It's that time of year again, for our annual release of Available Light IPA, our collaboration with the Available Light Film Festival!

We've been sponsoring the festival for 8 years now!  From 2019, when we still had the bomber bottles, through the evolutions of the can labels each year that match the festival branding.

The beer has stayed true to its juicy roots from the beginning!  Hopped with Cashmere and Krush hops it features bold tropical and herbal fruit notes with a smooth and juicy body.  

This year the festival runs from February 6-15, 2026, with over 100+ films, ALFF LIVE, media art, and ALFF Industry panels and presentations.  It's been a blast every year brewing this beer for the Yukon Film Society and enjoying it along with the amazing films they bring up every year.

The line up this year looks amazing.  Check out the program to make your 'must-see list'!

This year we're sponsoring two films:

Winterlong Beer will be availble at this Friday Night screening!

AND….

No beer service for this screening (sadly).

We'll see you at the cinema!

Looks like we all survived the December deep freeze, and can finally step outside without our warmest jackets, toques and mitts… though there’s still the problem of where to move all the snow? 

We hope 2025 was a great year for you all.  It sure was a year to remember for Winterlong! Check out some highlights below:

• We celebrated our 10th Anniversary!  It was our biggest party ever, with over 500 people attending throughout the day.  We hosted 4 bands, 3 food trucks and released 3 anniversary beers.  Does everyone remember that amazing tequila barrel-aged sour? Thank you for all the support we’ve received over the last decade!  Check out the blog post about turning 10 years old!

• Our brewers were busy, brewing 142 beers —> over 260,400 L of beer!    Our tasting room staff poured over 27,500 pints and filled the beer fridge with over 33,000 4-packs.

• Weekend Warrior IPA took over as our top seller in can sales and in pints!  Don’t worry Pingo you’re still a favourite to many.

• We brewed our first Light Lagers – Skeeter Lager and Big Bear Lager (brewed exclusively for Big Bear Liquor Store and Eatery).  Who knew we’d get sick of IPAs once in a while and crave something the complete opposite! 

• We participated in a trans-Canada beer collaboration and brewed Glorious & Free IPA!  The goal was to brew the IPA with 100% Canadian-grown ingredients and to ensure some of the sales go to a good cause that helps protect the social fabric of Canada.  Read more here.  Sales from the beer helped us raise over $1,100 for EGALE Canada a non-profit that works to improve the lives of 2SLGBTQI individuals and makes our world a more equitable and accepting place.  

• The women of Winterlong participated in our 6th annual Pink Boots Brew Day and released the annual Witch Craft on International Women's Day.  And we raised over $2,172 for Yukon women’s organizations. 

• We hosted the 2nd annual local brewers caskival at Winterlong this spring. It was thankfully a sunny day with 6 casks to enjoy from the three local breweries. 

• We received government funding to purchase a CO2 reclamation system to help us harness the CO2 produced during the brewing process that would otherwise be lost to the atmosphere. We'll be installing it this year.

What’s in store for 2026 – well we’ll keep on keeping on, bringing your favourite brews and more to the Yukon and hopefully beyond.

Big thanks to all of you for the support and to our staff for their hard work!  It's more important than ever to support local and Canadian!

We brewed a new beer, and surprise, it’s not an IPA, sour or strong beer over 10%… it’s a light lager!  Let us introduce you to SKEETER! 

For much of north America’s beer history, light lagers have been left in the hands of the big macro breweries (think Miller, Coors, Budweiser and Molson).  These macro brewed lagers were the disdain of beer enthusiasts as they were considered watery and boring. Naturally, when the craft beer revolution began, craft brewers aligned themselves with more bold beer styles, like hoppy IPAs, fruity pale ales, wheat beers, stouts, you name it.  Anything but boring!

Over the past few years though, more craft brewers are taking a stab at the light lager. Even while these beers are light in flavour, they still check the boxes on being sessionable and damn refreshing, while also being accessible to a wider audience.  

Even as brewers / brewery owners ourselves, we’ve been drawn to drinking lager and light lagers more and more lately.  There’s just something so appealing about a crisp, refreshing and light beer, especially when it’s ice cold.  We can’t just drink IPAs all day after all! Could this be a midlife crisis?  Or are we getting nostalgic for the beers our parents and grandparents drank in the 80s? Or is it simply to make a beer that you can call 'Skeeter' and make a cool, retro style can label?

Circa 1985 - thankfully toddlers can't actually open beers on their own. Winterlong does not condone underage drinking.

Whatever it is, SKEETER is here. It comes in at 4% ABV, brewed with Red Shed Malting Pilsner malt, flaked maize and rice; Perle hops; and NovaLager yeast.

It’s the perfect beer you could crush while fishing, camping, mowing the lawn, watching sports, playing sports, <insert activity here>.  So go ahead, we dare you, put that dimpled beer glass in the freezer, and enjoy!  Get it on tap and instore at the brewery today and it will soon be on tap at G&P on Main, Holland America Dawson City, and Diamond Tooth Gerties!

SKEETER, the perfect lawnmower beer!

We are so excited to have live bands at our 10th Anniversary celebration.  We’ll be hosting 4 local bands from 3-7 pm during our back lot party.  Tickets still available through our online store.

