A local brewery is getting national recognition, taking home gold at the Canada Beer Cup. At Pistols Brewery in Kanata, they are celebrating the big win. “Really validating, really great time. And it’s for the industry by the industry,” said Tim Davidson, Pistols Brewery master brewer. They took home the top prize for one of their beers at the Canada Beer Cup last month in Calgary, where beers are blind tasted by international judges, who evaluate everything from character and balance to creativity. “We scored a gold in the contemporary IPA category for our Big Hoss IPA. That’s our beer that we have in the LCBO,” Davidson said. But the road to gold started with a bronze medal last year. Davidson says the judges’ feedback helped the brewery refine the recipe, resulting in a big win this year. “The competition itself is a great way to improve your beers. You get world class feedback. And case in point, last year I took feedback we got from our bronze win, incorporated that into our procedures, and then this year we came up with the gold. So, really validating really great time,” Davidson said. Word is already spreading about the gold medal beer, almost faster than they can make it. “Now people are coming in the doors asking, do you have Big Hoss? So, a lot of the time we were doing all the exposure, posting it, and now people are actually coming to us looking for that particular beer. It’s been flying off the shelf. We’re constantly restocking it multiple times a day,” said Kennedy Lagrove, Pistols Brewery tap room and lounge manager. And after climbing from bronze to gold, Davidson says the goal now is to keep improving and come back next year to do it all again. “We’re going to go defend the title next year. There some more feedback as well. You can always improve your processes, right. So yeah, we’ll try to go for a repeat,” Davidson said.
