While Cannery Brewing brewed its first batch of beer – the ever popular Naramata Nut Brown Ale – on April Fool’s Day 2001, its ongoing delight in micro-brewing is no joke. Founders Ron and Patt Dyck and their team proudly produce individually crafted fine ales and lagers of distinctive complexity and balance. Beer enthusiasts love the reliable collection of the all natural brews which contain only the finest hops, grains and yeast strains. Cannery’s seasonal ales like Maple Stout adopt those principles of quality with no preservatives nor pasteurization and are happily anticipated. In this spirit of exceeding customers’ expectations, the selection is kept fresh and exciting with specialty beer launches. In February, Cannery Brewing launched an Estonian-style Baltic Porter, the first in a new Artisan Creations line-up. A strong beer at 8% alcohol/volume, “this classic Baltic Porter is brewed with traditional German malts and noble hops.” Luscious with velvet silkiness, it imparts dark fruit tones along with its sweet-roasted flavour and finishes smoothly.
To achieve this malt-forward/dark fruit characteristic, explains Patt, “This baby takes a lot of time to ferment because it is a lager yeast rather than the usual ale yeast.” Conversely, while creating it is time intensive, Artisan Creation brews are available for a limited time. Craft beer drinkers need to snap these up quickly for a unique tasting experience. Sourcing a suitable Estonian icon to adorn the bottle, Cannery found the Taillinn “Kiek in de Kok” cannon tower dating from the 15th century. The bastion’s name translates as “peek into the kitchen” and as the story goes, it describes how soldiers could peer down to see concoctions brewed “in order to survive the harsh Baltic winters.” Embracing the history, the photograph was taken and label designed by the Mikkin brothers of Brand Manual agency, based in Tallinn, Estonia.
~ Roslyne Buchanan