Barley and brews: Farmhouse Brewing plots Abbotsford EcoFarm expansion

A popular Chilliwack brewery hopes to team up with Abbotsford’s EcoFarm to open a new farm-based brewpub—and meet stiff provincial rules.

Farmhouse Brewing plans to open a brewery, pub, and outdoor events area with capacity for hundreds of additional guests. The endeavour is possible because the brewery’s potential Abbotsford host has been growing and stockpiling barley for two years, according to a newly public application to the City of Abbotsford.

Farmhouse is just the latest successful Fraser Valley brewery to target a neighbouring municipality for expansion. In the last two years, Langley’s Trading Post has opened a restaurant in Abbotsford, Abbotsford’s Fieldhouse Brewing has built a Chilliwack outpost, and Chilliwack’s Old Yale Brewing has gone the opposite direction, opening a pub in central Abbotsford.

Farmhouse is now seeking to emulate their competitors by opening a sizable pub at Abbotsford’s EcoFarm, on Sumas Way just south of Highway 1.

Homegrown barley

According to documents submitted to the City of Abbotsford, Farmhouse’s pub would have seating for 60 people inside. But, like in Chilliwack, it would have a large outdoor drinking and dining area that could accommodate up to 300 people, mostly in a large picnic area. The operators are also hoping to gain permission for an outdoor special event area with room for up to 240 people.

Farm-based breweries hit a snag several years ago when the Agricultural Land Commission began enforcing a rule that required that at least 50% of brewery inputs be produced on location. The rule—which is similar to those in effect for other farm-based food processors and intended to limit the conversion of good farmland to industrial uses—was later tweaked to allow for farm-based breweries that had long-term contracts to buy and use ingredients from other BC farms.

Barley accounts for the vast majority of beer inputs, but has historically rarely grown in southwestern BC, where farmland is exceedingly expensive.

Less than a dozen craft breweries in BC were operating on farmland as of last year, but in recent years more Fraser Valley breweries have started growing their own barley.

In 2018, Field House Brewing in Abbotsford partnered with EcoFarm’s parent company to grow barley for its own beer. Locality Brewing in Langley has followed suit on its 96-acre farm, and since opening Farmhouse has been growing 10 acres of the grain on its Chilliwack property.

Barley may not be economically attractive as an agriculture commodity, but its financial appeal in southern BC has increased as customers show they value beer that includes locally grown ingredients. The province’s ALR rules have also added a significant extra incentive by allowing brewers who grow their own barley to make and sell their beer on relatively cheap farmland, rather than on extremely expensive industrial and commercial properties.

According to the application, EcoFarm has harvested more than two hectares of barley over the last two years, allowing it to amass a stockpile that will allow it to provide Farmhouse with enough grain to begin brewing.

This spring, EcoFarm plans to plant vastly more, with ambitions to seed 30 acres with barley to support the brewery’s operation. The barley will take up the majority of the 43-acre farm’s fields. According to the application, EcoFarm expects to net about 1.5 tons of barley for each acre planted, “depending on weeds and weather.” The grain won’t go directly from farm to beer, though. It will be sent to Red Deer to be malted, then return to Abbotsford to be turned into suds.

The new facility still needs the sign-off from BC’s Liquor and Cannabis Regulation Branch (LCRB). Before that happens, Abbotsford’s Agriculture Advisory Committee will provide feedback at a meeting on Thursday. The committee’s recommendation will then inform Abbotsford council’s own feedback for the LCRB process, though cities rarely contest such applications.

The Farmhouse application says the new brewpub would have food similar to Chilliwack’s location and could be open to midnight on weekdays and 1 am on weekends. (Those hours are likely to be more regulated by business realities; Farmhouse’s Chilliwack site closes before 10pm.)

Plans for the new brewery suggest the brewery and customer area would be located east of the farm’s current buildings on land currently used as a large park and berry u-pick. (That section of land is often used to host weddings and other events, like Bard in the Valley.)

The plan has hit one regulatory snag, however. The ALC’s CEO has put the brakes on plans to build a proposed 50-spot parking lot for the brewpub, noting that it would infringe and detract from previous agricultural capabilities. Otherwise, the ALC has found that the usage of the local barley should allow the brewery to proceed as planned.