As the new Star Wars movie keeps drawing millions to cinemas across the world, a new force in craft beer is awakening in Richmond.
Up until recently, self-professed gypsy brewers and unashamed geeks Fuggles & Warlock (check out their latest video if you don’t believe me) have been forced to brew their beer at operations friendly to the craft beer Rebellion (such as the accommodating Dead Frog) while they sought to overcome the darkness that holds sway over this part of the galaxy: lack of properly zoned units and sky-high rent.
Now, thanks to a group of developers financing the project, brewers Dan Colyer and Tony Iaci have established a base in Richmond from where they can strike out at the macro Empire.
The brewery’s president, Tom Orange, took me on a tour of the recently operational brewery and the first words that came unbidden to mind were, “Look at the size of that thing…”
Strolling through what will undoubtedly be a tank forest one day.
F&W’s ambitions are clear from the building’s dimensions: Orange gave me a guesstimate of 13,000 square feet, which dwarves pretty much every other recent brewery startup in the province.
That, of course, means room to grow. There are currently six 40-barrel fermenters in the brewery, but plenty of space for those to multiply. It also allows plenty of space for cool gadgets such as the hop injector, a dynamic infuser that’s being used to dry-hop Fuggles & Warlock’s beers.
Expect these wheeled wonders, including the hop injector, right, to be pimped up like R2 units before too long.
Brewing at the new facility began at the end of November, and on my visit in mid-December the bottling line was in operation for the first time, with Colyer, Iaci and production manager Mike Stewart manning the line and packing the first boxes.
A brewer’s work is never done: Dan Colyer (front) and Tony Iaci (behind) hard at work on the bottling line.
F&W will also be offering canned product in six packs, starting with the Personas West Coast Common and soon to include the Bean Me Up Espresso Stout. The latter has been really dialled in on the new system already: Strong with the roast, this one is, with a big, clean ground coffee blast and a subtle yet deep creaminess.
Shiny shiny new kettle.
Bean Me Up and Personas will be two of F&W’s five year-round brews, along with Destiny IPA, Shiva Session White IPA and Hopper Texas Brown. The brewery will also have a rotating range of seasonal and limited releases, including a series of experimental IPAs.
As for the front of house, things are very much still under development, so don’t be flying your growler-laden speeder bikes out Richmond way just yet. When the tasting lounge is up and running (the city has already granted the lounge endorsement) there’ll be eight beers on tap at any one time. And if you want to truly geek out you can put down your beer, pick up a controller and access a custom gaming wall, where hundreds of retro games have been stuffed onto eight hard drives for your free pleasure. Think you can make the Kessel Run in less than 12 parsecs?
Incomplete, this tasting lounge is. The bar will sit roughly dead centre of this picture, with the far wall becoming a gaming wall.
Fuggles & Warlock is hoping its tasting lounge will be open by the end of February. Packaged product from the new brewery is already hitting shelves of private liquor stores across the Lower Mainland and Vancouver Island.
jzeschky@theprovince.com
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