With all the doom and gloom in the news these days, I was delighted to receive a little ray of sunshine from one of my favourite Alberta breweries. Faithful readers may recall me waxing poetic about the joys of the Fahr Brewery in Turner Valley, which makes the best German beers this side of Munich.
For those who have not yet sampled their delicious wares, Fahr Brewery is named for its founder, Jochen Fahr, who grew up in a small German village, and moved to Alberta to complete a PhD in Biomedical Engineering at the University of Calgary.
While his schooling was originally intended to focus on industrial processing, the beer lovers of Alberta rejoiced when he decided to open a craft brewery in 2015, putting those engineering skills to good use in designing and constructing a brewery in the small town of Turner Valley, about an hour southwest of Chestermere.
I remember when the taproom finally opened to the public in 2019, with the brewery and taproom combined maxing out around 5000 ft2. In the years since then, the brewery has been showered with awards and international acclaim, combining precise German ingenuity with our locally grown Alberta barley to great success.
Unsurprisingly, Fahr Brewing has outgrown their existing facility, and has just purchased a five acre plot on Main Street in Turner Valley, and announced plans to quintuple their size and production levels.
Not only will this mean more of their delicious wares will be available across Alberta and perhaps beyond, but the expanded facility will add up to 50 jobs to the local economy, making it one of the larger employers in town. It is hoped that there will be shovels in the ground next year, with an expected few years of construction before they are ready to throw open the doors to the public.
In the meantime, you can still visit the existing brewery taproom in Turner Valley. I like to order some spicy Bratwurst from the small but lovingly curated food menu in the taproom, then wash it down with the Fahr Copper, a Vienna Style Lager that has won more accolades than I can count.
As you may have guessed, this beer style is originally from the Austrian city of Vienna, once the cultural capital of Europe, as well as the capital city of three different empires. It pours a copperish hue into a pint glass, with notes of toffee from the caramelized malts, balanced with toasted grains and noble German hops for aroma, but very little hop bitterness.
Even more impressive is the Fahr Hefe, which won the world’s best Bavarian Style Hefeweiss wheat beer at the 2020 World Brewing Awards, an award that has always previously gone to a German brewery.
Perhaps the sting of being bested by a small Canadian brewery will be lessened when the centuries-old German breweries who have always cleaned up in the Bavarian Style Hefeweiss category realize the world’s best Bavarian Hefeweiss is still being brewed with precision by a German brewmaster, who (fortunately for us) relocated to Alberta.
Germany has always been a lager drinking country, and Brauerie Fahr lives up to that reputation, with not a single ale in their lineup. However, their Munich Lager is an amazing example of a lager than drinks like an ale, pouring a dark garnet colour into my glass, with notes of coffee, burnt chocolate, and dark fruits from the roasted malt bill. As a longtime lover of dark beers, this is my go-to offering from Fahr, and while I have been enjoying it at home since the beginning of this accursed pandemic, I hope to knock back a few pints at the taproom again soon.
For those macrobrew drinkers in the audience, the Fahr Pils is the perfect gateway beer. The Pilsner beer style is originally from the Czech town of Pilzn, and uses Saaz hops for a bitter finish, but the Germans have made the style their own, with German Pilsners much less hoppy, making for a clean and fresh easy drinker, the perfect stepping stone for those raised on a steady diet of Coors Lite to come over to the crafty side.
Whatever your preferred tipple, Brauerie Fahr has a beer for you, and are widely available at your friendly neighbourhood booze merchant, or can be delivered right to your door if you subscribe to the SPUD grocery service.
