The shadow of the mountains holds a hidden gem in Hope – the district’s first ever microbrewery.
Located at 390 Old Hope Princeton Way and open since November 2020, Mountainview Brewing was once the home of a machine shop that was built in the 1970s.
“It was quite the renovation,” owner Adam Keil laughed. “In hindsight, it might have been easier to build from scratch.”
Married owners Adam and Danielle Keil have been interested in brewing since the 2010s, right along with the rise of microbreweries. Adam said he’d been home brewing since he was 19 years old.
“We were living in New West at the time, and I think Steel and Oak had just opened up,” Adam recalled. “It wasn’t really on our radar, but we were always kind of talking about it. We thought it would be kind of cool, having a brewery in Hope, because we’re from here, and it’s a great tourist town and it seemed like there was a lot of potential.”
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Before going into business for themselves in Hope, Adam and Danielle moved to Port Moody, where Adam was working as a dispatcher for a truck company in Chilliwack.
“There was a lot of great things with that job, but it’s tough being on call three, four nights a week,” My wife was like ‘ you’re so miserable. We need to do something,'” Adam recalled. “We decided we wanted to do it.”
Adam applied for the brewery operations program at Kwantlen Polytechnic University and started working in Port Moody to get his first taste of the microbrewery world.
Mountainview Brewing serves a number of beers brewed in-house along with savoury snacks and sandwiches. While opening during a pandemic has put a damper on the potential business it could have, Adam said the community has been very receptive and supportive of the business so far.
“Once things open up again, we hope to host weddings and [other events],” he added. “We had a bunch of requests before we were open.”
Outside of capacity restrictions not being able to host live music and events amid the pandemic, Adam said COVID did not discourage them from opening up. Mountainview Brewing has been years in the making.
“At some point, you’ve put so much time and money and effort, you just kind of need to power through and find a way to make it happen,” Adam said. “In a way, it was good that it took a bit longer [to open] because we were able to go visit some breweries to see how they’re managing it and the best practices to make this safe and still work.”
In addition to having eight beers on tap at the microbrewery itself, Mountainview also fills growlers and cans and sells their beer to liquor stores and a couple of pubs so far, running from Hope to Chilliwack and a few locations in Aldergrove, just to name a few.
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Adam said their most popular beer is the currently sold-out First Blood Orange, an imperial wheat ale that’s a clear nod to Hope’s Hollywood history and the iconic “Rambo.” The fruitiness of the flavour with a hint of bitter at the back draws in even those new to the beer world, and the 7.5 per cent alcohol content packs a punch worthy of Sylvester Stallone himself.
Adam is partial to The Dark Side of Town, a Bavarian schwarzbier. This dark lager is named after the long shadow cast from the mountains to a vast portion of Hope during certain months.
It can take anywhere from three to four weeks to create a batch of any of Mountainview’s beers. Most of the sales are through the lounge during the winter months and the pandemic, so the brewing process hasn’t been going for about a week or two as of earlier this month. Adam is optimistic for summer and the upcoming tourism months.
“I think the goal once it gets into warmer months is for it to be like an awesome pit stop,” Adam said.
Mountainview Brewing is open six days a week from 12 p.m. to 8 p.m. Tuesday and Wednesday, 12 p.m. to 9 p.m. on Thursday, 12 p.m. to 10 p.m. on Friday and Saturday and 12 p.m. to 6 p.m. on Sunday.
For a complete menu and more information, visit them online at mountainviewbrewing.ca.
