Vancouver Island brewery delivers malt by plane to fellow brewery cut off by highway closure

Twin City Brewing Company in Port Alberni has been watching its malt supply shrink day by day, with the community cut-off by the ongoing closure of Highway 4 on Vancouver Island.

"Everyone has had to adapt," said owner Aaron Colyn, whose brewery regularly has malt shipped on a pallet through a carrier from the mainland.

"But right now, our supplier has a bit of a backlog because they chose not to use the detour," Colyn said. "So we have an order of grain that's hung-up in limbo somewhere, and we're not expecting that anytime soon." 

It's yet another example of the far-reaching impacts of the wildfire-prompted highway closure on the island — one in which members of the community are rallying to help one another.

About 80 kilometres north of Port Alberni, at Cumberland Brewing Company, co-owner and general manager Darren Adam heard about their looming supply shortage and offered to help out. 

"I messaged [Colyn] and said, 'Mate, we're getting our grain no problem — can I bring some over?' He said, 'How?' I said, 'I'll chuck it in the plane!" 

Highway 4 has been closed for over a week due to the Cameron Bluffs wildfire east of Port Alberni, with the province's transportation ministry warning the "vital" route may not open again until June 24.

Due to its location, Cumberland Brewing has not been affected by the highway's closure, and continues to receive regular shipments of grain every couple of weeks.

So Adam, who is a pilot, decided to make the 20-minute flight from Cumberland to Port Alberni in his friend's Cessna plane, loaded with sacks of grain.

"It was eight bags, 50 pounds each, of German malt that's used in a lot of pilsner and lager type beers," Adam said. "We happened to have a shipment and can order again and don't need them right away, so offered them up." 

Once tapped, they expect that batch to last anywhere from two to six weeks, depending on how popular the beer is.

'We have to watch each others' backs'

Colyn says he's incredibly grateful for the generosity.

"Us not brewing now would become a problem in three weeks when we're all of a sudden realizing we're not going to have enough beer in July, when hopefully the highway is open and we start seeing people head to the West Coast and coming through Port Alberni again."

Adam says running a small business is difficult enough and that none of them could've foreseen a complete shut-down of the major access route to the western part of Vancouver Island. 

"It's just another reminder that we need to support our local businesses," Adam said.

"We have to watch each others' backs because it's not going to get better; with the threat of fires from climate change, we have to be adapting and mitigating as much as possible."