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Culture
Food

A Tyee Challenge: Who Will Brew a 100-Mile Beer for BC?

WATCH: Win fame and glory by using just super-local ingredients.

Tyee Staff 3 Jul 2020TheTyee.ca

J.B. MacKinnon co-invented the 100-Mile Diet, perversely depriving himself of beer for a year. Break the evil spell. Watch this brief video and share it far and wide. Answer The Tyee 100-Mile Beer Challenge! Video by Christopher Cheung. 

A year without beer.

That’s one way to describe Alisa Smith and J.B. MacKinnon’s 100-Mile Diet experiment, which kicked off on The Tyee 15 years ago. For a whole calendar year, they documented the struggle to only eat foods grown and produced within 100 miles of their home.

All these years later, MacKinnon is still thirsty for a super-local quaff. Hear his plea in the video above. Someone get this man a beer! A 100-mile beer!

100MileDietBanner.png

Hops, barley and wheat are all grown in B.C., but most breweries in the province import their grains from elsewhere. And with the rise of craft brewing, there’s a lot more going into your local pint or tall can: berries, citrus, salt and even... bacon? The 100-mile equation gets tricky, fast.

The Tyee wants to know if you are making a beer made entirely from ingredients found within 100 miles of your brewery or fridge. If you’re a homebrewer looking for a pandemic-friendly project, we’d like to see you try.

Send us an email to enter The Tyee’s 100-Mile Beer Challenge. Let us know how you sourced your ingredients, and we’ll spotlight your beer in an article. You’ll be strengthening B.C.’s local food system, and our readers will raise a glass in your honour. So will J.B. MacKinnon, without a doubt!

If you’ve successfully answered The Tyee 100-Mile Beer Challenge, drop an email to editor [at] thetyee.ca.

Next in this series: Meet the shrimper who made B.C.’s very own but once neglected spot prawn a celebrated delicacy. [Tyee]

Read more: Food

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