owners Aric Johnson and Jason Griffiths grew up in Hinton and both headed to Calgary for school. They shared an interest in beer and home brewing. Over the years, they talked about opening their own brewery, as one does. Eventually this talk became serious, and in 2016, they decided to run with it. As with Bench Creek, they tapped into some Olds College expertise, hiring Dave Mozel, brewmaster at Olds College Brewery, as their brewmaster.

Aric and Jason knew the brewery had to be in Hinton. As Aric told me, “from the beginning, this is where we wanted to build. The mountains are home.” They are inspired by the mountains, designing the taproom and brewery with a ski chalet feel and locating north of town, close to The Overlander Lodge, with a gorgeous view of Folding Mountain and the Rockies to the west. With strong local support, they’ve grown quickly, canning in fall 2017 with province-wide distribution.

Hardworking towns along Highway 16 have lived (and died) with the ups and downs of a resource economy – coal, oil and gas, lumber, pulp and paper. Craft breweries are an exciting, sustainable economic development option relying on renewable resources like world-class barley, clean water, beautiful scenery and the ingenuity and smarts of Albertans. And the beer is delicious!

Highway 16 Six Pack

Head west on the Yellowhead out of Edmonton to find many fine beer options for the thirsty traveller. The beers can be enjoyed and purchased at brewery taprooms as well as better beer stores.

Click images to zoom

Remlar Pale Ale
Remlar Pale Ale

Yellowhead Remlar Pale Ale, Edmonton
Start your Yellowhead beer trip at – where else? – Yellowhead Brewing in downtown Edmonton. Their renovated Tasting Room is great for a light lunch or after work pint. Kudos to Yellowhead for branching out beyond their venerable lager with this quaffable but substantial American pale ale. Malty and smooth with solid hop bitterness.

Red Rye IPA
Red Rye IPA

Bench Creek Northern Grace Red Rye IPA, Edson
Two hours west of Edmonton and a few minutes north of Edson you will (hopefully) find Bench Creek Brewing working their black magic in a clearing in the black spruce forest. Bench Creek calls this American IPA their flagship beer, a balanced but considerable IPA with a bit of spice on the tongue from the addition of rye to the malt bill.

Parkway Porter
Parkway Porter

Folding Mountain Parkway Porter, Hinton
Three hours west of Edmonton, just before the Jasper National Park gates, you will find Folding Mountain Brewing. Their Parkway Porter is a medium-bodied American porter with delicious chocolate and coffee notes. It pays tribute to the Icefields Parkway (Highway 93) between Jasper and Lake Louise.

Crisp Pils
Crisp Pils

Jasper Brewing Crisp Pils, Jasper
Located in downtown Jasper, Jasper Brewing launched in 2005 as Canada’s first brewery in a national park. Crisp Pils is Jasper’s nod to Canada’s 150th, with packaging evoking Canada Parks branding from the ’70s. A lip-smacking German pilsner brewed with Saaz and Hallertau Blanc hops at Big Rock in Calgary.

Snowdance Porter
Snowdance Porter

Three Ranges Snowdance Porter, Valemount, BC
If you stay on the Yellowhead through Jasper and Mt Robson Parks, 90 minutes later you can be at Three Ranges Brewing in Valemount, British Columbia. Partners Michael Lewis and Rundi Anderson launched Three Ranges after Rundi was laid off by Parks Canada in 2012. Snowdance is their winter seasonal, a creamy, robust, warming Baltic Porter.

Ten Peaks Pale Ale
Ten Peaks Pale Ale

Canmore Brewing Ten Peaks Pale Ale, Canmore
From Jasper you can head south on the spectacular Icefields Parkway, breeze through Lake Louise and Banff to Canmore. Already home to Grizzly Paw Brewing, Canmore Brewing launched in January 2017, showing two breweries in town are better than one. Ten Peaks is an amiable and moderate American pale ale, focused more on the malt than the hops.

Peter Bailey usually buries his lunch beer in a snow bank near Marmot’s Eagle Chalet. He’s @libarbarian on Twitter and Instagram.