March 29th, 2022
It's BACK! Just in time for patio season, Four Winds Brewing, Barnside Brewing Co., and Tourism Delta have released 'We Love Delta' IPA. Offering a taste of homegrown ingredients, and the shared pride of our community, this collaboration brings together local breweries and showcases all that Delta offers.
In the craft beer community, Barnside and Four Winds are competitors, but the industry is often one of collaboration, offering a business environment unlike any other. Breweries, even those within the same market, often work together, trade secrets, and share entrepreneurial tips. This spirit may waver as the landscape changes, but for now, it's beneficial for breweries and consumers to enjoy this dedication and the products it produces.
Lucky for us, it's this collaborative spirit that helped create the 'We Love Delta' IPA project. To produce ‘We Love Delta IPA', Barnside Brewery contributed its homegrown ingredients, most specifically hops and grain, while Four Winds Brewing shared their renowned knack for producing award-winning beer recipes, house yeast, and ultimately, the capacity for brewing. It's a match made on Ladner soil and a beer that's uniquely 99% Delta grown.
We Love Delta IPA is an easy-drinking, light-bodied ale at 4.5%, exhibiting floral and citrus notes, along with stone fruit - the perfect sipper for sunny days ahead. Beer and Delta lovers can find it on tap at both breweries starting March 24th, and available for purchase in 6 x 355 ml cans at Barnside. Within weeks, We Love Delta IPA will be distributed across the Lower Mainland and Island.
The We Love Delta collaboration showcases the quality of agriculture product that comes out of Delta - good food, and now good beer, is grown right here.
- Ken Malenstyn, GM Barnside Brewing
The project came about in 2021, and due to popularity, has returned for 2022 - with hopes of an annual release for springs to come. While the past few years have been odd to say the least, local support during these times has been enlightening to many of our local businesses, including our breweries. 'We Love Delta' IPA aims to foster this amazing Delta community spirit. Shopping local, supporting local businesses, and keeping our dollars in Delta has become top of mind for many, and the notion of locally produced food, and now beer, at the source, has resonated deeply across Ladner, Tsawwassen, and North Delta.
Barnside Brewing is a collaboration in itself of four long-standing Ladner farm families - Ken Malenstyn, Sean Buhr, Brent & Shelley Harris, and David Terpsma - a collective triple-digit year history. Ken Malenstyn’s family was in the dairy business, a Delta farming staple that over the years has been dissipating due to market demands. While contemplating new crop opportunities a few years back, the homebrewing and hop plants of neighbours (and now partners, Sean and Dave) spiked an idea. Hops. Growing hops and creating an on-site brewery on Delta farmlands became the roots of Barnside.
What makes Barnside Brewery so distinctive amongst microbreweries is that their vision of growing beer ingredients right here in Ladner came to fruition. The hops grown on Barnside farms are used to exclusively produce Barnside beer. By using 100% homegrown hops, Brewmaster Dave built recipes around the unique aspects of their specific hops variety, making their beer recipes proprietary to Barnside. And with the fruitfulness of Ladner soil, they are working to source their kitchen menu from local sources as well. It's an incredibly unique and authentic story for a new brand and one that resonates with today's consumers, both from within our community and beyond our Delta borders.
One key takeaway that Ken Malenstyn, General Manager of Barnside is hoping for, is pride in our community and for us to see the potential in what we have here, "Our history of farming these amazing soils, our unique climate, it all makes for fantastic food. This beer is a reminder of our exceptional soil and growing conditions right here in Delta".
Cheers, Delta!