A unique collaboration

I recently spent an hour or so hanging out at one of our local craft breweries. But I didn’t get drunk. Didn’t even sip a sample. Instead, I photographed their all-hands effort to can two new beers they developed collaboratively with the company doing the canning.

Collaborative creations between competing brewers are nothing new in Metro Vancouver burgeoning craft beer industry. But a joint effort between a brewery and a canner that packages their beer is something special.

So much so, Adam Crandall of Moody Ales in Port Moody and Matt Leslie of West Coast Canning, decided to team up for two beers, with partial proceeds from sales of four-packs of their collaboration going to KidSport Tri-Cities.

Crandall and Leslie decided the onset of the sometimes unpredictable spring weather needed its own beverages that would appeal when the sun is out and when the clouds roll in and rain starts to fall — both of which can happen within the hour.

“We see it all the time,” Moody Ales co-founder Dan Helmer said. “It’s a beautiful day and our patio is packed, it starts raining and no one moves. They just put their jackets on and keep drinking.”

Shorts Weather is a hoppy India session ale with a citrusy punch for when it’s warm, while Still Raining is a dark lager with aromas of chocolate and coffee for when the gloom descends.

On Monday, West Coast Canning brought two of its portable canning lines to the Murray Street brewery to package the new beers.

“We’ve never done something like this before,” Leslie said.

The Mixed Weather four-packs — with two cans of each beer — ship to private liquor stores around the province on March 26.

MARIO BARTEL/THE TRI-CITY NEWS Four-packs of Shorts Weather ISA and Staill Raining dark lager are ready for shipping at Moody Ales on Monday.

MARIO BARTEL/THE TRI-CITY NEWS It’s all hands on deck in a team effort to can and sort two new beers that have been collaboratively created by Moody Ales and West Coast Canning to help raise money for Kidsport Tri-Cities.

MARIO BARTEL/THE TRI-CITY NEWS Bob Maguire ducks under the canning line.

MARIO BARTEL/THE TRI-CITY NEWS Dan Webster, of Moody Ales, organizes cans of the brewery’s new Shorts Weather ISA and Still Raining dark lager that collarobated to create with West Coast Canning. Partial proceeds from sales of four-packs of the new beers go to support KidSports Tri-Cities.

MARIO BARTEL/THE TRI-CITY NEWS Matt Leslie pulls filled cans off the end of one of two portable canning lines running at Moody Ales on Monday to package their new collaboration beers with West Coast Canning that will help raise money for KidSports Tri-Cities.

MARIO BARTEL/THE TRI-CITY NEWS Bob Maguire, of West Coast Canning, makes adjustments to one of two portable canning lines brought in to Moody Ales on Monday to package the new beers collaboratively created by the brewery and canner.

MARIO BARTEL/THE TRI-CITY NEWS Bob Maguire lines up cans for loading into the canning line.

MARIO BARTEL/THE TRI-CITY NEWS Ali Makin sorts cans at the end of one of two portable canning lines set up Monday at Moody Ales to package the brewery’s new collaboration beer with West Coast Canning.

MARIO BARTEL/THE TRI-CITY NEWS Cans of Shorts Weather ISA, one of two new beers brewed by Moody Ales in collaboration with West Coast Canning, are filled on a portable canning machine on Monday.

MARIO BARTEL/THE TRI-CITY NEWS Pallets of Moody Ales’ new collaboration beers, created in collaboration with West Coast Canning, are loaded onto pallets for shipment.