Black Wheat marks one year of pouring pints

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This article was published 08/08/2022 (1351 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

It has been a year of growth for Brandon’s first brewery in decades, but staff and management say they are looking forward to many more brews and good times with the community.

An entire weekend of events was on tap to mark Black Wheat Brewing’s first anniversary, starting on Friday with live music and trivia games. Saturday’s was a focus on charity as Funds For Furry Friends made its first stop at the brewery for a meet-and-greet with customers on the patio, bringing several dogs that are up for adoption.

Dragonfly Delights Tea Room also had treat packages for purchase.

This anniversary isn’t just about celebrating its own brewing success, said staff member Sam Vopni — it’s about honouring Brandon’s history as the Wheat City and its own brewing heritage. Empire Brewing, the city’s first beer producer, is memorialized at the brewery, from a beer named after it, to a door from one of the original delivery trucks hanging prominently over the front entrance.

The business itself has been growing steadily, Vopni said. It started with four beers and has now expanded to 14 on tap, with several also honouring the city’s heritage.

“We started with one of the beers called 1882, which was named after the Daly House. Now we’ve added 1888 as a continuation of that line,” he said. “This past year has been good for us. The city has welcomed us as a business and we are grateful for that. It’s been a fun challenge to introduce our product to the community.”

Having so many businesses and people come in for the anniversary has been humbling for the staff, he added. People have been happy to see a brewery finally open up in a city situated in the heart of grain country.

The most consistent challenge has been working with the brewmaster’s schedule. Everything they make has different parameters for ingredients, temperatures and time needed to ferment. Some can be as quick as three weeks, others up to 10.

Like many breweries, they try to offer a wider variety so they can have at least one that a customer will like.

That doesn’t stop them from experimenting, though. Black Wheat’s latest is a New Zealand IPA, which Vopni explained is a lighter-tasting style of that type of ale, mimicking the flavour profile of hops grown in New Zealand. Of course, Black Wheat keeps its brews anchored in southwestern Manitoba, with a blueberry ale currently on tap.

Whenever a new kind of beer comes to mind, it’s a community effort between ownership, staff and the brewmaster to develop it and get it to customers. They often bounce flavour ideas off of each other, Vopni explained, then think about whether it would work as a beer.

The microbrewery industry has exploded over the years, and there is plenty of competition in the region.

However, Vopni said while all of them are in the business of selling beer and gaining customers, it’s like a family and everyone is out to advance beer production in their own ways.

“It’s really not been about microbreweries against microbreweries, but we really need to play off of each other,” he said. “With micro, you really want a local community to like your beer and are willing to try new things. They want to see what’s coming down the pipeline and see it continue one year, two years and 10 years down the line.”

With that in mind, Vopni said they are going to keep doing what works: brewing beer and being good community members.

Part of that is reaching out to help causes. They invited Funds For Furry Friends to help get some of their fosters adopted. Customers were welcome to come pet and play with the dogs, get to know them and talk to volunteers about fostering and adopting.

Event co-ordinator Brittany Keith said it was humbling to have Black Wheat staff invite them out for its anniversary celebrations, adding she found it amazing they have a pet-friendly patio for people to bring their dogs while they enjoy a drink.

“This gives us a chance for people to meet the dogs in an open setting and really get to know them, and also meet the fosters so you can really learn about the dog,” she said. “We have amazing adoption rates after events because it really allows people to see the dogs and meet them, especially if they were thinking about adopting. It gives them a little extra incentive after seeing them.”

Celebrations continued on Sunday with a drag beer brunch, the Los Brothers food truck providing snacks and more live music.

» kmckinley@brandonsun.com

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