BC’s Craft Beer Revolution: An Interview with Joe Wiebe, The Thirsty Writer
If you’re in the BC craft beer industry and haven’t heard the name Joe Wiebe (aka The Thirsty Writer) yet, you’ve definitely been missing out. Not just because he’s a great guy to have a chat about craft beer with, but also because he’s one of the biggest supporters and promoters of the industry in the province.
Joe’s love affair with beer started early on and solidified over the course of the last 30 years. He thanks his brother, Pete, and a few good friends for lighting the spark that ignited what would become the craft beer revolution in Joe’s own life. And he thanks the growth of the industry and the connections he’s made within it for continuing to fan those flames.
The makings of The Thirsty Writer
Joe moved from Ontario to BC in 1991, just as the craft beer boom was gaining ground. As the scene slowly grew, so did his interest in it. Since the move west, Joe has spent over two decades living in Vancouver and Victoria, visiting the breweries and pubs that made up the industry in the province. Wanting to explore more of BC and its craft beer scene, he planned an epic adventure across the province to see what laid beyond the two cities he was already familiar with.
Calling it his Craft Beer Odyssey, Joe drove 2,364km in a clockwise loop around BC, visiting as many breweries as he could. These breweries became the basis for the first edition of the The Craft Beer Revolution: The Insider’s Guide to B.C. Breweries, published in May of 2013.
The second edition was basically a must as, within a year of publishing, the BC craft beer scene had exploded, doubling in breweries. With 40 new breweries to visit and write about, the second edition of the book came out in the spring of 2015.
The province now boasts over 120 breweries, the third largest craft beer industry in Canada after Ontario and Quebec, and Joe’s hinted at the possibility of a third edition of the book (and beyond) in the future.
After publishing the Craft Beer Revolution and countless articles in magazines, newspapers, and various websites, Joe seems just as infatuated with craft beer as he describes himself being in those early days. What’s more, the passion he has for this industry is evident in the way he talks about it while sipping on a new brew at a local craft beer parlour.
As someone who has been an active observer and participant in the industry for so many years, Joe is a seemingly bottomless well of knowledge. We were lucky enough to chat with him over a pint to get some of his insights, hopes, and plans for BC’s craft beer industry.
Changes in BC’s craft beer industry
First up was an overview of the changes he’s noticed throughout the boom. There are three major aspects he points to: the impact of bottle shops on the industry, the endorsement of lounge licensing by the BC government, and the way that the consumption of beer has evolved over the years.
Private liquor stores have changed the game
“The industry has changed so considerably and so remarkably in the last 25 years since I’ve moved out here from Ontario. A major change would be the growth of the private liquor stores in parallel to the government stores. I think that was really important along the way because, here in BC, that meant that those liquor stores could evolve into what we have now which is basically these bottle shops that stock lots of interesting beers from all over the place. They also provide an alternate distribution model for breweries. Up until just a few years ago, most breweries had to open with their whole model based on selling to government stores and selling kegs to restaurants and bars. That was very limiting in terms of how much money they made, with kegs in particular because of wholesale price. And on the government store side, they had to produce a lot of each beer to serve it throughout the whole province. So it meant that you had to work on a very specific model where you could only have a few core brands that you put out a lot of - a high quantity of each of those.
But since the bottle shops evolved, most of the breweries that have opened, especially in the last three years in BC, don’t even use the government stores. They just simply use the bottle shops and that’s a huge difference because they can produce small batches; they can produce new beers all the time and there’s a market for that. So I think that’s a huge change.”
Lounge licensing for breweries
“Lounge licenses are another big change. There are a lot of breweries now that operate totally with this retail storefront focused model and that’s a huge difference as well. Again, it’s a better price point for them to sell their beers so it’s easier for them to start off that way. They don’t have to package their beer if they don’t want to, they don’t have to even keg it for it to go outside the building.
And it’s different too because you’re talking about that connection, the direct connection with your customer. You are handling every aspect of how that beer is arriving to your customer. It’s not like the old days where a brewery would package their beer and ship it off and it was ‘see ya later’. They had nothing else to do with it anymore. It’s a big difference. It means that customers have a much tighter connection with you and you can make sure that the beer they’re tasting is perfect, exactly the way you want it to taste. That’s really exciting and I think that’s one of the reasons why things have exploded so much in the last couple of years. A lot more people have gotten into beer because of that tasting room model.”
