I don't know if I'm willing to concede that craft beer culture exists any more than I will concede that cannabis culture exists, but here in East Vancouver, there is something going on with craft beer that is verging on the cultural.
Before I continue, let me declare my conflict: I love the stuff. From the oatmeal stouts and smoked porters of the wintertime to the radlers, fruit beers and India session ales that make even the hottest summer days somehow bearable. I love them all equally but differently – like my children.
The fact that there has been an explosion in craft breweries is not news – as with beer itself it's been fermenting for some time. The tasting rooms, though, are relatively new – made possible by provincial and municipal regulatory changes.
Now, streets fronted by warehouses and auto body shops – streets that you may never have even considered driving down let alone walking – draw scores of craft beer tourists, by foot, by bus and by bicycle. Some are local, some are visitors to the city who have heard about the scene. They pour into the tasting lounges lapping up paddles and flights (clusters of small samples) and leaving with chilled bombers, souvenir growlers and T-shirts.
Food trucks stand outside some of the breweries ready to feed the hungry. Inside, some genius has made a business of supplying exotic pepperonis and highly caloric cheese breads and pretzels to the places.
But beyond Saturday afternoons – the height of the tourist rush – the places cater to locals. They are pit stops, meeting places, a place to get some work done on the laptop or read the paper. Conversation is easy and usually begins with: "What are you drinking?"
On a warm Wednesday evening on the Adanac bikeway just east of Clark Drive, bike commuters making their way home peel off the street to pull their steeds into a rack outside of Bomber Brewing. Hanging from the cinder-block wall above the rack, there's a coiled air hose with a sign that reads: Free Beer – with the word Beer crossed out and the word Air written below.
Inside, the small tasting room is packed with people grabbing six packs or bombers, filling up growlers, and sampling flights of beer. Behind the bar is a glass wall exposing the inner workings of the place: giant steel tanks, pallets stacked with cans, and the sound of compressors and people in rubber boots hosing down the floor. The hosing almost never stops.
Bomber (named for a beer-league hockey team – the Bombers) opened in 2014. This year, it has a certified phenomenon on its hands with a passion fruit ale called Park Life. It may be the especially hot, dry summer but I swear, I walk to work past the place and cyclists pass the building at eight in the morning pointing to it and saying to each other: "That's the place with the Park Life." They sell it as fast as they can make it.
Across the street is Off the Rail Brewing, which opened earlier this year. Its name comes from the fact that the owner, Steve, was manager and co-owner of the Railway Club. Some former Railway Club staff tend the bar. Its tasting room is bright and breezy with windows that actually open and look out over the bikeway.
There's Parallel 49, Powell Street, Strange Fellows, and Doan Brewing – all with tasting lounges, as well as breweries without tasting rooms that draw steady streams of devoted customers, growlers in hand.
Eight breweries within easy walking distance of home is, needless to say, a blessing and a curse. For now, I'll focus on the blessing. I love having these places around. They make the neighbourhood a better, more interesting place. They bring people together in the way neighbourhood pubs used to. Never mind that they create jobs and spinoffs and provide quality, hand-made products. Never mind that foreword-thinking entrepreneurs have taken a risk and have built something out of nothing.
You may be tempted to dismiss the entire thing as a fleeting and insufferable hipster fad. Goodness knows the scene has its share of beards, piercings and man buns. You may debate whether taking your beer home in a brown glass jug is a good idea or even dignified.
I'd say before you sneer give it chance. To me, touring an out-of-towner through the neighbourhood breweries has become a point of pride; something to demonstrate that Vancouver is finally coming of age.
Is it an actual culture? Let's see how long it lasts and how far it spreads.
I have the feeling it's not going anywhere.
Stephen Quinn is the host of On the Coast on CBC Radio One, 88.1 FM and 690 AM in Vancouver.