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“We’re just a bunch of working people who like beer,” says Drum Brewing’s Trevor Wakeling.
Published April 18, 2024 • 2 minute read
LR: Albert Forsey and Trevor Wakeling take a break from brewing at Drum Brewing on April 11, 2024.Vincent McDermott/Fort McMurray Today/Postmedia Network
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On Wednesday mornings, Trevor Wakeling and his friend Albert Forsey inspect giant vats of malt and yeast goo, stirring them with the paddles of their canoes. After passing through a network of tubes and tanks, the granular soup ferments over several weeks into different styles of beer.
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Wakeling and Forsey have been making their own beers in a homegrown setup for years. But as breweries opened across Alberta, a group of six friends became frustrated with the lack of a local beer scene in Fort McMurray. Drum Brewing was born in a location with a unique history of catering to local craft beer cravings.
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“We’re just a bunch of working people who like beer,” Wakeling said. “What brought us all together was that we loved drinking beer together.”
Drum Brewing’s location on Franklin Avenue is the latest effort to create a craft beer culture in Fort McMurray.
The brewing equipment is leftover from Wood Buffalo Brewing Company, which operated from 2013 to 2019. He was familiar with this equipment as he had been brewing beer at the restaurant 57 North, which opened after his original brewery closed.
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Although the equipment is larger than a homebrewing kit, the steps of mashing, boiling, fermenting, carbonating, and drinking are the same.
Trevor Wakeling stirs the mash that will ferment into beer at Drum Brewing on April 11, 2024.Vincent McDermott/Fort McMurray Today/Postmedia Network
After 57 North closed in May 2022, Wakeling purchased the space in July 2023 with partners Matt Nash, Ryan Reid, Jeff Mahood, Kayla Wakeling and Paige Pakalovski. None of them have ever run a brewery and all have full-time jobs outside of Drum Brewing. Wakeling and Forsey are mechanics. The doors opened in October last year.
The original owners of Wood Buffalo Brewing Company chose this location because an arena was planned for downtown. Although it got off to a strong start, it never recovered from the collapse in global oil prices at the end of 2014 and the destruction of Arena by Congress in 2015. 57 North has struggled during the COVID-19 pandemic and after the April 2020 floods.
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Before anyone says the space is cursed for brewers, Wakeling says the owners run a different business than previous tenants.
The layout is about one-fifth the space of the previous tenant. Wakeling says this will allow the brewery to focus on taproom culture and making beer locally. The previous tenant was “a restaurant with a brewery attached,” Forsey said.
“The other locations never got crowded enough to fill 200 seats. And we go to a lot of breweries and taprooms, which usually seat about 40 people at most.” said Mr. Wakeling. “It would have been better if the arena had been held, if there had been a restaurant.”
Drum Brewing hopes to debut the beer at various craft beer festivals across Alberta next year. Travel Alberta estimates that more than 170 breweries have opened across the province in recent years. Most are in Calgary, but there are local breweries everywhere from Waterton and Fort MacLeod to Cold Lake and Peace River.
Locally, the brewery partners with community organizations, sporting events, and other businesses. They’ve hosted trivia, paint nights, and even beer yoga. The owners talk about the brewery’s atmosphere, but agree that the focus has always been on locally produced beer.
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vmcdermott@postmedia.com
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