Raise your glass: The Forks prepares to welcome a craft-brewing facility on-site

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This article was published 11/08/2015 (3982 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

This week’s hot weather is perfect to invite people to drop by for a beer.

So why not invite the world’s small brewing businesses to compete for a state-of-the-art craft-brewing facility at The Forks?

That’s what CEO Paul Jordan will formally do Wednesday in announcing an on-site craft brewery at The Forks, as the builder and landlord will present as a $1.8-million turn-key operation, already designed and cost-tested, to the company selected most suitable by a jury process.

“We’ve going out to RFP (request for proposal),” Jordan told me in an exclusive interview. “We’ve done all the math and all the homework… And now we’re going out to the world to see if we can do a deal.”

Part of The Forks business plan calls for a limited amount of beer production, generally less than 5,000 barrels annually, but it must be high-quality and, of course, crafted on the premises.

“The only requirement,” Jordan said, “is whatever they sell here is produced here.”

All of that suggests attracting a quality partner should be no problem.

In fact, Jordan said they already have one unsolicited bid from Brooklyn, N.Y. And I expect, as does Jordan, there will be a lineup of prospective partners when they learn about the on-site sales possibilities.

“We can expect 3.5 million to four million people by the door,” Jordan estimated.

When it’s ready to start operation, perhaps as early as December 2016 if all goes well, The Forks will join other similar locations across Canada — Vancouver’s Yaletown and Toronto’s St. Lawrence Market among them — that already have craft breweries on their properties.

The Forks involvement in the craft brewery goes beyond collecting rent as the landlord. It is also destined to take a piece of what’s poured.

“We do a participation one percentage of sales,” Jordan explained.

Which includes what’s sold off-site at Liquor Marts.

“It could be huge,” Jordan said of the financial boost beer could bring.

So what’s this going to look like when it’s up and pouring?

Well, for one thing, you’ll be able to see the beer being brewed at street level.

From the outside, it’s a tri-level, semi-translucent structure that Sasa Radulovic, co-founder of 5468796 Architecture, suggests in the news release will become a tourist attraction of its own “and one of Winnipeg’s next iconic buildings.”

On Tuesday, Jordan invited me on an imaginary tour of the place, beginning outside the northwest corner of the market. That’s where the striking entrance will spill out onto what is now a walkway. “The actual production facility will be in this iconic piece of architecture that people are going to love or hate,” Jordan said.

What’s to hate if you’re from these parts?

If you’re a Prairie boy like me, it might remind you of a stylized grain elevator. If you’re from the coast, any coast, it probably looks more like a giant periscope.

From the street, where passersby will be able to see the brewery in motion, Jordan guided me into the building, and the 1,700 square feet of first-floor space the brewing facility will be lead into. “So this will be the tap room,” he said.

He means a tasting tap room that will also have cold storage, a receiving area, an office and back-of-house.

As Jordan led me from the imaginary craft beer site into a still-being-renovated food court, he explained how piping and the beer in it will flow from the brewery to a tap in what will be a wine and beer bar.

The revamped and rejuvenated public food court, which had its own RFP that went in search of the top talents and innovators among the city’s young chefs, should be open in December.

“We’re hoping,” Jordan added. “We have just done the vetting of the new tenants, and they are going to be exceptional. Winnipeg’s best will be on display there.”

So it’s all flowing and coming together at The Forks.

But Wednesday’s big announcement isn’t all that’s brewing at The Forks this summer.

Oh, no, they’re a crafty lot at The Forks.

And there’s more news on the way.

Maybe even some that will cause you to clink a beer glass.

gordon.sinclair@freepress.mb.ca