Craft brewing revolutionised how people drink beer
“And that’s the other thing that’s really changed - the way that we consume beer. In the ‘90s, I’d go to Swans and we’d order a pitcher. We might order pints if everybody didn’t want to drink the same thing, but pitchers were pretty much the cheapest way to drink beer. You’d get 2 or 3 pitchers of beer over the course of the night.
Now it’s often about ordering little sample flights or a few different glasses. I always point out that you can come [to places like the Drake] and have 8 different beers - two sample flights - over the course of a few hours. Get a little charcuterie tray, try some different beers and have a great time. You spend $30 or $40, but you’re not drinking 5 pints of the same beer. It’s a healthier way of consuming beer and it means more people are going to be interested in it.
It means that people who used to gravitate towards wine or spirits or cocktails are more interested in beer now. And I see it as a shift from being a quantity focused thing where you’re drinking a large quantity of beer in an evening to more of a quality focused thing. It’s not about pounding all of these pints of the same beer. It’s about sampling a wide range of beers and that’s also a huge change. I think that opens it up demographically to a whole bunch of different people - more women, more wine lovers, foodies, people that didn’t necessarily like that old beer culture that was all about drinking jugs or pounding pints.
And, of course, the other big change is that there is so much available. The baseline quality of beer in a brewery in BC is just so high now. There is an amazing variety of styles and flavours that breweries are putting out. It used to be that a brewery might have four or five beers that they brewed, but now most breweries put out anywhere between a dozen to twenty beers in a year - all kinds of different styles and that’s really exciting and enticing to more people.”
One of the interesting things about the craft beer industry is this sort of symbiotic relationship between breweries and beer drinkers. The more breweries there are, the more styles and flavours of beer are brewed. The more variety in beer, the more appealing the beverage is to different people. The more people drinking beer, the higher the likelihood of more craft breweries succeeding.
However, no one can look into the future and see what it has in store. The industry is currently still growing at a rapid rate, but Joe is often asked whether he thinks the revolution will ever end. Will the market every be too saturated with craft breweries? Although he thinks that’s not the case, he does see some potential changes coming.
The future of craft beer in BC
“There is still lots of room for growth so I think we’re going to continue to see new breweries opening in BC in the next 5 years at a similar pace to what we have now.
In terms of changes, differences, I think we’ll see a few more specialised breweries. For instance, in Portland, you have breweries that just brew sours beers. They don’t do anything else. And we don’t really have that here. We have breweries that make sour beers on top of everything else they do, but it’s not like they do it down there. But I could see that type of model happening here - places like Dageraad, for example, that focus on a really specific range of styles. I could see more of that, for sure.
The other thing might be more of the farm-based brewery model. We don’t really have too many of those, but there’s Crannog Ales that does it. Something like that would be interesting to see more of.
Other changes that could happen are on the legislation side. There are rumours that the government might get out of the public stores. I don’t think that will happen and I’m not sure how it would change things because we already have the parallel private store system. But changes to legislation and making it easier for breweries to open and succeed would be great to see.”
While it may be business as usual for the foreseeable future, there are still challenges that the industry needs to overcome.
Challenges facing BC’s craft beer scene
“The major challenge right now has to be the government side of things because it’s really inconsistent. If you go from municipality to municipality, there are different rules regarding where a brewery can be based on the zoning laws. So obviously it would be good if the provincial and municipal governments could find a way to streamline these regulations. On the flipside of that though, the government has done a few things to help the industry grow as well. When they announced the lounge licensing change in 2013, that was a huge boom which obviously fueled the recent expansion considerably. And, as I understand it, most of the rules applied to the lounge endorsements were basically drafted by the breweries themselves. They sat down with the city of Vancouver and said ‘This is what we think you should do.’ and the city said ‘Great, let’s do it!’. So in some ways the government has opened things up, but they’ve also screwed up some things along the way too. I personally would like to see growler fills in a private liquor store. I’ve seen it in Oregon and Washington and it seems to work fine to me. The government so far hasn’t allowed it and some breweries don’t like the idea of it, but I think they’re just being a little conservative about it. They’re worried about how the beer will be presented, but I think a good bottle shop that has a really strong craft beer focus could handle that really well. That would be really exciting, especially if they could bring in beers that aren’t available otherwise. Beers that aren’t being packaged, but the store could get a keg directly from a brewery over on the mainland and sell it here, that would be pretty cool.”
