Hop up to the bar

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This article was published 15/08/2016 (3567 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

Brewing beer is a lot like cooking, says Brian Westcott.

As head brewer for Barn Hammer (595 Wall St.), the city’s first taproom to serve its own craft beer, he speaks from experience.

Barn Hammer opened mid-July and has been busy ever since, Westcott says. They have run out of several brews already and have had a lineup to get into the 30-person taproom.

“It’s a good problem to have,” Westcott said.

Westcott and his assistant work more than full-time brewing and fermenting the beer, a process that can be seen through the taproom’s massive Plexiglas windows. He says the most popular brew is the Saturday Night Lumberjack, a double IPA with an IBU of 75.

“IBU is a fairly arbitrary scale, it’s out of basically infinity,” Westcott explained. “Your eight would be a Budweiser, 20 would be a pretty good German-style beer, 30 would be a pale ale and 75 is very hoppy.

“(The Lumberjack) is very bitter but also balanced, has a lot of sweetness because beer is like cooking. So you have salty, sour, sweet and all these flavours… you have bitter and sweet and those two kind of play off each other… if you put sweetness into it, it will balance it out.”

In opening a taproom Westcott and his fellow Barn Hammer operators hoped to bring Winnipeggers something new, and have pushed the boundaries on different and unique flavours.

“One thing I’ve seen in Winnipeg more is people getting out more and getting more educated about beer and what kind of styles are out there, and it’s more than just yellow or black or red stuff,” Westcott said.

“One of the special ones we have is a coffee beer, it’s an almost everything beer. It’s dark, it’s made with rye which is a spicy grain, it has a heck of a lot of hops so it’s very bitter but it also has cold-pressed coffee from Dogwood Coffee so there’s a lot of flavours going on.”

Westcott also makes note of Le Sneak Belgique which, although a light beer, is bursting with flavours of coriander, bitter orange peel and black pepper.

“I’ve found not just here, (but) in previous jobs, getting people to try different beers, some people say they don’t like beer, well — you probably haven’t tried the one you like yet.”

For now Barn Hammer staff are busy enough keeping the taproom supplied and stocked, and likely won’t be canning single-serve drinks for the Liquor Mart or other dispensaries, but that may change, Westcott said. Beer lovers who want to try their brews can also find them at The Forks Market Food Hall, at The Common. 

One of the regulations for taprooms requires that they close by 9 p.m., which is when many people want to come down for a taste. Westcott hopes that will one day change, as well.

“For now it’s better to have a taproom than not,” he said. “There are a lot of other breweries out there who want to open tap rooms and they’ll all want the same thing so hopefully there will be a little bit of pressure.”

While they don’t have a kitchen or food prepared in house, Westcott said they have been getting food trucks to come by during busy hours.

“We knew the people were here,” he said. “We just had to open.”

For more information visit http://barnhammerbrewing.ca/