GOLD – Best Farmhouse/Wild Brett Ale // Juxtapose
GOLD – Best Wood-Aged Beer // Norwood
GOLD – Best Sour Ale // Nectarous
SILVER – Best Light/Amber Lager // Hüftgold
SILVER – Best Belgian-Style Ale // Triplicity
BRONZE – Brewery of the Year
BRONZE – Best N. American-Style Ale // Velo
BRONZE – Best Collab Beer // Ten: VCBW
BRONZE – Best Low-Alcohol Beer // Sour Weisse
Four Winds Brewing holds a special place in my heart because it was the first new brewery to open after the release of my book, Craft Beer Revolution: The Insider’s Guide to B.C. Breweries, back in 2013. And it was mere days after my book came out—as I mentioned at my Vancouver book launch when I joked that Four Winds co-founder Brent Mills had already made my book out of date. Back then, it was brewery No. 51 in the province; there are close to 190 open now by my count.
Of all the breweries that have opened here since 2013, few have been more lauded than Four Winds, which was named Canadian Brewery of the Year in 2015 and won Canadian Beer of the Year in 2016 (for Nectarous). The fact is that the beers produced by this Delta brewery are consistently excellent across the board—its core lineup is flawless and the brewers have been well ahead of the curve with kettle sours, their wood-aging program, and the recent growth of interest in lagers (love that Hüftgold!).
Whenever I visit the brewery, I am always impressed by the number of people packing the tasting room—which was recently expanded. When the Mills family built the brewery in this nondescript industrial park in Delta, they did not expect to get many visitors, but this is what happens when you brew such good beer. To coin a phrase: if you brew it, they will come—again and again.