As BC’s craft beer industry continues to go through the growing pains, the dynamic in the community will also be affected. Even so, Joe thinks that the friendliness and collaborative spirit that exists will still remain as an inherent part of it.
How further growth will affect BC’s craft beer community
“I don’t think [the industry] will change fundamentally because that kind of camaraderie and collegial atmosphere is working so well right now. I don’t see why that would change. What I see is that the people behind the breweries are authentically like that. They love working with each other, they’re good friends, they hang out together. During Victoria Beer Week if you come down to The Drake, you’ll see a row of Vancouver owners and brewers sitting at the bar because they love coming over here for the festival and they love hanging out together. The core group of the community is genuinely like that.
Sure, there are some that maybe focus more on selling the most beer or securing tap lines at a bar; they’re more interested in making money. And we’ve also lost a few breweries in the last few years which isn’t that well known. There have been 3 closures in the last 2 years. It’s not all success stories, although it’s been mostly success stories. There is a competition aspect to it because it is still a business. But I think it’s going to continue being mostly that kind of idea of a friendly atmosphere. I can’t really see that disappearing. It doesn’t make sense for brewers to be trying to kill each other. It makes sense for them to be working together to grow the industry and the interest in it.”
Although the craft beer industry is still not something that makes headlines often in BC, the impact that it has had on the economy is evident. Of course, there is the economic and financial impact of the breweries themselves, opening up and creating jobs. But it goes beyond just the breweries.
The impact of the craft beer industry in BC
The roughly 120 breweries in the province have had a positive impact for development in the industry itself, but they are also boosting other domains like agriculture, tourism, manufacturing, and even tech. (Craftt is a prime example of a tech company that was created to service the craft beer industry.)
Joe gave us a quick overview of some of the other sectors that have been impacted by the craft beer revolution.
“Hop farms are a huge thing. There’s been a big resurgence in hop growing which was once a major crop here in BC back in the ‘50s and ‘60s and it all but disappeared in the ‘70s. And barley as well. Matt Phillips built his maltworks at the brewery and he’s commissioned a lot of farmers to grow barley for him.
There are brewery tours that are also capitalizing on the industry like West Coast Brewery Tours here in Victoria or Vine&hops and Vancouver Brewery Tours over on the mainland. These are businesses that operate year-round and create full-time jobs for people. The Pedaler has a bike tour here in Victoria.
There are so many connected businesses that exist because of the industry. Places like The Drake or Garrick’s Head or The Churchill feature so many of the local breweries. For those businesses to run well, the quality of the product is paramount. They have to make sure that their draught lines are perfectly clean and functioning properly. So there’s a company here in town called Draught Wise that does all of that maintenance for bars and restaurants. There is a law firm in Vancouver that’s totally focused on helping and working with breweries. And then there’s designers that have specialised in craft brewery labels like Hired Guns up in Nanaimo. Equipment manufacturers are connected as well; we have four or five different brewery equipment manufacturers in BC. So there are all these different businesses that have developed because of the craft beer boom in the province and it’s a big part of the growth of the industry.”
Next to all of these businesses, there are countless events that showcase craft beer as well. Often, these events focus on educating attendees about the industry, the styles, and the process of making beer. Some music festivals or community events partner with local breweries, offering an added bonus to attendees that are there to support local initiatives. All of the events do have one thing in common; they encourage more people to give craft beer a try. And that’s one of Joe’s main goals as well - to raise the profile of the industry to reach more people.
Raising awareness
“What I’d like to see is more of an awareness from the government of the impact that this industry is having. If you look at the wine industry, they’ve really done that. BC wine is a big part of the government’s tourism portfolio and, through that, the wine industry has so much free publicity. Any kind of marketing campaign is going to have an Okanagan vineyard in it and that’s not really the case with craft beer yet.
That’s part of the reason why I really wanted to get the BC Ale Trail project going. It’s, in part, to raise awareness to tourists, but I also want to raise awareness within BC to the government itself and to BC’s residents. Here we have a major part of the fabric of BC and it needs to be acknowledged as that and celebrated.”
Joe’s mission with the BC Ale Trail is to increase the awareness of this thriving sector of our province, while also ensuring that it becomes a sector that receives the recognition it deserves. Launching in October, the BC Ale Trail will work to raise the profiles of some of the province’s most prominent beer regions. The hope is to expand the project to become the most comprehensive guide to the world of BC beer.
