CITY LIMITS BREWING OFFERS UP AN AWARD-WINNING BEER CREATION
Saskatoon trio forms partnership to bring unique brews to city's craft landscape
Businesses and non-profit organizations regularly open and move in Saskatoon. Today the Starphoenix talks to Steven Maier, co-owner of City Limits Brewing that opened last May in the Kelsey-woodlawn area of Saskatoon.
Maier, together with his friend Matt Chevrier, had dreamt of opening their own brewery for the past decade. When they found themselves working together at Stumbletown Distillery a couple years ago, they talked to then owner Craig Holland about forming a partnership.
The trio now own Stumbletown together, as well as City Limits Brewing. They recently won the New Beer of the Year Canadian Brewers Choice Award from Brewers Journal Canada for their Flipside Hazy IPA.
Q How did City Limits Brewing come to be?
A Matt and I have been scheming about opening a brewery ever since we started working together in the industry 10 years ago. When we found ourselves working together again, distilling spirits at Stumbletown, the founder Craig was pretty open minded to us starting a beer brand here. Craig has been awesome at accommodating us and wanting to grow his company as well. So the timing all worked out. A big part of it was just having the facility to do it in. It's quite expensive to start and because we partnered with Stumbletown it brought the expenses down a lot. We're happy with the product. We're happy how it's all working. We've pretty much maxed out the size of our building, too.
Q What beers do you produce?
A We have four mainstays available all year long. Our Gateway Light is an approachable ale. It's easy drinking. It's kind of meant to be an easy introduction to craft beer. It's not too challenging for people. That one sells pretty well. We sell that one in 15-packs as well. It's sort of the lower priced beer that we have.
And then the Flipside Hazy IPA, the one that we won the award for, it's a modern style IPA. It's our bestseller. We try to make it really pop without being bitter. It's quite easy drinking for a hoppy beer, lots of tropical fruit and citrus aroma and flavour. And then the Drifter West Coast IPA is a more traditional IPA. And IPAS have traditionally been quite bitter. That one has more bitterness. It more is like grapefruit and orange, which is what you would expect from a traditional IPA. It's a little stronger at 6.2 per cent.
Then we have our Graffiti Raspberry Lime Sour, and that's our take on a kettle sour style beer. It's not too sour, but lightly tart with raspberry and lime.
Q You won a new beer of the year award?
A We applied for a few different things like branding of the year and new brewery of the year. But we got a call back and Brewers Journal Canada shortlisted five breweries from across Canada for the new beer of the year. We knew a couple months in advance that we were in the top five. And then Matt went down to Niagara where they had the ceremonies and they announced the winner there (in February).
The Flipside is quite popular. We weren't really expecting to win because it is kind of a common beer, but we talked to some of the organizers and they were saying ours is such a drinkable, approachable example of the style and everybody just really loved it. I was just happy to be on the short list of five. So to win, it's pretty exciting for us.
Q Do you have your own cocktail bar?
A We share a tasting room with Stumbletown. In the tasting room, there's all the spirits and cocktails that Stumbletown does plus all the beers that City Limits does. The main room we have seats about 30 or 40, and then we also have a backroom which we open up when we're doing events that has another 30 to 40 person capacity. We use the whole thing for events when we need it, it just kind of depends how big the event is. The main room actually has a bar in it. We will commonly do 70 to 80 people for parties near Christmastime, but we host events all year long as well as just being open to the public on Thursdays, Fridays and Saturdays.
Q Do you provide off-sale as well?
A Yes, you bet. We have fourpacks of cans available to take home, and there are 15-packs only of the Gateway Light. Everything else is available in four packs.
Q Do you serve food?
A We partner with a local pizza place down the road, called Jacky's Exotic Pizza. We have pizza, wings and salad and that kind of stuff available in the tap room. We have a cocktail bartender with an amazing cocktail menu for people who like that side of it. He can make pretty much everything. Jacky's is about two blocks away. We don't have a kitchen, and don't have any room to build a kitchen, but we still wanted to offer food.
Q Do you offer tours and educational events?
A People can book tours where we do tastings of basically everything — beers and spirits. Another thing that's really popular in the tap room is mixology classes. People book a group and they come in and our bartender walks them through how to make a cocktail and how to balance a cocktail. They make it together.
When people come on tours we take them for a walk through the production part of the facility. We show them where the beer and the spirits are made. We talk about the history of the company and try to educate people a little bit about where the spirits and the beer that they're drinking comes from, and how it's made.
On the website there's booking pages for tours and events.
Q Do you plan to make more beers?
A We did one seasonal beer last year and we're planning on doing four seasonal products this year, one for each season. Those will be more experimental beers, a little bit more outside of the box. About every month we're putting on just 20 litres of a test product beer that we have just because we're always trying new things.
Q What makes City Limits stand out?
A We deliver a very high quality product. We work with a great team for branding as well. We're trying to make something that stands above in quality and presentation. Our tap room, if you've ever been to it, is really beautiful. We didn't just throw it together. It's an awesome atmosphere.