Drink in these fun facts about five Kamloops craft breweries
If you're a craft beer fan it's likely you've visited some, if not all of Kamloops's craft breweries. While you may think you know them pretty well, these lesser known fun facts may surprise you.
Tourism Kamloops highlighted these five River City breweries, so we decided to do some sleuthing of our own.
Check out the five breweries below and surprise your friends with some hidden knowledge over beers.
Bright Eye Brewing
It all began with two friends home brewing in their garage. Bright Eye Brewing is named after owners and head brewers Brian Craig and Tyler Windsor (Bri—Ty Brewing).
If you've visited the brewery, you may have noticed the large blue mural above the seating area. While it may seem like an abstract concept, the design was very intentional.
The mural was painted by local artist Kelly Wright and depicts the North Shore. The sun rays in the mural are actually wheat, which pay tribute to one of the primary ingredients in the beer.
“The way that the North Shore jets out in our mural, it’s shaped as a hop leaf," Windsor said. “The whole mural itself incorporates where we are, where we’re from, because we both grew up on the North Shore, and what’s included in the beer itself too.”
The brewery always has rotating beers on tap, and sometimes a beer will only be around for a week before it gets switched out.
"Nothing is a constant," Windsor said. "Every time people come in, it's kind of nice to try something different."
Red Collar Brewing Co.
Dogs are important at Red Collar Brewing Co., and a dog inspired its name.
The Beardsell family, which owns and operates the brewery, adopted its first dog 17 years ago from Mexico, Tessa Beardsell explained.
She always wore a red collar, and the same collar has been passed down to each family dog that followed her.
Next time you're At Red Collar, check out the mural painted on the side of the brewery. It depicts Ninkasi, the Sumerian Goddess of Beer and Cerridwen, the Celtic Goddess of Barley.
Alchemy Brewing Company
The name Alchemy Brewing Co. was inspired by the novel The Alchemist by Paulo Coelho.
"It resonated with me," owner Al Renner said. "If you want your goals to succeed, you have to pursue them."
He added the name also ties into alchemy being the first form of science, and the idea of taking something of lesser quality and transforming it into something.
"It's kind of what we do with grain and water all the time," he said.
The mural inside the brewery also pays homage to an alchemist, depicting a mad scientist character holding up a glass of beer.
On the food end of things, Alchemy Brewing Co. is known around town for having the best chicken wings. If you're a fan of spice, keep an eye out for details on their spicy wing contest coming this fall.
Iron Road
In a past life, Richard Phillips & Jared Tarswell were geologists. Now they brew craft beer at their brewery Iron Road.
They're not the only ones with different backgrounds than you'd expect — the two head brewmasters met in music school and both are jazz musicians.
The brewery is also railroad themed to pay homage to the railroad around which Kamloops was built, a staff member explained.
Iron Road turned three years old at the beginning of August, 2020.
The Noble Pig Brewhouse
Have you heard of Audrey? Not the character from Little Shop of Horrors, but that is her namesake.
Audrey is the seven year old sourdough starter at The Noble Pig Brewhouse, which was started from their second ever brew of Pumpkin Ale yeast. If you know Audrey's line ("Feed me Seymour!"), the sourdough's name makes a little more sense.
Next time you visit, look for the painting of three women sitting on pigs. The ladies are be Maeghan Summers, Jennalee Johnson and Sara Hanrahan. They are the original — and still current after ten years — leadership team at the Noble Pig, restaurant manager Jennalee Johnson said.
The artist, Kyle Young, depicted the pigs to represent the brewery's original beers: Prodigal Swine, Fascist Pilsner and Imperialist Pig Porter.
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