The BC Ale Trail: Combining beer with exploring BC
“The way the project evolved is Destination BC, which is the overall tourism marketing body for BC, announced a funding program last year where different tourism sectors in British Columbia could apply and the organisation would match the funds. The problem was that craft beer is not considered a sector by the government the way that other things like wine or skiing or agricultural tourism are. So to get the project going, we had to cobble together all of these different regions called DMOs, destination marketing organisations, and get the breweries themselves and everyone else involved to put money in. Then, if our application was approved, Destination BC would match those funds. Last fall we scrambled around and managed to get 7 local regions and all, or at least most, of the breweries within those regions to sign on to the project. Then we got approval from Destination BC in February.
It’s a multi-year project with the goal of bringing all of BC into it. The 7 regions to start are Victoria, Nanaimo, and the Comox Valley on the Island and then the Sunshine Coast, Whistler, Kootenay/Rockies, and the city of Port Moody. It’s not going to be the whole province at launch, but it will be a significant portion of it.
So we’ve been building it all year and we’ve sent video and camera crews to all the regions to shoot good footage. I’ve been writing profiles about the breweries and the regions for the website. The idea is that it’ll be an opportunity for a visitor or a resident of BC to plan a trip around beer - either a trip in their own area or somewhere else that they want to go to. We’ll have self-guided itineraries they can do themselves, ranging from multi-day driving trips in the Kootenay mountains to walking Murray St. in Port Moody to a biking route up in the Comox Valley or the Sunshine Coast - lots of different opportunities to enjoy beer. We also will feature activities that you can do around the beer locations like hiking, biking, kayaking, or skiing.
There will be a complete database of all the breweries in BC as well, with all the different offerings they have. We’re going to have a blog component too. We’re hoping to turn it into the most comprehensive place to go for BC’s craft beer scene. And, if all goes well, we’ll expand to cover the rest of the province to have all the regions represented and hopefully raise awareness about BC craft beer outside of the province, as well as within.”
Adding BC to the world’s beer bucket list
“You think about places around the world that are seen as a beer destination like Portland or San Diego or Colorado or Munich or Belgium. These are places that people have on their beer bucket list and, ultimately, we want BC to be on everybody’s beer bucket list too. That’s the goal.
When I first got into writing my book, part of the appeal was that I got to go on this big huge road trip to visit as many breweries as I could around the province. With the BC Ale Trail, I get to combine that love of exploring BC with my love for great beer so it’s really an ideal project for me.”
Joe’s interest and infatuation with BC’s craft beer community is evident in the way he talks about it. It’s also evident in the things he dedicates his time to, playing a central role in the production of Victoria Beer Week and other beer-related events throughout the year, as well as taking every opportunity to write about and teach people about craft beer.
The Thirsty Writer’s favourite thing about the BC craft beer community
“My favourite thing has always been meeting the people behind the beers. In a lot of breweries, they are such interesting, creative people and I make such a strong connection with them. That’s really the thing that drew me to writing about beer. I used to like beer and I liked visiting breweries and I kept thinking ‘Wow, these people are so cool and there are such great stories here’. It took me a while to figure out that, as a writer, I should be writing about these breweries and their stories. It took a while for the awareness of craft beer to be big enough that I could go to a magazine editor and have them say ‘Yeah, that’s a cool idea for an article’.
So that’s still one of my favourite things about it - meeting these cool, interesting people that are behind some of these amazing breweries. You know, we celebrate chefs of fine restaurants for their creativity and their entrepreneurial approach. We treat them like artists. And I think a lot of these brewmasters are like artists, they’re like chefs. They’re really creative individuals and it’s really exciting to connect with them and make friends with them.”
If you’re a BC beer lover, Joe is definitely a great resource to expand your horizons. Besides getting the Craft Beer Revolution and staying updated on what’s happening in the scene thanks to his various articles and blogs, you can also catch Joe at beer events in and around Victoria! First up is the Fresh to Death fresh-hopped beer fest happening this Saturday (October 1st) in Victoria’s Centennial Square. Next is the Oktoberfest-inspired Stein and Dine event taking place on October 22nd at the Victoria Public Market. And finally, be sure to check out the Victoria Beer Week next March for a deeper dive into BC’s craft beer scene.
Thanks so much to Joe for being a leader in the revolution and for all his work promoting this innovative industry! We look forward to seeing how it all continues to develop alongside him. And, as Joe says, Viva La Revolution!