Bees and beer: A perfect New West pairing

It's the kind of local collaboration that will have New Westies buzzing—for all the right reasons.

Steel & Oak is teaming up with the not-for-profit New Westminster Beekeepers Association (NWBA) to bring its German-style beer—a doppelbock—to life. The word "doppelbock" means double strong.

Typically, the brewery will reach out to a supplier that will provide the honey in bulk for its annual smoked honey doppelbock—but staff decided to keep things closer to home this time around.

The NWBA was established in 2015 and meets weekly from March to October. The group's goal is to help locals learn and hone their beekeeping skills, particularly in urban environments.

Steel & Oak's Britney Cunningham says anytime the brewery has an opportunity to get involved with other local community contributors, it's a no-brainer.

"For this batch we used 60 kilos of honey, and each year the location of where we get the honey from does change, which in turns changes the flavour a little bit, so it's really cool that the honey is going to be from New West itself, so the flavour will be distinctly New Westminster," explains Cunningham.

Cunningham, who has been around apiaries before, says there were some unique experiences attached to visiting the NWBA's hives. She had the opportunity to meet with John Gibeau of the NWBA, who provided more information about the group and its work. Gibeau—who also owns Royal City Bees—began beekeeping at the age of 10 and designed, implemented, and instructed the commercial beekeeping program at Kwantlen Polytechnic University from 2016 to 2019. He also wrote the beekeeping bylaw for the City of New Westminster and has been a consultant for similar bylaws in other surrounding municipalities.

"There was only, at the time, only 16 hives there, which for me to imagine all of that honey—60 kilos going into our beer—it just seems like such a small amount of bees ... [but John] gave me information that blew my mind, like each of the colonies in those hives can have up to 30,000 bees in them," explains Cunningham. "[On the day Gibeau and Cunningham met] it was raining so the bees were a little sleepy and dormant, so they weren't super active, but he opened one up and used a smoker tool to calm the bees down so I could get a look inside and get some pictures."

Cunningham admits there was some apprehension being in a space full of bees, but being around Gibeau really helped to calm her nerves—as did the weather.

"It really made me feel immediately more at ease having not such crazy activity of bees flying around, for sure."

Cunningham says the experience reiterated her appreciation for the work the bees put in to be able to help create this year's beer—something she hopes S&O patrons will take away if by giving this beer a go.

"The sheer amount [of honey] that a colony of bees [creates]—and you just imagine them being so small—150 litres can come out of one hive. When you think about 30,000 bees producing that much, it is a relatively small amount for that many bees, but they're just so tiny," says Cunningham, adding that the hives are just a couple of feet tall and a couple of feet wide.

"Imagine the amount of work and production that goes into producing that much honey is just mind-blowing."

The beer is a limited edition offering through S&O's tasting room as of today, so be sure to head over to the brewery if you'd like to give this one a taste.