A deal forged in yeast and hops

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This article was published 04/08/2018 (2931 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

Whoever coined the term “two’s company and three’s a crowd” wasn’t a craft brewer.

Over the course of the last year, Stone Angel Brewing Co., has slowly been growing its brewery and tap-room business at 1875 Pembina Hwy. But this fall, the elbow room behind the bar and among the fermenting tanks is set to shrink significantly.

Earlier this week, Kilter Brewing Co., announced it will set up shop at Stone Angel’s space. Kilter’s brewing equipment had arrived in Winnipeg earlier this year, with brothers Miguel, Julien and Jerik Cloutier set to move it into a location on Sherbrook Street. But the agreement with landlords on the space suddenly fell apart, and Kilter had to make other plans.

Enter Paul Clerkin and Paul McMullan of Stone Angel. Earlier this summer, Kilter had temporarily set up shop at One Great City Brewing Co.’s space on Ness Avenue in order to brew beer to be poured at the Flatlander’s Beer Festival at Bell MTS Place in June. “We still thought we had a building at that point,” said Miguel Cloutier, head brewer for Kilter. “Shortly after we found out the bad news, and they let us brew a bit more for a few events — they were really good to us.”

But the Cloutiers won’t be the only ones operating under Stone Angel’s roof (and brewery licence). Around the same time Kilter was brewing at One Great City, Clerkin and McMullan welcomed Steve Gauthier and Colin Koop (and their brewing equipment) of Devil May Care, another new craft beer venture, to their space.

Koop and Gauthier come from Winnipeg’s home-brewing community and after years of brewing together, they decided it was time to have a go at the commercial market. In early May, they hit some snags on the financing front to secure their own space and considered throwing in the towel before even getting started. While trying to figure out what to do, an idea bubbled up. “We threw a Hail Mary to see if (Stone Angel) would entertain the idea (of housing Devil May Care),” said Gauthier, co-owner and brewer at Devil May Care. “We wanted to work with people who got things on the same kind of level as us, and with a strong home-brewing background.”

Angel and Devil then came together under one roof. “They’re good guys, and we knew them through the local beer community,” said McMullan, president and director of operations at Stone Angel. “Our brewhouse wasn’t being used 24/7, so there was an opportunity to help them out.” Devil May Care was able to get brewing in time to have beer ready for Flatlander’s, and have had at least one beer available in Stone Angel’s tap room ever since.

This isn’t the first time a similar space-sharing arrangement has been reached between budding craft brewers and established firms. Barn Hammer Brewing Co. on Wall Street has been home to Nonsuch Brewing Co.’s operations and equipment while they ready their Pacific Ave. space (formerly home to Peg Beer Co.), and even Stone Angel brewed at Brazen Hall Kitchen & Brewery on Pembina Highway before their own gear was ready.

Legally, Kilter and Devil May Care will operate under Stone Angel’s brewing licence and are considered “brands” of Stone Angel — at least for now. They all use Stone Angel’s brewhouse — the equipment system needed to make beer — then move their wares into their own tanks for fermentation and carbonation until the beer is ready to go.

Stone Angel has eight beers and a cider on tap at their facility, while Devil May Care has one, the Riddle Me This American pale ale, a medium-gold and slightly hazy brew with underlying herbal and citrus notes beneath rich malt flavours. The Tabula Rosa wheat beer infused with hibiscus flowers was slated to join the lineup this weekend. Among Stone Angel’s offerings are the smooth and malty Redhanded Irish red ale, the St. Bernie Belgian dubbel (which brings big dried fruit/raisiny notes and a robust seven per cent alcohol), and the Onkel Georg radler, a low-alcohol quaffer with orange and grapefruit added during the brewing process— a nice drink for the summer.

With Kilter entering the picture, there’s a need for more tap space. “We’re rectifying that,” Stone Angel’s McMullan said. “We’ve already started the process to get a new tap tower, so hopefully by next week, we’ll have 18 beers on tap. We could probably do 24, but for now, we’re taking baby steps.”

The addition of Kilter and Devil May Care’s equipment has made things a bit tight in the back room, but McMullan said growth was always part of the plan at Stone Angel. “When we built the place, we had planned on expansion to up to eight more fermenting vessels. So we had all the infrastructure in place. It was just a matter of backing their equipment in and hooking it up.”

Gauthier expects production to continue ramping up for Devil May Care, but doesn’t have a core beer or beers he expects them to make on a regular basis — at least for now. “The idea is to keep the chain going, always having two or three on the go,” he said. “For the most part, we’re going to be doing one-offs and fooling around unless we find something that really sparks people’s interest.”

Cloutier, meanwhile, expects Kilter to be up and running in a few weeks, and is looking at mid-September to have beer regularly available at Stone Angel. “For our future beer lineup, we’re going to repeatedly release fun, one-off batches while also settling on two year-round core beers that showcase our focus — hoppy and harmonious IPAs.” A New England IPA is likely to be part of that initial offering.

With Winnipeg’s craft beer explosion over the past three years, some have wondered whether the local beer scene is hitting a saturation point. “The size of the city is certainly big enough to house 20 or 25 breweries, if you look at the other centres in Canada and what they’re able to manage,” McMullan said. “The challenge has been that everyone has come online at once. It’ll start getting really crowded now.”

Gauthier agrees. “Compared to other larger centres in Canada, we’re still substantially behind per capita. That means we’re also behind when it comes to beer culture and trends. As for a bubble bursting, we’ve seen one local not make it, but in every business, you’re going to see some succeed and some fail.”

It’s outside the brewery where challenges have arisen for breweries — specifically with some restaurants and lounges who haven’t embraced the local craft-beer movement.

“If they have a tap available for local product, it’s one, and now you’ve got all these breweries competing for the one tap,” said McMullan. “But that’s changing; customers are telling them they like local.” Stone Angel has successfully had its beer added to an increasing number of taps throughout the city; Devil May Care and Kilter, meanwhile, have offered a handful of test-batch beer beyond Stone Angel’s walls. Stone Angel is the only one of the three offering pre-packaged beer at select beer vendors.

And while Kilter is still on the hunt for its own bricks-and-mortar space, Cloutier said he’s happy to get things going at Stone Angel for the foreseeable future. “We’ve been looking since we lost the original location; we’ve had a few leads, but even then it’s about another four to six months of due diligence, and then another six months of work after that. That’s why this is amazing for us — now there’s no pressure for finding a building. And this way we ramp up slowly, so we’re not suddenly opening up our own space with colossal bills and unsure whether we can sell any of these beers.”

McMullan is excited about Stone Angel working with Devil May Care and Kilter, and a collaboration beer between the three is slated to be released this fall. “Both Miguel and Steve, the beer they’re making fills gaps in our lineup. So you can get whatever style of beer you want here now.”

“We all do this for the passion — not much else,” Cloutier said. “I think you can kind of tell.”

uncorked@mts.netTwitter: @bensigurdson