Each band will have a 45-minute set:

• BADGER LEGION  3 pm
• COWS GO MOO  4 pm
• BRIA ROSE n’ THORNS  5 pm
• SPEED CONTROL 6 pm

Music has always been a big influence for Winterlong. Heck, our brewery name comes from a Neil Young song!  Many of our beer names have also been inspired by an album name, a song title or simply a musical lyric.  We've even asked each band to pick a winterlong-esque song to play at the event, so listen up and see if you recognize any of our beer names sprinkled through the show. 

Read on below for a bio of each band and make sure not to miss it!

BADGER LEGION

This is for all the punk rock fans out there… kicking off the event is Whitehorse's newest band:

This band of 21st Century Digital Boys and one Modern Man, have dedicated themselves to playing punk rock from the 80s, 90s and 2000s, but with one catch… only from one band, Bad Religion.  Badger Legion plays tribute to the punk icons’ 45 years (and counting) legacy.

COWS GO MOO

Next up at 4 pm we have Whitehorse's youngest band:

Cows Go Moo is a hard-hitting youth rock band based in Whitehorse. Made up of teens aged 13–15, the band has quickly become a rising force in the northern music scene — known for delivering high-energy performances that blend youthful spirit with seasoned stage presence.

Since their formation, Cows Go Moo has played major festivals, opened for Canadian rock legend Tom Cochrane, and built a dedicated fanbase across the North and beyond. Their music draws on classic rock roots with a modern edge, showcasing original songs that reflect their unique voice and raw passion for live music.

Whether they're performing at a packed festival, a community hall, or an all-ages club, Cows Go Moo brings an unforgettable show that inspires the next generation of music lovers and proves that rock is alive and well in the North.

BRIA ROSE N' THORNS

Playing at 5 pm is Bria Rose N' Thorns, ad we can't wait to hear Bria belt it out with her rocking band!

On the wings of the north wind, Bria Rose N' Thorns (BRNT) shake the room with soulful warmth. Each story from the eyes of a Tahltan/Cree woman finding fire and empathy in the world around her. Their uplifting yet gritty sound is complete with rasp and a deep alto flavour that bridges heart and earth. BRNT is a sweet, salty ensemble that boasts positivity, playfulness, and power through a rural lens. Their debut EP, Sprout, was released May 31st 2024. The emerging stars will release their first full-length album, Bloom, April 2026. 

SPEED CONTROL

Last, but not least, we have a favourite party band to close out the show:

Hailing all the way from Ponderosa Drive in Porter Creek and the Annie lake road, Speed Control brings their super tight, riff heavy, harmony rock to Winterlong's 10th anniversary.  With a brand new album coming out soon, they're ready to ROCK!

For our 10th anniversary we wanted to celebrate with not one, not two, but three special beer releases!   Each beer will be on tap and available in 4-packs to go on May 31st.

DECADE

We pulled out all the stops on this beer, drawing inspiration from a few different sources to make a fantastic barrel-aged margarita style sour.  The recipe base was an imperial gose, aka an amped up version of a sour German-wheat beer.  It was brewed with dried limes, dried black limes, lime juice, coriander seed, and smoked salt. After souring and fermentation, the beer was aged in freshly dumped tequila barrels for 4 months! For our first barrel-aged sour, we are really happy with how it has turned out.

The result is very nice blend of tequila and oak notes, lime, salt and tartness.  It comes in at 7% ABV.

Featured on the can art is the Mourning Cloak butterfly one of the Yukon’s most common butterflies.  The butterfly imagery also ties in nicely with our metamorphosis from basement homebrewers to nano-brewers, and now to your beloved local micro brewery. 

GLORIOUS & FREE IPA (aka IPEh)

This beer came about as part of a trans-Canada brewery collaboration, conceived by the lovely folks at Dominion City Brewing Co in Ottawa (Read More on our Blog).  The goal was to brew Dominion City’s IPA with 100% Canadian-sourced ingredients:

• Hops (Centennial, Chinook and Comet) and from Topps Hops in BC,
• Malt (Wheat, Barley and Oats)  from Red Shed Malting in AB, and
• Yeast from Escarpment Labs in ON!  

It’s kind of a mashup of west coast meets east coast IPA.  It’s got east coast hazy vibes and classic west coast citrus and floral hop notes.

Another goal of the trans-Canada collaboration was to ensure a portion of beer sales go to a non-profit that helps to build a tighter knit Canada.  We’ll be donating $2 from every 4-pack to Egale, a non-profit whose mission is to improve the lives of 2SLGBTQI people in Canada and enhance the global response to 2SLGBTQI issues. 

It comes in at 6.5% ABV.  A limited amount of T-shirts have also been printed, ready for release day.

DREAM MACHINE

We’re bringing this beer back from the dead!  It was first brewed 5 years ago, for draught only, and we’ve been looking for an excuse to bring it back.  We dusted off the recipe and gave it a whole new identity, in can format.  The psychedelic porcupine that Mary (our designer) brought to life, fit the bill perfectly.

This beer is made with 100% Nelson Sauvin hops in the whirlpool and dry hop additions.   Nelson is an awesome hop from New Zealand, featuring white wine-like aromatics along with heaps of tropical and dank notes.   We threw in a generous helping of biscuit malt from Red Shed Malting, to give you a bit more to chew on.

It comes in at 6% ABV.