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New brew represents NWT

For the second year in a row, the NWT Brewing Co. will produce a limited edition brew to be included in a cross-country 12-pack of beer.

Thomas Bentham pours a pint of the NWT Brewing Company's newest brew, the Midnight Ember Smoked Stout Dylan Short/NNSL photo

Midnight Ember Smoked Stout will be the Northwest Territories' submission in the second annual Red Racer Across the Nation Collaboration beer set, which will include a craft beer from every province and territory in the country, with the exception of Nunavut. Fletcher Stevens, owner of the NWT Brewing Company, says the beer will reflect summers north of 60.

“To me this sums up summers in Yellowknife, how you go camping. It's midnight you have no idea what time it is. You're eating supper at midnight,” says Stevens. “Then in the wintertime everybody is using wood-burning stoves so you always smell that smoke, campfire smell in Yellowknife.”

This year's beer is vastly different from the Belgian ale that Stevens produced last year in order to celebrate Yellowknife's history of mining. This year's stout has a defining characteristic created by  incorporating a malt that has been smoked over beechwood, which allows for the beer to be described, according to Stevens, as having a 'softer smoked' flavour that shares similar characteristics to foods found on a smoker, such as smoked ham.

“Sometimes you think of smoked ham,” says Stevens, chuckling. “Beer doesn't taste like smoked ham but it definitely has some characteristics that make you think of cooking on a campfire.”

The beer is being produced in partnership with B.C.-based City Central Brewing, which is most well known for its Red Racer line of beer. Stevens states that the southern brewing company will help produce the limited edition 12-pack of beer as the brewery is 10 times the size of Stevens' operation. However, according to the northern brewer, it was a learning process for both companies in order to get the beer to market.

“They have a fully automated system, so it's pretty streamlined, but there are some disadvantages to having it so automatic. . . because we were using such a large amount of dark grains and wanting to add certain dark grains in the mash like we do at our house. It actually couldn't do it because their mill always mills everything at the same time,” says Stevens. “That wreaked havoc on their whole system, so it was as much of a learning curve for them as much as it was for us.”

The beer was officially launched last Saturday at The Woodyard Pub, on an evening that also featured live music by Andrea Bettger, Pat Braden, Ben Russo and Al Bee.

The beer is now available for purchase at both liqour stores in Yellowknife as well as at the The Woodyard Pub. Stevens says that early analytics has the beer in the top five most popular in the limited edition pack.

If sales remain strong throughout the summer, Stevens says he may keep the brew on sale permanently at the pub's Old Town location.