It was looking a little like a mad scientist lab in the back of Victoria brewery Whistle Buoy as the crew prepared to celebrate 4/20 with innovation.
Their latest beer, Buds Hazy, is a terpene-infused hazy IPA made in partnership with Vancouver’s Superflux and there are a few things worth knowing about it.
While drinkers won’t get high from this weed-beer hybrid as there’s no THC in it, explains Whistle Buoy co-owner Isaiah Archer, this creation works since hops and cannabis are very closely related (and terpene is derived from cannabis).
Terpenes bring out fruit flavours and emphasize dank flavour – that pungent odoriferous quality that comes from weed and very hoppy IPAs.
The brewers got a good whiff of it when they opened the bottle of BrewGas, a liquid brewing solution consisting of botanical terpene-derived cannabis flavour compounds without the THC or CBD.
“Opening a bottle of BrewGas is like sticking your head in a big bag of weed and inhaling, which is wild because none of the compounds used were extracted from the Cannabis plant. SCIENCE,” Archer said in a post on the Whistle Buoy website.
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Whistle Buoy is widely known in Victoria to be a fun and creative brewery. It’s part of their brand and Archer said when they opened, they saw the opportunity to appeal to a young consumer base.
On April Fool’s Day this year, for instance, they released their 500th brew; the Hazy Kale Ale. The special ingredients? Powdered kale, liquid chlorophyll and anchovy hops.
The anchovy hops was admittedly a gimmick from Seattle brewery Fast Fashion, who bought a new hop strain and named it ‘anchovy hops’ for kicks. Despite that, it tastes more like watermelon Jolly Ranchers.
“At the end of the day, we’re making beer; it’s about bringing people together, celebrating and taking it easy, so we thought it was a fun hop that represented how we feel about beer,” Archer said.
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The crew at Whistle Buoy also like to lean into the fact that they are a taproom-based business and innovation serves that well.
“If someone orders a beer that’s bright green – or we make a blue spirulina beer, or bright pink, red and purple sour beers with fruit – and someone sees that glass going across the room, it often starts to create an effect,” Archer said.
But experimentation mostly comes from a place of having fun and loving what they do.
“We want to have fun with it and express our personalities. This is a passion,” Archer said.
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