I am on a three-day mission to hit some of the new breweries around the province that I don’t normally get to visit given my grounding in Edmonton. The stop on day 1? Lethbridge!

One city but a tale of two very, very different breweries.

My first stop in town was with new nanobrewery [Theoretically] Brewing (the brackets are part of the name, I learned today). This small brewery opened in November and has been quietly creating beer for beer aficionados in this southern Alberta city.

I was impressed by their DIY approach and grounded local ethic. The brewhouse – a small 5-HL system – is a marvel of ingenuity. Specially designed for them, it reminds me more of a homebrew system than a commercial brewery. The mash tun has a sieve that is inserted to hold the grain and removed by a hoist to assist shoveling the spent grain. Their chiller consists of a big bucket of ice water with a copper coil. All bottling is done exclusively by hand. There is no question this is a low-tech operation.

The beer – all of which is conditioned in the bottle/keg – has a distinct British influence. Their Frequency Hopper IPA is clearly an English-style IPA and their Publish or Perish Porter (my favourite beer name in a while – which is the academic in me coming out) is a sharp and tangy version of the style. They also have an American Wheat, a Hefeweizen, an Amber and an Irish Red Ale on the go at the moment.

Theoretically’s removable mash basket.

I am impressed at how lean the operation is – it is just Kelti Boissonneault and Kris Fischer plus a part-time worker to help on bottling days. These days Kelti does most of the work, as Kris is still engaged with his UofL job. They find creative ways to make things work, including a modified freezer for their keg system and a decision to create interesting events linking their beer and other cultural activities, including yoga and beer nights, beer and movie nights and other special events.

My favourite DIY story from [Theoretically] is that Kris has included his beer in the lab assignments for his science students. He gets them to test the beer, measure the alcohol level and evaluate the micro-organisms in the beer. A great form of outsourcing.

In contrast, Coulee Brewing, my second stop of the day, is a large, highly professional operation. The brewery is very shiny and very, very expensive. Custom built for the new brewery, it reminded me of a commercial operation than a small microbrewery. The brewhouse isn’t actually all that large at 30 BBL and they only have a half dozen fermenters at the moment. But it is in a spacious, well-designed building that shares a 200-seat restaurant. First driving up to the building was kind of awing. The size is impressive and unexpected.

I can say unequivocally that Coulee has left far behind its questionable origins as a contract brewer (when it went as Wildcraft). The brewery is being run by a very experienced American craft brewmaster and a former brewer at Alley Kat. They know what they are doing.

The beer are, for the moment, designed for the Lethbridge market, emphasizing accessibility, but they are undoubtedly clean, well-brewed and possessing lots of potential. The IPA is a real American-style version with solid west coast varieties, the amber has a nice toastiness to it and the brown offers an attractive nuttiness.

Given how much capital the owners have sunk into the place (we are easily talking seven figures here), I suspect we will see their beer across the province sooner rather than later. The brewers tell me they will begin canning next week, marking the next step in their development.

The contrast of the two visits was quite stark for me. I find it fascinating that a mid-sized city with little craft beer history has found a way to support to very different types of breweries. Both are in their early days, I appreciate, but together they represent a very encouraging shift in the Alberta beer scene.

More on the rest of my trip in the coming days (I am not going to promise daily posts – so you just have to wait or check out my twitter tweets).