When he found out Twin City Brewing Company was running low on malt, Darren Adam of Cumberland Brewing Company personally flew it to them
Aaron Colyn was happy to be brewing a new batch of beer at Twin City Brewing Company in Port Alberni on Thursday after watching his malt supply dwindle due to the Highway 4 closure. Colyn, owner of the brewery, was waiting for a malt delivery from the mainland that was in limbo because of the highway closure, which started on June 6 because of a wildfire. He had enough malt on hand to brew twice before he would run out. He normally brews twice a week to make 1,200 litres of beer, so if he missed a batch, he’d be running low on beer in a few weeks. Colyn posted on social media that he didn’t know when he would be able to brew again because of the malt supply problem. That’s when Darren Adam, part owner and general manager of Cumberland Brewing Company, jumped in to help.
“So I just switched to messenger and texted him and said: ‘What do you need? How much do you need? I can bring it to you.’ And he said ‘How?’ and I said ‘I’ll chuck it in the plane and come over.’ ”
Adam happens to be a pilot and he borrowed a plane from a customer on Wednesday to transport eight bags of grain, weighing 400 pounds. The whole trip from Courtenay Airpark to Port Alberni took about 15 minutes in the air. Colyn said he was in shock at Adam’s generosity. “It’s not every day that your supplies get flown in by aircraft in the middle of a community that’s basically locked down. So that was pretty exciting,” he said.
Colyn met Adam and his brewer, Anders Petersson, at the airport with pizza and some Twin City beer to take home to Cumberland. Then it was straight to the brewery to mill the malt and prepare it for brewing Thursday morning. Colyn wanted to make something special with his air-delivered malt, and decided on a strawberry peach blond ale, which will be ready in about two weeks.
“We’ve been joking about what’s going to happen first — is this beer going to be ready or is the road going to reopen?” he said. “We’ll see what happens. But at least we’ll have a beer that we can celebrate the opening of the road.”
Adam said it was important to him to chip in to help a fellow brewer and Island entrepreneur, especially as the summer wildfire season is starting early and bringing uncertainty.
“I just know that he’d do it for me if he could. And we all have to really just keep our wits about us as far as what’s coming down the pipe, because this is our future,” he said. “We’ve already had so much to deal with, with COVID in the restaurant business, and then we turn around and suddenly a road gets shut.”
Meanwhile, on Thursday, the Island branch of international non-governmental organization Khalsa Aid, in partnership with Helicopters without Borders, flew in 1,800 kilograms of food for the Nuu-Chah-Nulth Tribal Council in Port Alberni. It was a special relief flight for Helicopters without Borders, which typically flies to Port Alberni every two weeks, delivering fresh food, hygiene supplies and medical personnel to the community.
Photo: Khalsa Aid
“Many of the folks in these communities are finding access to affordable food challenging,” said Peter Gill, a spokesperson with Khalsa Aid, which collected food donations, looked after some of the logistics and contributed $1,000 toward the cost of the operation.
Helicopters without Borders has worked with the Nuu-Chah-Nulth Tribal Council in the past, bringing in grocery items with a short shelf life such as fresh fruit, vegetables and milk in partnership with Food Banks B.C., said Carl Faichney, director of operations for Helicopters without Borders.
It also ferries out members to medical appointments in the Lower Mainland, and brings clinical teams to Ahousaht, the principal settlement on Flores Island, which is only accessible by air or water.
While the Sikorsky S-67 helicopter they use has seating for up to 12 passengers, a row of seats was removed for Thursday’s flight to enable them to carry more cargo.
Highway 4 will remain closed until at least the weekend of June 24, when it’s expected to open for single-lane alternating traffic. It could be mid-July before the road is fully reopened to restore access to the west coast.
(Source: Times Colonist, Roxanne Egan-Elliot)
