Vancouver Island Brewery


 
Vancouver Island Brewery is the island's first craft brewery. They started in Central Saanich in 1984, producing draught only products for pubs. In 1995 the demand had grown and they moved to 2330 Government St (where they currently are today). They have supported other local businesses, charities and community events over the years - a business philosphy I love to support! 

Samples prior to the tour!
 If you happen to be in Victoria on a Friday or Saturday, they offer brewery tours at 1pm and 3pm for $10 (this includes an awesome branded VI Brewery pint glass!) the tour is approximately 1 hour. You get a first hand look at behind the scenes!


 We started out at the sample table to begin the tour, where we sampled their various types of beer - Spyhopper Honey Brown, Sea Dog Amber Ale and the Vancouver Island Lager, among others. After tasting some of the beers we continued on into the brew house, which is essentially the "kitchen" of the brewery. This is where all the ingredients that make up a beer (malt, hops, yeast, water) are blended. 

The brewhouse
The tour guide explained all the steps that lead up to the creation of a delicious local beer which includes malting, mix mashing, lautertun, kettle, fermentation, conditioning and finally the finishing. It then gets moved into tanks in the "Bright Beer Room" where it remains temporarily before being bottled or kegged.

Stacks of used bottles to get recycled
 Vancouver Island Brewery proudly takes in recycled bottles and can use them up to 15 times! The used bottles go through machinery that removes the old labels, washes them and then re-fills them to be used again. Awesome! 

The tasting room!

 Last but not least we visited the tasting room where we tried some more of the delicious beer. We were introduced to my new favourite Vancouver Island Brewery beer, the Storm Watcher Winter Lager. The tour was great, I loved seeing the whole beer creating process and trying out some new beers, if you're into local craft beers as much as I am this tour is a must! You can also purchase beer at the brewery as well as buy/fill your growlers ($10)! Cheers!

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Comments

Dylan said…
Thank you for the suggestion, I'm going to add a tour of Vancouver Island Brewery to my to do list on my next visit to Victoria
June 26, 2013 at 4:33 PM
Anonymous said…
Go see Jeff Kendrew - he'll hook you up with some goodies!
November 25, 2013 at 8:28 AM
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