In the midst of BC’s most damaging windstorm, which knocked out power to 80% of Vancouver Island and the Gulf Islands, Riot Brewing was hard at work brewing a delicious batch of beer.
All was well until the power went out… Then things turned sour.
“Basically we were right at the point when we had to boil the beer but we could not do it because the power went out,” Riot Brewing representative Sam Swanson told Victoria Buzz.
“We had 6 hours to save it.”
Thinking quickly, beer brewers decided to sour the originally dark beer with raw malt, turning the unique batch into a dark sour beer.
“It’s a lighter flavoured beer but darker in colour, which is actually really rare for a sour,” Swanson said.
Riot Brewing says that power was out in Chemainus for 4 days, which was tough on the beer makers who were in the midst of their busiest season.
However, Swanson said that the storm had a few silver linings.
“Y’know it was pretty cool what we came up with, but it was also pretty cool how it brought the community together.”
“Our next door neighbour is a restaurant and they set up a food truck for everyone.”
“Chemainus was pretty much shut down for 4 days. We got lucky… a lot of people were not.”
Thirsty Victorians can pick up Sour Outage in any major liquor store and lots of restaurants and pubs by the end of the month.
The beer just needs to finish fermenting to fully carbonate before it will be bottled and circulated throughout the island.
Related: Spinnakers dedicates new beer to firefighters for saving historic brewpub
