What first-year Olds College brewmaster student Garret Haynes observed made no sense. Big Rock, Alberta's oldest craft brewery, was lending its facilities and sharing expertise with its newest competitor, Tool Shed Brewing, to help create a coffee stout with proceeds going to a scholarship at the college.“It seems kind of counterintuitive but just talking to anybody in the industry, it's a love for beer and for craft beer and anybody who's willing to share that love and put that product out to the public,” Haynes said.Haynes, 33, was one of four students from the college's brewmaster program invited to join a collaboration brew between Big Rock, Tool Shed and Phil and Sebastian Coffee Roasters. Together, they cooked up the Night Owl, a coffee beer that will be entered into the 10th annual Calgary International Beer Festival in May.Haynes came up with the name when he noticed that the joint brewing attracted craft beer's “who's who,” the noise owls make. Since coffee drinkers often stay up late, Haynes decided to call the beer the Night Owl.On April 22, the Night Owl made its debut at a Phil and Sebastian coffee shop in Calgary. A single batch was made and will be sold there until May 2.There is something unique about the craft beer industry that made this joint effort possible, according to Jordan Ramey, a professor in the brewmaster program.Ramey said the supply of craft beer has not met high demand. Furthermore, there are many different styles of beer, with each brewer's product distinct from another's, making competition more indirect.“Everyone's your competitor but also everyone's your friend. It's not really a cutthroat industry. It's a really friendly industry,” Ramey said.Collaboration brews, like the one that spawned the Night Owl, are common, where producers get together to create a beer with proceeds going to charity, he added.With the Night Owl, Big Rock first approached Tool Shed, asking to work together, said Graham Sherman, co-founder of Tool Shed Brewing, who had the beer recipe.Good Old Fridge, a production company that filmed the entire brewing process for a documentary that was screened at the beer's launch party, joined them.Then, organizers of the Alberta Beer Festivals suggested that proceeds from beer sales go toward a scholarship to the Olds College brewmaster program, Sherman said.He added the group just needed to convince Phil and Sebastian, whose owners were originally hesitant and concerned about tying their reputation to the project.“They don't want to have their name on something that has a hint of coffee flavour,” Sherman said. “They would want you to be able to taste this beer and say, oh my goodness, that is Phil and Sebastian's Kenyan Kabingara.”It was the new brewing process that convinced them, he said.For that, Tool Shed and Big Rock converted a grundy tank, used to process food, into an oversized French press, Ramey said.He explained that after brewing, they “ran the beer through the coffee ground, just like you kind of run coffee through a French press and then ran that into the fermenter to ferment the beer.”“They were actually building equipment that didn't exist before this project and that's what gets people fired up,” Ramey said.The result, according to Ramey, who said he's had hundreds of coffee beers, was a drink with a rich, distinct flavour.“I can tell you unequivocally this is the first coffee beer that I've ever had that I can say I can taste the barista or the coffeemaker in this beer,” he said. “It's not just another beer with coffee. It's just a phenomenally well-done and well-crafted beer.”Brewmaster students contributed to the Night Owl voluntarily, accepting neither pay nor credit. But it allowed them to network with professionals in their field.Haynes submitted his resume to Big Rock during the project and will be working with the brewery this summer.Sherman hopes that having watched the combined effort between breweries will result in those students prolonging the culture of cooperation within craft beer.“They're hopefully getting off to the right start on the industry that they're coming into,” he said. “I just hope that this helps lay the groundwork for the next generation of brewers to continue this collaborative atmosphere in the industry.”The three other Olds College students involved in the brew include: Michael Lamarche, Lisa Drapaka and Jeffrey [email protected]
