Ucluelet Brewing Co. is a community pub and gathering place for friends
UCLUELET – Ucluelet Brewing Co. is much more than a producer of award winning beers in an award winning building.
“We’re a community pub, a gathering place,” says owner and founder Dennis Morgan. “It’s comfortable, and people just like to come here and hang out and talk and enjoy the beers and the ambience.”
“It’s really a pub. That’s what the model originally was, and likely where it’ll stay,” he notes, adding the 72-seat facility includes an outdoor patio overlooking the harbour.
Ucluelet Brewing’s location at 1601 Peninsula Road was once St. Aiden’s Church, built in the 1950’s and deconsecrated in 2010. The idea to convert the structure into a microbrewery was hatched in 2015, and the renovation was completed in 2020.
Morgan, an ecologist, had previously worked as a Senior Park Ranger in the Clayoquot Region for BC Parks, after a couple years with Parks Canada on the West Coast and in Saskatchewan, and some time with the Canadian Coast Guard, based in Bamfield.
“We opened on Valentine’s Day in 2020, and we had to close a month later for Covid,” he says, recalling the tumultuous start. “The wage subsidies and a CEBA grant were critical. We were selling growlers (32 or 64 ounce beer vessels) and fills out the front door when everything was shut down, and the locals were great! Then we got our first canning machine, which was a countertop version that we could afford at the time.”
Ucluelet Brewing Co. is at 1601 Peninsula Road in Ucluelet
It’s been a slow, steady climb as business has consistently picked up since then, and Morgan says “it seems to be getting better each year.”
Beers are available in cans, kegs, growlers and on tap. The B.C. Ale Trail, the guide to over 220-plus craft breweries in the province, has frequently feted the beverages from Ucluelet Brewing, which bear unique names like King Tide (Pilsner), Seventh Day (Kolsch), Harbour View (Pale Ale), South Swell (West Coast IPA), Party Wave (Hazy IPA), Sugar Shack (Canadian Maple Lager), Resurrection Red (Irish Red Ale), St. Aiden’s (Porter) and Storm’s a Brewin’ (Latte Stout).
“We’re not trying to please everyone by having a new product every week,” Morgan states. “We have our standard line of beers and that consistency works for everybody. We have three or four special, different beers each year, but it’s not about what’s new, it’s about what’s good, and we kind of go with that.”
Ucluelet Brewing Co.’s Wave Walker – named after one of the southern resident killer whales – was also one of four participants in the Vancouver Island Brewing Pod Pack in 2021, with proceeds going towards the Pacific Salmon Foundation.
Their restaurant is a big draw, and Morgan states “It’s small, but mighty. You want people to have some food and have another beer and hang out for awhile, and it accounts for a significant portion of the business.”
The building won the Award of Excellence in the Renovation category for the VIREB Commercial Building Awards. Ale Trail cites “The natural beauty of the building’s wooden architecture has been preserved and enhanced with repurposed and salvaged wood. For instance, the wood that fronts the bar and kitchen comes from the joists that were cut out of the floor where the brewing equipment is. And prior to that use they came from a building at the World War II-era Seaplane base so that wood had been re-used twice already.”
“We are hopeful that the Ucluelet Brewing Company will continue the community feel of the church and act as a new hub for the community and for visitors, not unlike the traditional definition of a local public house,” he says. “We want people to know that great beer is made here. Drink slow.”
