NEWS PHOTO BY SEAN ROONEY - Daniel Hooft and Logan Straub of Blurryisenough perform to a virtual crowd at Travois Ale Works on Tuesday evening.
It was a hoppy Easter for Medicine Hat’s brewers.
The trio of Travois Ale Works, Hell’s Basement Brewery and Medicine Hat Brewing Co. combined for seven medals in the third annual Alberta Beer Awards announced last week, and they’re drinking up the praise while toasting each other.
“Medicine Hat should be super proud of all three breweries,” said Mike Patriquin, co-founder of Hell’s Basement. “For one city to take home seven awards … we’re kind of isolated from the rest of the beer scene.”
Hell’s Basement took second-place accolades for two brews. He Ain’t Hefe He’s My Brother was silver in German and Belgian-style wheat beer, while Heck of a Root Beer took the runner-up spot for the root beer/ginger ale division.
Over at Travois, their Black Forest Porter won top spot in the other flavoured beer category, while their Scottish Export was third in brown ales.
“We don’t enter many beer awards, this was our second one,” said Travois co-owner Jacques LeBlanc. “That (Black Forest Porter with cherry and vanilla) was delicious, it was like black forest cake. It was a seasonal, we might just have to brew it again in the fall there.”
Travois introduced a brand new product Tuesday, Belgian Golden Strong Ale in collaboration with the local band Blurryisenough. Blurryisenough’s Daniel Hooft and Logan Straub helped pick out the flavours and came to do a Facebook Live concert at the downtown location.
“We got together with them and brewed it, it was kind of cool,” said Hooft. “We were going to play St. Patty’s day but it didn’t work out that way. Now we’re here, we can still do it so you might as well.”
Medicine Hat Brewing Co. had three award winners. Their Russian Imperial Stout was second in imperial strength beer, their Gentleman’s Stout was third in the stout division and their Bussman Cranberry Sour took third in kettle sour beer.
“We were surprised and shocked to get recognition for our beers in three categories and also really happy that every brewery from Medicine Hat also won some awards,” wrote MH Brew Co. general manager Kaiden Vancuren in a message to the News. “Really great for the city of Medicine Hat’s craft beer scene.”
There have been challenges for all three businesses, but with alcohol sales considered an essential service by the province they’re all doing pretty well given the unique situation caused by the global pandemic.
LeBlanc noted the Travois beers are now going into bottles, a departure from their original business model.
“For us it was packaging, because we rely on in-house sales and keg sales for restaurants,” he said. “We’ve had to shift quickly and adapt.
“We actually bought 2,000 bottles from Brew Co. It’s a big family, we all work together.”
The feeling is definitely mutual.
“I don’t know if there’s a perception that there’s any sort of rivalry there but it really is, if anything, a friendly rivalry,” said Patriquin, adding delivery has become a major part of his business. “I think all three breweries are going to work together to put on some kind of big party when all of this ends.”
As part of that teamwork mentality, two of the breweries are running fundraisers for the local food bank. Medicine Hat Brewing Co. is selling postcards and matching donations through May 2, while Travois took donations during Tuesday’s online concert and matched the first $100.
