Local beer made with local goodness
Beer is a wonderfully versatile beverage; easy-drinking and refreshing with nuanced and complex flavours. In Nova Scotia, we don’t have to look very far to find some amazing beers produced by our own craft brewer Over the last few years, our craft beer industry has exploded, giving beer enthusiasts dozens of new and exciting options.
And while each has its own unique focus, each brewer would tell you that fresh, pure ingredients are key to creating the best beer
As a way of ensuring the quality of their brews and following the widely-embraced local food and drink movement, many brewers use as many local ingredients as they can source. This can include hops, grains, water and a myriad of other added flavours such as honey, spruce, locally-roasted coffee, lavender and other herbs and spices.
Halifax’s Garrison Brewery crafts a Spruce Ale made with local spruce and fir tips and they also feature a Honey Lavender Ale, sourced from local ingredients. On the North Shore, Tatamagouche Brewing has crafted a beer brewed entirely with Nova Scotia grown malt while Shelburne’s Boxing Rock Brewing has even brewed a “wet-hopped” ale using local hops that are fresh, not dried. Boxing Rock also uses Nova Scotia cranberries in their Over the Top Cranberry Sour Wheat Ale.
Big Spruce Brewing recently released “One Hundred”, the first ever beer brewed with 100% Nova Scotian ingredients. That’s the sort of dedication to crafting local that is truly setting our brewers apart from the pack.
For the Nova Scotia beer enthusiast, this can only mean more unique and flavourful beers are on the horizon. Want to know what beers you would like? Take our Beer Discovery Quiz.