Callister Brewing is now open! Their soft-opening was yesterday, but I guess this was their first full day being open to the public. It’s good that they’re open now, while there’s still some good summer weather to be had. I’m not sure if people would come out if it was the middle of a dreary Fall.

Callister Brewing (Twitter, Instagram, Facebook) is a very interesting brewery because it functions as sort of a co-op where people can come in and use their equipment to brew beer and start up their own brand. Read more about it in this The Province article.

A few people already got there before me at 2:00pm! Hah!

So the main brewery/entity is Callister, and they’re currently hosting three brands, Machine Ales (one of the Machine Ales partners also runs Copper & Theory), Brewery Creek (yes, the private beer/wine store), and Real Cask (Adam Chatburn, ex-CAMRA Vancouver President). It’s a new and exciting setup, and I think we’ll see lots of different kinds of beer being brewed all the time.

Callister is just a block south of Powell Street Craft Brewery, and a few blocks north of Bomber Brewing, Off The Rail, and Strange Fellows. So it’s getting to be a heavy concentration of breweries in this “Yeast Van” neighborhood!

The tasting room. Spacious and plenty of light.

The beers. Plus handmade sodas by Callister!

I saw three kinds of pepperoni sticks. Sorry, I’m not sure what exactly they are. I assume a mild, spicy, and something else…perhaps a buffalo?

Pretzels.

Cheesy bread. AFAIK, all the bar snacks are provided by East Side Beer Food.

My flight of 4oz’ers: Brewery Creek Simple Saison (4%), Machine Ales Equinox (4%), and Machine Ales Double Happyness (7.5%).

I like the elk-themed branding here.

Some preliminary tasting notes:

Brewery Creek Simple Saison (4%) – Really light-tasting saison. A bit soapy. Very sessionable but not quite hitting it for me.

Machine Ales Equinox (4%) – Very intriguing Equinox hops. I think my first time having these hops. I got a grassy-meets-fruity quality. Googling this hop revealed that people get “lemon, lime, apple, and GREEN PEPPER!” I got a growler of this for further study at home 😉

Machine Ales Double Happyness (7.5%) – Big huge candy-like tropical fruit flavours cuz of the Citra and Mosaic hops. Big. A bit sticky, even though they hesitate to call it a double IPA — I guess because it doesn’t have the bigger malt profile that most DIPAs have.

A cleanser: Callister Lemongrass Lemonade with Kaffir Lime. The adjuncts are really subtle, but the gestalt is fresh, sweet and tasty.

Callister Brewing Apricot Resurrection (4.2%). I didn’t get that much apricot from this one, but might’ve been because of the strong hoptastic carnival ride of the Double Happyness I had before this.

The natural light makes for great photos 😉

More elk-themed stuff  in the bathroom.

Congrats to Callister!