Locally brewed by our team, enjoyed by you! 

The Mid Island Liquor team is excited and proud to continue its strong relationship with Nanaimo-based Wolf Brewing Company to produce a new, exclusive craft beer under our “My Island” beer label.

“My Island” beer is designed, brewed, packaged, and sold by the hands and minds of Mid Island Liquor store employees as well as expert head brewers to both support local producers as well as provide our staff with firsthand alcoholic beverage knowledge and production experience.

Please look forward to the My Island – Island Sun Cream Ale available while supplies last at your favourite Mid Island Liquor location, we hope you enjoy it as much as we enjoyed brewing it! 

Early Steps of Production

The process to design and create this beer began in early January 2024. A randomly selected crew of Mid Island Liquor employees who volunteered for a chance to participate in this hands-on educational production opportunity gathered at Wolf Brewing Company to work with Wolf Brewing Company’s esteemed Brewmaster, Kev Ward. 

The Brew Crew

Led by Kev’s industry and brewing experience, the team selected the beer style to produce along with selecting the brew’s key hops, grains, and yeast that would lend their flavours and qualities to the final product. This was a thorough course where the scientific dynamics behind the brewing process were defined and explored by flavour implications of recipe tweaks.

The team arrived at the conclusion to produce a crisp, effervescent Cream Ale that would feature a combination of BC grown Sasquatch Hops (the only proprietary, trademarked Canadian hop variety in the world) and classic Hallertauer Tradition hops to provide gentle floral and citrus notes. Additionally, it was decided that the beer would have some brief time resting on lemon zest before packaging to impart some refreshing fruit qualities and a gentle tartness to quench thirst.

Brew Day

The hands-on brewing of the beer began late January 2024 with the crew reconvening bright and early at Wolf’s brewery to start with the milling of grains. Pilsner, Munich, and Wheat grains were fed into the grist mill by our team, climbing up a ladder to load the elevated machine for gravity to then transfer the optimally cracked grains into the mash tun.

With the cracked malts ready to have their starches broken down in the mash tun, fresh water was added by the team and the tank was heated to a precise temperature to allow the natural enzymes present in the malt to break down starches and convert them to fermentable sugars which eventually become the alcohol.

After a few hours the hot, sweet liquid (wort) was ready for the next stage of lautering in which the wort is separated from the spent grain. One aspect of this stage involved cleaning out the used grain husks from the bottom of the lauter tun to then be collected for cattle feed- nothing goes to waste at the brewery!

Next came the boiling and hopping in which the brew crew manipulated pipes and instruments to bring the now grain-free wort to a boil for another hour or so before adding the specially selected Sasquatch and Hallertauer Tradition hops to lend their essences to the flavour and aromatic profile of the eventual beer. Steady eyes were kept on the temperature of this developing mixture while other brew members prepped the facility for the sanitary transfer of the hop-infused yield of this liquid to the sterile and yeast-added fermentation tank.

Precision and patience is key to a good brew

After the transfer was completed, the crew celebrated a job well done! The fermenting brew was attended to by Brewmaster Kev and his team to ensure everything proceeded as planned, and the brew crew returned to their regular workplaces having done excellent work. The Cream Ale was then eventually transferred to tanks in cold-storage for conditioning to smooth out the flavour profile as well as rest the beer on lemon zest to impart a light lemon essence to the overall brew.

A great day of beer making and learning from Brewmaster Kev

Label and Name Creation

While the beer was fermenting and conditioning, the brew crew was hard at work throughout the weeks that followed in February by consulting with Brewmaster Kev on label design aspects and brainstorming together on ideas for the eventual look of this label:

My Island — Island Sun Cream Ale Label

We wished to create a beer and label that spoke to the relaxing, sun-drenched days we all appreciate across Vancouver Island. The dry, balanced, and gently citrusy My Island – Island Sun Cream Ale we proudly present to our shoppers pairs perfectly with warm-weather good times no matter where you are on the Island!

Please enjoy responsibly.