As I sit watching my New Year’s Eve beer cool in the fridge, I ponder the year that was and consider the year that is about to be. More accurately I thought carefully about those things a couple weeks ago when I neared the copy deadline for my year-end columns. But I reflect on those reflections today – re-reflections if you will. Consider it a bit of year-end re-gifting!

The Vue Weekly piece (read here) looks at the past 12 months in the Edmonton beer scene. In sum, it suggests that while on the surface it was a fairly quiet year – no big openings or launches to be had – there were subterranean rumblings that may very well pop to the surface in 2015. Of course, Alberta did see a couple of new breweries, and the entry of some of the American cool kids of craft into the market, which is good news. Despite the quietness, I think it was a year of stable building; the breath before the next surge.

I remember a couple years back watching salmon work their way up a river. I was surprised at how stop and start it was. They would force their way up a few feet, and then find a nook where the current was quiet where they would stop to rest. Dozens would pack up in that little corner and then, one by one, shoot off again to face the next few feet. Man, if humans had to work that hard for sex our species would most certainly have died out by now!

I think 2014 was like one of those pockets of quiet water. Craft beer types paused to take stock of their surroundings before plunging forward again in the coming year. (Editor’s Note: All metaphors appearing in this work are fictitious. Any resemblance to real beer persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental.)

Yes, this has to do with beer, although it is one of onbeer’s oddest metaphors yet.

My Planet S/Prairie Dog piece took a slightly different (and lazier) tack (you can read it here). Instead of accounting the changes in 2014 (I had recently written about the province’s new breweries, so that seemed redundant), I scanned the SLGA’s inventory database to identify what beer entered the Saskatchewan market in the past few months. Turns out it is a pretty impressive list. Read the article if you are interested in finding out about the beer.

What about 2015? I am generally loathe to make predictions, as they are usually wrong and no one actually remembers what you said anyway – meaning you can’t brag in the rare times you are correct. However, allow me to offer a few blindingly obvious prediction for the coming year:

• Alberta will see at least 3 new breweries open. This is a safe guess, given the number of breweries currently in development. Still that number could be much higher if things turn out (although $50 oil won’t help matters much).
• At least one more of the American craft icons will enter the western Canadian market. I am putting my money on Sierra Nevada, but there are others swirling in the rumour mill.
• We will see a new, significant beer bar opening somewhere, sometime. About as vague as it gets, right?
• The Alberta provincial election will be called early and beer drinkers around the province will launch a campaign demanding changes in the province’s beer policy. [Editor’s note: File this under “Fat Chance Predictions”].
• 2015 will offer more craft beer options, both local and import, than 2014 did.

The predictions are hardly the stuff of re-tweets. However, I do them for a different reason. It is to create some perspective, to show that the shift to craft beer is not a revolution – it is an evolution. It occurs slowly, incrementally (much like my beer belly), as success builds upon success. The more impatient among us may roll our eyes and stomp our feet, but you can’t force the pace of change. 2015 may very well offer a big splash or two – and that would be great – but the more important changes will be almost imperceptible They will relate to slight adjustments in the beer created by local breweries, the hope-filled appearances of small new breweries and a quiet increase in the range of beer options available to western Canadians.

Mark my words, my 2015 year-end columns will gush about the advances of the (then) past 12 months. There will be some very good things that will have happened that will make my words ring with truth. But the only true measure of how we are doing will be to compare where we were in 2005 with 2015 and again in 2025. That is how you measure beer progress.

Happy New Year!!