Within the next year Lethbridge will be getting its first new brewery since 1901. In late August Wild Craft Brewery broke ground on its 21,000 sq. ft. production facility and restaurant. It will be Lethbridge’s first craft brewery. Lethbridge has been without a brewery of any kind since the old Sick’s Brewery (home of the original Lethbridge Old Style Pils, but owned by Molson since 1959) closed in 1989.

After hearing about the start of construction, I tracked down co-owner, Scott Crighton, for a chat about who Wild Craft is and what their plans are.”I have a long history in Lethbridge in the liquor business,” says Crighton who has run liquor stores and currently owns a small chain of pubs in southern Alberta (of which he will soon be forced to divest himself due to AGLC rules), “and craft beer was always my favourite part. And as it kept growing it just made sense to jump in”.

“Lethbridge has a strong brewing history,” Crighton points out, “and the trends tell me the timing is fantastic for Alberta.” However, this is not a johnny-come-lately project for Crighton. Four years he started plans for a brewpub in Lethbridge, only to have the deal fall through. He has been working seriously on the current project for over two years.

His vision is to create a full beer experience at the brewery.  “There is so much out there right now in craft beer, little brewpubs and such. I am trying to put the whole experience together: a full brewery, tours, and a brewpub feel. Through the experience I hope to create loyal customers”. The brewery will have a large staging area for tours, a catwalk circling the brewery and a private tasting room. And of course there will be the Wild Side Restaurant attached. “My hope is to make it a tourist attraction in Lethbridge”. Given the brewery will be located at Lethbridge’s busiest intersection, there is most certainly a chance of that.

The brewhouse will be 35 hectolitres with an unspecified number of fermenters and will be fitted with a bottling line for retail sales. There will also be a small pilot brewery (either 3 or 5 hectolitre – they are still deciding) for one-offs, restaurant exclusives and special event beer. In an interesting twist, they are partnering with an un-named B.C. brewery (Crighton was unwilling to divulge the name at this time) to economically permit production in both cans and bottles. The B.C. brewery has a canning line but no bottling line and so the two breweries will do a tit-for-tat. Wild Craft beer sold in cans will be produced at the B.C. brewery, and bottles for the B.C. brewery will be produced in Lethbridge. Wild Craft has also temporarily contracted all production of their beer with the B.C. brewery until the Lethbridge plant is operational.

What this means is that the Wild Craft brand will be available on store shelves in the next month or two. The restaurant will be open in April 2015, while beer will start flowing from the brewery sometime in summer 2015.

And what will those brands be, you ask?

Crighton says they will start with two beer. “In keeping with Lethbridge history our first beer will be a Pilsner”, noting it will be in the Czech tradition. Why a pilsner? “The market is still really young. Pils is easy drinking beer, easier to break into market that not used to IPA”.

The second beer will be what he calls a “Canadian-style Pale Ale”, which I got him to admit means slightly lowering the IBUs. Eventually he hopes to develop a year-round stable of six beer, ranging in styles. “As the market grows we hope to do a real IPA”.

Crighton says that they are intentionally starting with more accessible beer to reflect the realities of the southern Alberta market. “This is old farm country, these guys are set in their ways. Our joke is that my dad will walk into the brewery pub, tell me he is proud of me and then sit down and order a Canadian”, he laughs.

However, Crighton is not blind to the needs of the more experienced craft drinker. He hopes to build a relationship with the local homebrew club, the Lethbridge Werthogs, “to keep us honest, stylistically”. His thinking is to use the club’s experienced palates be a type of informal tasting panel. He also hopes to let the club brew on the pilot system, designing their own beer for the restaurant.

As for the name, he says it was picked to reflect “true spirit of a Canadian. Having fun, being crazy (short of breaking the law), being free-spirited”. He acknowledges he is a little nervous about consumer confusion with Calgary’s Wild Rose, but is working to make sure the public images of the two breweries are distinct.

Given the size of the brewery, Crighton says it is likely they will jump to province-wide distribution quite quickly, although he says he has been surprised at the initial level of support he is getting in Lethbridge and surrounding communities. “Support from Lethbridge has been incredible”, he notes, saying supplying local demand might keep them quite busy in the early days.

It has been a very long time since Lethbridge residents have had good news beer-wise. Looks like soon they might have a reason to finally hoist a pint in celebration