Imagine the “Kegerator” for a minute.
Instead of hauling an oversized commercial keg to a campsite or cleaning up a couple cases of glass empties, you could simply tow a compact mini fridge with a tap to keep your beer chilled while camping in the sun.
Petri Raito and Ryan Arnaud, the owners of Trail Brewing, want to raise the bar on keg culture, so-to-speak. Instead of having a messy house after a party or a kitchen full of empty cans after a weekend, you could have a portable kegerator.
“Most people think of commercial kegs but ours are smaller and they basically eliminate all of the mess of the bottle depot,” explained Raito, while comparing their craftsmanship to typical kegs.
“We want everybody to become kegerator aware to change their beer life in a positive way.”
Kegerators—operating with a mini-fridge or dumpster foundation, are fully equipped with pouring taps and trays to catch any spills—can be purchased or rented, but Trail Brewing is more than willing to install these units for customers.
Each keg holds five gallons (19 litres), the equivalent of 55 bottles of beer.
“If you need to go somewhere where there’s going to be no electricity, you can just take (a kegerator) and throw it in the back of your truck with some ice and have draft beer wherever you want—if you’re out camping or playing baseball you can still have access to beer,” Arnaud explained.
The boys are currently setting up shop in East Trail, across the street from Safeway, where people can come in and brew beer of all varieties.
“With each beer we have all of our own ingredients and recipes, and we don’t use any additives or syrups,” Arnaud said.
It’s the epitome of Canadian culture: healthy beer.
Customers are expected to come to the shop twice—the first visit is to mix up some of the ingredients and the second trip is for bottling.
There are currently eight choices of beer available for brewing and they would like to expand the selection over the next five years. The duo will also be selling wine kits.
“Just think of us like a microbrewery with a U-Brew format,” said Arnaud.
Trail Brewery will open its doors for business on Aug. 10 and will be open from 11 a.m. until 8 p.m. from Monday to Saturday. Drop by and check out their shop at 1672 Second Ave. For more information, visit trailbrewing.com.