4 Mile Brewing Company

4 Mile Brewing Company

This has been brewing for a long time. First you have two 1960’s free-spirits up in the Yukon who get hitched, way back when, under the pale moon light of the Northern Lights, with a Shaman for a priest. With just that opening you know it’s going to get interesting. They set about to pop-out a bushel of children; okay, five. Then lock, stock, and over a barrel, they moved the entire brood to Victoria and bought a floundering historical landmark pub. Why you ask? Why not, and anyway, they loved beer. A pub seemed like a good idea at the time. Still does. Now the building itself had a lot of dubious history dating from as far back as 1858. Not only had it morphed physically many times, but it had been everything from a four mile ‘stop along the way’ road house, to a hang-out for bootleggers, and brothel broads, ghosts, sea captains and suffragettes, and priests, paupers and just plain folk. And at the heart of it all, it had always served beer – legal or otherwise; mostly otherwise. In 1980, Wendy & Graham Haymes, the aforementioned up-yonder Northern Light types, bought the pub, and made things legal by acquiring a proper liquor licence. Furthermore, they made it a family affair. Grandparents, siblings, kids and cousins – everyone was sucked into the Four Mile vortex. Even today, at last count, there are more than a baker’s dozen family members, ranging in age from the high 60s to mid-20s, involved in the day-to-day running of the business. But let’s get back to beer. Real beer. Storied beer. Damn good beer. One of the siblings, Doug White, set forth on a personal quest to seek out good beer. He made it as far as England. Here he found a fine brewery (Ringwood), a teacher (Alan Pugsley), and a place to study his passion. He studied a long time and drank a lot of beer. Years after his return from his beer vision quest, the family discussions always centered on brewing their own Four Mile beer. So select members of the family clan headed off to England to collectively drink a lot of beer and test their theory. Then they went to New England, and drank a lot more beer just to make sure. The craft beer business in the Pacific Northwest and elsewhere in Canada and the US was burgeoning. It was finally time to get off the pot, fire up the kettle and brew some good beer. 2013 saw a brewing system from England – Peter Austin Brick Kettle Brewing System (for you beer hipsters) – rumble into Four Mile House. Along with time-honoured British recipes, Doug’s old mentor Alan Pugsley, a lot of trial, error and experimentation, (and of course sampling), Four Mile Brewery was launched in early 2014. Then what happened? A happy hoppy marriage of West Coast vibe meeting traditional British know-how to create a distinctive fresh clean family of beers, run by a family of beer connoisseurs. Ask yourself beer drinkers, who do you want brewing your beer?