thrilled. If you come here on a Friday or a Saturday, there’s 15 or 20 bicycles parked outside – we’re that accessible from the walking trail system. Jake, I’m sure it’s going to come as a surprise to a lot of craft beer drinkers in New Brunswick to hear that you and Dan started what’s become a household name in your province from an unassuming basement in a Fredericton suburb. Those who know us, and we have a lot of beer nerd friends, know that we’ve been home brewers for the past 10 years or so. One day when I was in first or second year of university, I was on Kijiji and came across an ad for the New Brunswick Craft Brewers Association, or the NBCBA. They were just starting up, more or less, and the platform was to simply share recipes, share techniques, and share beer. They were meeting every second Saturday at a club member’s house and everyone was encouraged to bring their beer and bring their knowledge. It was three hours of sampling beer and talking to interesting people, so it was a lot of fun. Very early on, I found out at these meetings that I needed equipment. I needed things like a grain mill and there’s price breaks when you order anything in large quantities and the club is still great for things like that. At the time, Dan was doing the beer kits like myself and so many people, and he came to his first NBCBA meeting when I hosted one Saturday. We spent the next five years or so brewing completely apart and then in the summer of 2014 – and we were both very serious home brewers by this point – after a club meeting had ended at around three or four o’clock in the afternoon, Dan and I were in the kitchen of my house talking and I said that I’d really like to open a brewery one day and he said the same. One of the big perks of the NBCBA was group ordering.
We’ve got you covered year-round. Come the winter we brew Good Aura, which is a seven percent, hoppy amber ale. The new winter beer this year is going to be a light SMaSH, single malt, single hop ale. “We quickly realized that we could sell way more beer than 2,400 litres a week, so our two-year plan turned into a four or five month plan.” It’s about four percent becausewewanted it tobe approach- able like a summer beer – we know just what we’re brewing, we just can’t come up with a name for it, yet. Where did the Trailway in Trailway Brewing Co. come from? It was really inspired by Fredericton’s awesome walking trail system; it’s a tribute, really. Fredericton is one of the most walkable cities you’ll find out there. You can walk vir- tually everywhere on the trail system. The co-founder, my business partner and I, Dan Mason, actually came up with the name in the basement of my house where we brewed in the beginning. My house is at one end of the walking trail and Dan’s is at the other – and now our location at 280 Main Street is also located along two walking trails. We’re
My problem then was that I didn’t have the time. I worked at
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