Port Moody's three — and soon to be four — craft breweries have teamed up to concoct a collaboration brew that will raise funds for the Port Moody Arts Centre.
The inaugural run of a planned annual initiative among the brew houses will benefit a different Port Moody charitable organization each year, and comes with a contest to help design the label artwork for the specialty beer.
"The brewers of each brewery were sitting down and we knew we were going to do a collaboration brew because all the breweries on the street get along so well," said Mike Huffman of Yellow Dog Brewing. "So to make a short story even shorter, we decided on a beer… a nice, hoppy schwarzbier — it's like a dark lager."
Huffman said choosing the PoMo Arts Centre as the first beneficiary was also a natural fit.
"Brewing itself traditionally is its own art form, and since we are in the City of the Arts, we want to be part of that as well. Making beer is like painting, you're just using different paint."
And even though brewers can be "quite picky" when it comes to sharing recipes, the cooks in the beer kitchen had no trouble coming to a consensus, guided largely by the season and what weather conditions are expected to be by the time the beer is released.
The schwarzbier will likely be ready in March and for the brewers from Yellow Dog, Moody Ales, Twin Sails and Parkside (which is expected to open in May), that plays on the unexpected nature of spring.
"It looks like we'll have pretty nice warm, sunny weather, so we decided on something that looked dark and brooding but is nice and refreshing," Huffman said. "It's kind of a taste of spring… super clean and super refreshing."
The beer can label contest is open to anybody (must be 19 and older) to submit art that shows what the Port Moody lifestyle looks like to them. It can be in any 2-D format, whether a photograph, painting, pencil drawing or anything else.
PMAC spokesperson Andrea Jabour said the initiative came from the breweries and the arts centre was happy to belly up to the bar.
"We're always looking to make community connections and look for great community partners," Jabour said, noting PMAC offers an Art of Craft Brewing workshop. "We're just looking to make some stronger ties to our partners and neighbours. That's what really drew us to the project."
The winner of the beer can label contest, which closes on Feb. 25, gets a $50 gift certificate from each of the four breweries. Jabour noted that after hearing concerns from local artists the contest regulations were changed so that submitted work will only be used for promotional purposes and each artist retains the rights to their work.
Meanwhile, the new brew is in the works at Yellow Dog and, when it's released next month, will be available at each of the breweries as well as private liquor stores and pubs throughout the Lower Mainland.
