ESTEVAN - Four friends and avid homebrewers from Estevan are excited to have their own beer on the market.
Hazy Little Treat, produced by Crazy Farmer Brewing, was scheduled to be available on Nov. 8, thanks to a contract brew with Regina’s Pile O’ Bones Brewing Company, under the Pile O’ Bones licence.
Braden Hubick, Russell Mantei, Jeff Pierson and Kurt Schmidt are part of Crazy Farmer.
Mantei said when they started brewing two years ago, they never imagined it would reach this stage.
“To see it go from a design recipe in about March, to five different tries to get it down to where it is today, and to get it to Pile O’ Bones, it’s an incredible journey,” said Mantei.
Mantei recalled that when they first started brewing, a friend from Minnesota who owns a craft beer business suggested purchasing a home-brew kit and some equipment, so they could learn how to home brew and understand the process.
“You can guide them the way you want your beer made, not necessarily how their beer is made. We took that to heart, started home-brewing two years ago, and here we are today, and I’m forever grateful for the advice he gave us,” said Mantei.
Pierson described having Crazy Farmer on the market as “a dream come true.” He expressed his gratitude to Pile O’Bones general manager Glenn Valgardson and his crew for giving Crazy Farmer the opportunity to take a passion for home brewing to the commercial level.
Hazy Little Treat has been available to the public once before. Three kegs were on tap at the Beef Bar in the summer. A launch party was held at the Beef, and the beer sold out within a week.
“That was a pretty good indicator that it was a good idea to take this commercial opportunity when it was presented to us by Pile O’ Bones,” said Pierson. “We’re just really excited to get this to market.”
The beer was well received in the launch. They also posted a few pictures of the can design late last month.
Mantei said people will find this to be a beer that’s easy to drink.
Pile O’Bones has been great to work with, they said. The local homebrewers have been friends with the people at the Regina brewery for years, and Pierson was among their first customers.
“When they started it in the basement of O’Hanlon’s, he was selling Red IPA and White IPA at the time,” said Mantei.
Business owners from as far away as Nipawin have requested the beer.
“It’s going to be a lot of fun in the next couple of weeks, just seeing how it’s received and getting it in people’s hands, to get feedback of any sort,” said Pierson. “It’s exciting times for me, Russell, Kurt and Braden.”
The list of locations where the beer will be available hasn’t been finalized, but Pierson said it would be for sale at Affinity Place, thanks to Pierson’s friendship with Zane Hagel, who works for Labatt Brewing – the company that has the contract for the beer at Affinity Place.
The past two years have been an education process for Crazy Farmer, with a lot of trial and error, and it wasn’t until about a year in that they started to believe this was possible.
Mantei is looking forward to seeing people enjoying Hazy Little Treat, and then talking about the beer they’re drinking and other beers they’ve enjoyed.
“To me, beer, whether it’s a Crazy Farmer Brewing beer, or Rebellion or Pile O’Bones … to me beer is like the campfire. It creates conversation. It creates friendships. If you sit around and talk about everything, it’s about the beer, and beer becomes the catalyst for conversation and good times among friends.”
Crazy Farmer is always willing to show how the process works and how other people can make home-brewed beer. They can reach out to Crazy Farmer on social media with any questions.
