Hello, Beer World

And… Go!

So. We're starting a brewery. Talk about exciting, and a wee bit scary.

Who are we? We're homebrewers, we're Yukoners, we're Meghan and Marko Marjanovic. We've been homebrewing for over 8 years now, and decided to kick it up a notch.

But how much is a notch? Choosing the size of our brewery was pretty difficult. We had to figure out how much beer people would want to buy from us, and how big of a brewery we could afford. We settled on 3 BBL (barrels: 1 BBL is 31 US gallons, or 117 litres, or 61 growlers, or 58 six packs). That meant if we brewed once per week, we would have to sell 350 litres of beer per week. Doable, right? Note that we both have day jobs, so brewing and selling beer will be on the side. Still doable? Let's hope so.

Why Start A Brewery?

We're pretty dedicated beer drinkers and very passionate about beer and brewing. We've watched the craft beer revolution take over the USA, and it has absolutely exploded in Vancouver, BC. Whitehorse had its inaugural Yukon Beer Festival this year. We felt that Yukoners could handle even more craft beer.

Choosing A Name

This is the fun part of starting a company, choosing a name. Meghan was out of town one night, and I might have had one too many pints when I had the idea of Winterlong. It is a song by Neil Young, covered by the bands The Pixies and Whitehorse (how fitting!). After a quick google search, I realized it wasn't a brewery already.  The next day, I mentioned the name to Meghan. She loved it! The fact that I remembered it after a few pints the night before meant it was a keeper.

Getting Through the Red Tape

Yukon liquor licences, Canadian excise licences, insurance, zoning bylaws, building inspections, health inspectors… the list goes on. This part is where the real behind-the-scenes work is, and it's not the fun part. But our love of beer helps us push through it all. And so do many pints of homebrew.