Brewing from field to glass

In England, they refer to a pub that has an exclusivity
agreement with a brewery as a tied house. Although many breweries would
dream of deals like this, it’s illegal in Nova Scotia to tie a bar to a
brand of taps.

The Port, a gastropub—a pub that serves high-quality food—on the
red banks of the Cornwallis River in bucolic Port Williams, went a step
further. To get fresh, local beer, they built a
brewery right into their pub.

Here’s the twist: The brewer, Randy Lawrence, doesn’t want to tie
his Sea Level brewing operation just to The Port. He’s tied it to his
farm as well. He aims to be the first self-sufficient “farm brewery” in
Nova Scotia in the next two years and if he’s successful, he might
change the way we think about the beer industry.

Lawrence grows seven hop varieties on a quarter acre of his farm.
Hops grow well in the Annapolis Valley, he says. “You can watch them
grow a foot on a hot July day and plants can grow up to 30 feet.” He’s
been growing them for more than 20 years.

As well, two farms successfullly test-planted brewer’s barley for
him last summer.

His hops give flavour and depth to his beer and the barley helps
wean him off western grains, but he still needs to import hops for the
first kettle stage of beer making.

While he’s well on his way to being self-sufficent, reaching crop
capacity is difficult to achieve. He’s had farmers call and ask to grow
hops for him, thinking it would be an easy secondary crop, but Lawrence
says many shy away once they realize the huge amount of labour required
to properly harvest and process hops.

A regional shortage of ingredients is only part of the reason why
Lawrence wants to grow everything himself. He has a larger political
motivation. If he manages to become a self-sufficient brewer, he plans
to apply to the Department of Agriculture for status as a farm
brewery.

“I’ll be the first to do it. I don’t know if I’m opening a Pandora’s
box or not,” he says. Why? Because Lawrence wants to grow a
field-to-bottle brewing industry. He really wants microbrewers to
achieve industry parity with the wine industry in terms of the tax and
regulatory breaks wineries have been given by the government.

If he grows the ingredients and brews, bottles and sells the beer,
“it’s the same cat’s kittens,” he argues, as a functioning winery.
Currently, he says, he and other microbrewers sit on a committee that
is preparing a proposal document, solicited by the NSLC, with ideas on
how to change the current system to encourage more local breweries.

As of last December, Lawrence started selling Sea Level beers in
quart bottles from the brewery in The Port Pub. He plans to get bottles
into selected liquor stores by late spring.

As for the taste, the Sea Level Brewing Company’s best beers tend to
be quite dark, hoppy and/or strong, such as the Port in a Storm Porter.
Lawrence also does a light, sweet Planter’s Pale Ale and a
well-balanced Rojo Mojo Red. If you go to The Port for the draught,
lager lovers will really enjoy Randy’s Moondance Organic Lager or his
seasonal Scottish ales.

“In a word,” Lawrence says, “I call my beers approachable.”

This article appears in Mar 12-18, 2009.