BEERSEEKERS: STRIKING GOLD IN KAMLOOPS

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If you make time to visit the Okanagan for beer, it would be a shame to miss out on Kamloops, the original gateway to BC’s gold rush territory. In the brief time we were there we had a few lucky strikes of our own.

Downtown

Any beer tour of Kamloops has to begin with the luminary of the local brewing scene, Red Collar Brewing Co. We don’t assign such classifications gratuitously; given the brewery’s pedigree, it fits. This first-rate outlet is operated by the Beardsell family, founders of Kamloops' original craft microbrewery (Bear Brewing, 1995) and brewpub (The Noble Pig, 2010). They no longer run those businesses, directing their energy toward Red Collar in 2014.

As always, there was a wide range of styles on the board including some advanced ones, and the flights we shared were spot on. David Beardsell and crew have not lost their touch since our original 2016 visit. The primary change at Red Collar since our last visit is the obligatory spacing of seating; we enjoyed our beers on their nice patio.

View Red Collar profile on What's Brewing >

Strolling out the back alley and down Victoria Street, you’ll find the aforementioned Noble Pig, a very solid brewpub. Grab a pint and some dinner. If you’re out on the patio, look over the fence and listen carefully; you’ll be able to hear the crowd on the patio at the next establishment. Guess what: that’s where you’re headed next.

STRIKING GOLD IN KAMLOOPS

GM Nick Curnow serves a beer from one of Red Beard Cafe's 18 craft taps

Walk next door to the Thompson Hotel, and you’ll be at Alchemy Brewing Company, where your crawl continues with a full menu of 8-10 beers. Then, if you want one more late-night drink, stop in at the Frick & Frack Taphouse, formerly the Fogg N' Suds Kamloops. You’ll find a few craft offerings here, but be warned that it’s no longer the tap house it once was.

North Shore

As we did in Kelowna, it’s time to hop a bus on a $4 daypass for a day of beer touring. Fortunately, all of our beer targets are connected by the town’s main bus routes. Grab a ride to the North Shore; it’s about as fast as you could drive there yourself. In seven minutes, you’ll be at your first stop.

Bright Eye Brewing opened last year on Kamloops’ North Shore. Although completely unknown in the Lower Mainland, their well-designed brewery seems as brilliant as their name implies. Visitors are welcomed by a spacious high-ceilinged glassencased room with a large, impressive mural, and eye candy such as a wall-mounted car chassis and front-facing fermenters with colourful clipboards denoting the beers that await. This brewery has a feel similar to that we’ve experienced in some trendy US breweries.

Matching the decor, Bright Eye’s colourful, unfiltered beers were also more adventurous than your typical brewpub fare. Despite the potential for pretentiousness, the atmosphere was friendly and approachable...highly necessary in a town that’s still climbing on board the craft wagon.

The food menu at Bright Eye is every bit as refined as the beer list, so you’ll want to tuck into lunch. Here we have a brussel sprout pesto pizza...once again proving how great BC brewery pizza often is.

Once your belly’s full, it’s time to head to one of the BC interior’s finest tap houses. For this, you can either walk six minutes, or just hop aboard the next bus heading north for a stop or two.

Red Beard Cafe is an unassuming beverage room tucked away in a suburban neighbourhood of a BC interior town. But it’s one of the best non-brewery places to drink beer in BC. Owner Mitch Forgie and GM Nick Curnow bring in brews from around the province and treat them well. While we were there, we had a classic BeerSeekers lucky find. unearthed one last keg of the brew that had been cellaring for four and a half years. At 11% ABV when brewed, this beer had no problem surviving its extended quarantine. Shall we just say that this was as smooth, rounded off and luxurious as you imagine it was.

Of course, Red Beard isn’t just about rare, high-alcohol beers. Anyone can find something appealing amongst their 18 craft taps. But it’s moments like this that distinguish the ‘good’ beer houses from the great ones.

After spending your afternoon at Red Beard, it’s time to continue your beer journey at Iron Road Brewing. For that, you simply whip out that daypass again and ride less than 20 minutes across town to the Thompson Rivers University area.

TRU & Southwest

Iron Road is a classic modern brewery. We were fortunate enough to happen to last visit Kamloops on the exact weekend they opened (more BeerSeekers luck); you’ll find a complete writeup of the resulting brewery tour in our 2017 article. Suffice to say that Head Brewer Aaron MacInnis is still producing very solid beers. Couple that with the Mexican-focussed menu (something more breweries should think about!) and this is a great spot for University students and veteran beer travellers alike.

By the way, the other brewery shown on the map, Kamloops Brewing, is not part of your scheduled tour. You can pop in there if you like (we did in 2016), but as the home of NorthAm Group and its sub-labels like Whistler Brewing, Bowen Island, KB Brewing and Balderdash, it’s not considered ‘craft’ in the same way as the rest. But there’s a tie-in: the reason that labels like Whistler and the (long-lost) Coquihalla Brewery ended up being managed in Kamloops is due to mergers involving Bear Brewing, the original David Beardsell brewery we mentioned at the start of this story. It all makes a nice circle.

In terms of COVID compliance, we found that all establishments visited were following fundamental protocols. However we noticed a distinct difference in the level of mask-wearing between Kelowna, which of course had just been hit by an infection surge, and Kamloops, where masks were seen more rarely.

Back in 2016, Red Beard was hosting the exclusive Kamloops may not be most people’s idea of a craft annual Péché Day, an annual international event destination. But when you want to go North or East in BC, in honour of Quebec brewery Dieu du Ciel’s worldwe recommend budgeting a couple of days here for a beer ranked Péché Mortel coffee-infused Imperial stout. A The rare find touring stopover. The hotel rates are more than reasonable, and 2016 ‘Péché Especiale’ using Red Beard-roasted coffee you won’t regret it. Visit the Kamloops, Shuswap & Vernon page was part of the celebration. Fast forward to 2020, and Red Beard on the BC Ale Trail website (bcaletrail.ca).