Phillips Brewery is one of 11 local beer makers who will be brewing it up at the upcoming Island Beer Festival at the Strathcona Hotel.
Vancouver Island beer has a coveted style of its own; its breweries have flexibility in creating different styles of beer due to where we are located and the natural resources around us.
“The water on Vancouver Island is really soft,” explains Phillips brew master Matt Phillips, “which allows brewers to create different styles of beer easily, comparatively to places like the Okanogan, which have hard water that dictates the amount of options that you can do with your beer.”
Phillips’ first pivotal experience with craft beer was in his university years when there weren’t many options for craft beer in Canada, so he and his buddies did road trips to the northeast US and brought back flavorful beer to Canada. So, yes, his first real beer experiences were smuggling beer across the border.
“I took microbiology and did most of my projects on beer,” says Phillips. “After university I didn’t know what I wanted to get into, but beer was something I kept swaying towards, so I came out west and got apprenticeships with breweries, learning the trade the old-fashioned way.”
Phillips worked for Whistler Brewing Company, Grizzly Paw, Wild Horse, and Spinnakers before creating his own company, Phillips Brewery.
“Victoria has a very engaged beer culture, who are really excited about beer,” says Phillips. “This allows brewers to make all kinds of beer. The more kinds of beer we make, the more interesting it becomes; this makes Victorians even bigger beer enthusiasts.”
Phillips finds beer festivals like the Strathcona Hotel’s third annual Island Beer Festival exciting because he usually works with ingredients and pumps all day in his brewery. He loves that he can experience the joy that patrons get out of tasting the final product while letting them learn about the beer process and flavors.
According to Strathcona events manager Danielle Sykes, the festival will include 35 different kinds of beer from the 11 breweries, as well as food and live music from local singer/songwriters Mike Hamm and Tyler Harvey. “We wanted to offer something fun and different in the winter for locals to get out and enjoy the arts of drink, food, and music,” she says.
The Island Beer Festival isn’t the only thing that’s going to offer locals something fun and different this year. Phillips also has some new beer unveilings on the horizon.
“We have the double barrel,” reveals Phillips, “where we take Scottish ale and condition it in bourbon barrels, then put in cabernet sauvignon barrels to soften it.”
The Island Beer Festival
Saturday, February 25, 1-7 pm
Club 9ONE9