WREA Summer Excursion

WREA

Text and photos by Judy Olmstead

On June 19, 2018, members of Westman Retired Educators’ Association met at 9:15 a.m. to carpool to Neepawa for tours of the Beautiful Plains museum and the Farmery Estate Brewery. This trip was made possible by RTAM’s Chapter Initiative grant.

The Beautiful Plains Museum, established in 1976, is located in the former CNR train station. This heritage railway station was built in 1902. Work is currently underway to restore the bricks on the exterior of the building to their original colour. Inside the museum, on the three floors of the station, are many rooms of artifacts. There is a general store, a medical hall, a military room, a chapel, a room of dresses and hats and a collection of old text books and toys in the children’s room. There is even a replica of a one-room log cabin.

In the main entry room, there was a collection of history books from the various districts around Neepawa for anyone to use for research. These books are especially useful for people searching their family history. As well, this area has a collection of clothes for youngsters from the neighbourhood daycares or preschools to use for dress-up.

We spent a wonderful hour and a half travelling down memory lane before dragging ourselves away for lunch. After lunch, we went to the Farmery Estate Brewery where Lawrence Warwaruk told us his family’s history: how he and his brother Chris came to be brewers of beer.

The Warwaruk brothers worked on the family farm near Neepawa, Manitoba. During the 1980s, interest rates around 20% combined with falling cattle prices made it difficult to make a living farming. In the late 1990s, having lost the ownership of their farm land and on the verge of bankruptcy, they moved to Winnipeg and decided to start a four star restaurant called LuxSole. The restaurant opened on Osborne Street in 1998 and was a success.

Ten years after successfully running LuxSole, they opened the first gastropub in Winnipeg, two

doors down from the restaurant, called Luxalune. It featured over 100 beers from around the world. With the profits of their businesses, the brothers were able to buy back the family farm.

After years of success in the food and beverage industry, they were still missing their roots, so they combined their farming experience with their service industry knowledge to launch Farmery beer. Craft beer was becoming popular in the United States, so in 2008, the brothers went to Wisconsin to learn about making craft beer. In 2012, they launched their first beer, the Farmery Premium Lager, made with their own barley.

Their vision was to produce their own beer on the farm where the ingredients were grown. On January 8, 2013, they appeared on the Season 8 finale of Dragon’s Den to pitch this idea. David Chilton and Arlene Dickinson agreed to a partnership to give them $200,000 to help build a brewery in exchange for 6% royalties. Farmery is the first estate brewery in Canada.

The farm produced the barley, but in the beginning, hops were imported from the western United States, which was usual for most beer production in Canada. Now, the Warwaruks grow their own hops on their farm as well. Hops vines grow to 18 feet tall and must be trained to grow up a trellis. Hops flowers in August and produces cones that resemble a pinecone. After harvesting, the cones are dried and an essential oil is extracted to be used in the brewing of the beer.

Now, it was time for our tour of their brewery. Three years ago, they moved into the present building, which is a converted implement dealership in Neepawa. It is filled with tall, gleaming metal tanks, rows of silver cans moving along a track and colourful stacks and stacks of cases of various beers. They even have a seasonal flavor—Endless Summer. Although the four main ingredients of beer are malted barley, hops,

yeast, and water, at the Farmery Estate Brewery, different flavours such as lemon and iced tea are added at the last stage before canning. One brew batch produces 6000 to 8000 cans.

While the actual brewing process takes 7 to 10 days, we were in luck, as on this day, bottling was also happening. What was most interesting was that carbon dioxide was injected into the cans to remove the oxygen before the cans were filled with beer, as the oxygen would interfere with the finished product. Five tubes lowered into the cans to inject the carbon dioxide, then the five cans moved to the next position, and five tubes injected the beer. The lids were put in position and crimped on.

The next step is pasteurizing. Seven hundred cans at a time were pasteurized for 28 minutes to extend the life of the beer from six months, to one to two years. Finally, labels were applied— different colours for different flavours, and then the cans were boxed, ready for shipment around Manitoba and Saskatchewan. The brothers hope to expand their market in the future. Besides beer, the Warwaruk brothers also produce barley flour mixes for flapjacks, chocolate cake and beer bread from their barley crop. They also make a variety of beauty products such as face lotion. Located outside the brewery, is the Farmery Food truck which serves delicious fish and chips with barley flour batter.

The tour concluded with a sampling of the various flavours of Farmery Estate beer. Needless to say, a good time was enjoyed by all, and we would recommend this tour if you are in the area. The province of Manitoba recognized the uniqueness of Farmery Estate Brewery by making it Manitoba’s latest Star Attraction for tourism. WREA thanks RTAM for the Chapter Initiative Grant which made this tour possible. 