First settled by Icelandic immigrants 150 years ago, Gimli is now a bustling town alongside Lake Winnipeg that draws thousands of cottagers and other visitors annually to its broad, sandy beaches, many of whom hail from nearby Winnipeg, but also from elsewhere in Manitoba and beyond.

The place is packed during summer months, which of course is a boon to a business like Interlake Brewing Co., a family-friendly brewpub that’s a recent addition to Gimli’s lakeside restaurant row.

Summer, however, only lasts so long. So, how does Interlake Brewing keep their taps flowing and the brewpub buzzing during the off-season? Well, thanks to the owners’ ingenuity and a warm welcome from the people of Gimli, it’s been easier than one may think.

Gimli: A gem in Manitoba

The owners of Interlake Brewing are Graeme Maclean and Kristin MacCary, a young Manitoba couple whose shared love for beer led them to found the brewery in 2021. The building housing the brewpub required extensive renovations, so it wasn’t until the summer of 2022 that it opened its doors for business.

Since then, they’ve been tremendously busy, raising two small children – a three-year-old and a six-month-old – while juggling multiple roles at the family business. However, for Maclean and MacCary, starting and running their own craft beer business has been a labour of love.

They are long-time home brewers and have spent time learning about and working in craft breweries in places as far afield as Japan. When they decided to take the plunge and establish their own craft brewery business, they chose their favourite place to do it.

Maclean, who is Métis, has many memories of cottaging in Manitoba’s Interlake region, which includes Gimli. After scouting for locations in the Interlake area, the couple decided Gimli was where they wanted to set up shop.

“This is such a special place. I think people in Manitoba don’t even realize what a gem we have here in Gimli,” said MacCary. “When we decided to settle down and start our family and our business, we realized this is the place for us. It’s the lifestyle we want and the community we want to be a part of.”

Maclean notes there were good economic reasons to settle in Gimli as well. “Personally, this is a very important place to us. We did the math, and it made sense to be opening a business out here,” he said, adding that Gimli has a more consistent year-round population compared to other communities in the area, which helps keep the taps flowing.

“We’re right across from the beach and [the Lakeview Gimli Resort], and [we’re] on a street full of restaurants,” he said. “There’s lots of foot traffic… to make a business like this viable.”

A drinking town with a fishing problem

According to MacCary, what also made Gimli the logical choice to set up shop was the fact that it’s chock-full of people looking for fun things to do.

“The joke Gimli people say is that ‘it’s a drinking town with a fishing problem.’ We find it a very social town. People want to go out and meet their friends. They want something to do, somewhere to go, and they’re happy to do it here,” she said. “Year-round, we do trivia, we do live music, we do karaoke, we do craft nights. We’re bringing in different types of people for different reasons.”

MacCary says since they introduced live music at the brewpub, every Friday night is booked throughout the summer.

“Bands are approaching us all the time. It’s been fun to tap into that community of musicians. The word gets out and lots of people want to play here. Then, they want to come back and play here again,” she said. “They say our customers are just so friendly, our servers are so positive, so that’s a huge compliment. People just like the vibe. That’s a big thing we hear a lot: ‘You’ve got such a good vibe.’”

What’s on tap

There are nine types of Interlake Brewing beer currently sold in Manitoba liquor stores. They include pale, red and blonde ales as well as wheat and Kolsch beers and an assortment of others.

“It’s nice to be offering more and more varieties. Our first and second releases are still some of our most consistent sales, and we’re getting offered on tap at more and more locations,” MacCary said. “Most of our recipes come from our home brew days, when we were first learning. We’d say, ‘okay, I like this flavour.’ We’d make the same thing over and over again, but tweaking it with different flavours or different effects, playing with different hops and that kind of thing.”

All the Interlake Brewing beer styles are brewed in partnership with Oxus Brewing Company, another craft brewery located in Winnipeg, although the plan is to have a 500-litre microbrewery operating at the brewpub location soon. Maclean and MacCary point out it isn’t usual for businesses like theirs to start off this way, using contract breweries.

“At Oxus, they’re brewing up to 6,000 litres, so their capacity is way bigger, and they can package all of that. They can can it, they can warehouse it, they can distribute it,” said MacCary. “We knew as we grew, Oxus would be able to grow with us and support us with bigger and bigger batches.”

It’s kind of like a scaled-up version of home brewing, where we can see what we have or try what we’re curious about. There’s that creative aspect, which you’re less able to do when you are mass producing for a huge market.

Kristin MacCary, Interlake Brewing Co.

She notes some smaller batches are also being brewed at Oxus, which are Gimli exclusives available only at the brewpub. “One was so popular that we did scale it up and package it. It’s our newest release called Foxtail Blonde. We tested [it] here in Gimli, and people liked it so much that we decided we would can it for the wider market,” said MacCary.

Small batch brewing

Maclean and MacCary say once their microbrewery is set up in Gimli, it will be used for brewing small, 500-litre batches just for the brewpub location. “We’ll still have Oxus-produced beers for the wider market, [since] they’ve got the scale,” MacCary said.

One advantage of small batch brewing, she says, is “everything’s fresh. That also means there’s a wider variety of ingredients we can use, since we don’t need beer that has to be shelf-stable for six months if it’s going to be consumed quickly and stored cold instead. It’s in kegs and it’s here, on site.

“We can play a little bit more with ingredients that don’t necessarily scale. There’ll be lots of local things. We already work with wild rice and rhubarb and highlight some Manitoba ingredients that way. We also want to work with chokecherries and Saskatoons,” MacCary said. “It’s kind of like a scaled-up version of home brewing, where we can see what we have or try what we’re curious about. There’s that creative aspect, which you’re less able to do when you are mass producing for a huge market.”

Beyond beer

The innovation taking place at Interlake Brewing extends to their menu served up at the Gimli brewpub. “We’re a restaurant as well. People are happy to drink here, but I think people are really excited to have our food offerings too,” MacCary said, adding their food not only caters to different tastes, but to different food requirements as well.

Most of our recipes come from our home brew days, when we were first learning. We’d say, ‘okay, I like this flavour.’ We’d make the same thing over and over again, but tweaking it with different flavours or different effects, playing with different hops and that kind of thing.

Kristin MacCary, Interlake Brewing Co.

“Our customers can still enjoy the Manitoba craft experience without having beer. Mead and cider are good options for that, and we have a full bar of wine as well. I like having something on tap that’s gluten free. I think it is the future, too – I mean, we get so many requests for gluten-free [food and beverages]. There’s a huge market for it,” she said.

“We want to be inclusive, and that means having non-alcoholic options, having kid-friendly options, gluten-free options, all of that.”