No. 19, May 18, 2010

From the Maverick to the Yellowhead

The Yellowhead Brewery opens its doors for business in Edmonton tomorrow following a blessing by the Reverent Neil Gordon, dean of All Saints Anglican Cathedral. St. Arnold, generally considered to be the patron saint of beer, would no doubt approve.  

The new micro-brewery is located in the historic H.V. Shaw Building at 10229-105 Street, and the adjacent glass-fronted addition. Built in 1914 by Henry Shaw as the site of the Edmonton Cigar Factory, the Shaw Building most recently housed Maverick Brewing.

Maverick opened in 2005, billing itself as "the first destination craft brewery in Alberta," with a private function room that was used for promotional and fundraising events. The brewery ran into supply and marketing problems, and in the fall of 2006 its assets were seized by landlord Five Oaks Ltd., owned by architect Gene Dub (who was also a 10 per cent shareholder in Maverick) for rental arrears.

 

Maverick later went into receivership, with the firm Meyers Norris Penny Ltd. being appointed interim receiver in July 2007.  After a somewhat complex series of transactions involving Five Oaks and a numbered company, they negotiated the sale of the brewer's assets of Maverick to English Bay Enterprises for $200,000 on September 2007, followed by a distribution to the creditors.

While the brewery was in operation they made only one type of beer, Maverick Supreme Lager, a self-described pale American-style lager. The beer apparently had its fans, with enthusiasts posting to the Beer Advocate site rhapsodizing about its "aroma of multi-grain bread and light lemon tone," "biscuity snap" and "nice lace down the sides of the glass."

I wasn't one of those fans, however, and didn't find it much better than insipid U.S. mass-market products such as Budweiser or Miller. Or perhaps a less-enthusiastic Beer Advocate poster got it right in describing the beer as having a flavour of "cooked peas" and a "metallic" aftertaste.

It seems curious for a micro-brewery to produce a type of beer very similar to many other beers on the market. People interested in micro-brews are usually in search of something that differs from the norm. Although local patriotism ("This beer is produced right here in your hometown!") will result in some sales.

Yellowhead Brewing too is starting off with a lager. Many beer aficionados  are looking forward to brewmaster Scott Harris, who trained in brewing at the Doemens Technicum in Munich, having crafted a tasty one. It's planned to have the brewery space serve as an arts and live music venue, and it may also be rented out for community events and public, private, corporate and charitable functions. Good luck to this new venture.

Interestingly, this is not Edmonton's first Yellowhead brewing concern. The Yellowhead Brewing Company started producing beer in the river valley in 1894, as Lawrence Herzog notes in his column in the April 3, 2003 edition of Real Estate Weekly.  It was operated by brewer Tom Cairns, from Manitoba, with partners Kelly and Myover. The Yellowead later became Sick's, then part of Molson's.