WATCH: A View Royal brewery invited six other Canadian breweries to make the same beer at the same time to honour Canada’s 150th birthday. April Lawrence reports.
It’s mid-morning as the last bucket of hops goes into the kettle at 4 Mile Brewing Company where a very special brew is bubbling for Canada’s 150th birthday.
“Definitely the first time this has happened, maybe the first time anybody’s ever done it,” said Brewery Manager Steven Gray.
That’s because this beer is being brewed from coast to coast at the same time, with the same ingredients, using the same techniques.
On the west coast it kicked off at 6 a.m. Friday with what’s called a “mash in”.
“So a mash in is where we take all of our grain, whatever we’re going to use in the beer, we put it in the mill and it gets pumped over into our mash ton,” said Gray.
The same process was taking place at six other Canadian breweries in Toronto, Ottawa, Quebec, New Brunswick and Nova Scotia.
“All the breweries that are participating are in the original provinces of confederation,” said Doug White, organizer of the collaboration, adding of course that B.C. would be the exception.
Although today’s brewing process likely looks a lot more like a science project than it would have 150 years ago, the brewmasters say the final product should taste about the same.
“We tried to emulate what was being brewed in Upper and Lower Canada in the day,” said White.
“Somewhere between a pale ale and a mild British bitter,” said Gray.
The group calls itself the Fathers of Fermentation, and the beer is called Sir John’s Eh’le, another touch of Canadiana.
It will be pouring from taps at all seven breweries, starting when else, but Canada Day.
April Lawrence
