If you were a cicerone you would know what Bayview Brewing’s bronze award was for, but for the layman, it is a beer.
The term cicerone (sis-uh-rohn) designates professionals with proven experience in selecting, acquiring and serving today's wide range of beers. So for the cicerones in the crowd, Ladysmith’s Bayview Brewing just won the bronze medal at the Canadian Brewing Awards conference, for their American Belgo-Style Ale. The conference was held May 23 to 25 in Hamilton, Ont.
An American Belgo-Style Ale and according to the CBA “it’s fruity-ester aroma and flavour are medium to high. Hop flavour and aroma are medium to very high, exhibiting American type hop aromas not usually found in traditional Belgian styles. Hop bitterness is medium to very high. Fruity-ester flavours should be medium to high. Yeast derived characters such as banana, berry, apple, sometimes coriander spice-like and/or smoky-phenolic characters should be portrayed with balance of hops and malt character when fermented with Belgian yeasts. Brettanomyces character should be absent.”
"It’s a crossover between an American and Belgian styles of beers,” said Alfred Elviss, head brewer at Bayview Brewing, of their winning entry.
“[The idea for] it actually stemmed from my last home-brewing competition, hosted by Longwood Brewing," Elviss said. "It was the last one that I did before we got going here at Bayview a little over two years ago. All the entrants got the same ingredients in the same amounts. We all had to create something with them and then the products were tasted in a blind taste test.”
Elviss won that competition and was given the opportunity to brew and package a full batch of his product. The winning brew is called 7 Belles, and the name is to recognize all the health and emergency personnel who performed so well during the pandemic.
“At 7 p.m. everybody would ring bells, bang pots and all that to honour all those workers, so it was decided to name this unique brew in honour of all those who cared so much. When we opened here I requested Longwood to be able to brew the beer here and they said go for it. I started home brewing with Jonny Ludtke, one of the partners in Bayview around 2016 and we kinda bounced different products around.”
“I am originally an irrigation technician," he said. "I did that, in Victoria for almost 15 years but always had an interest in beer. Jonny and I kept notebooks on the different beers we tried, we figured we’d save money by making our own, but the more we got into it, and buy stuff all the time we realized it was probably cheaper to go back and buy the finished product.”
"It was great experimenting and some great flavours and some not-so-great,” Elviss said.
When the idea for Bayview Brewing came to light Elviss moved up to Maple Bay and began creating some of the distinctive beers they now have on tap at Bayview.
Rod Alsop, one of the other partners commented “we sell between seven and eight hundred litres of beer a week. That includes a few kegs to some licensed establishments in Victoria, Nanaimo, Duncan, etc. We don’t package here, the facility is too small and we lack the equipment.”
When you make a batch of home brew it's usually about 20 litres at a time, Elviss said.
“But here, now, each batch here is between 850 to 1,000 litres each,” he said.
Bayview has 12 beer taps and the majority of the beers are their own.
“Our most popular brew is the Ladysmith Blond, which is a lager, but we have some very distinctive IPAs and others,” Alsop said. “We like to be at community events as well. Last year we did the hill-dash and also Light Up and this year we’re hoping to be present at Ladysmith Days and also Sept. 23 we’re going to be at the OctoberFest.”
The Bayview also has a varied menu and as Elviss stated, “it’s not your standard pub fare, it’s all done on site and when it’s ordered, it’s all fresh and local.”
The brewery/restaurant employs 28 people with eight full time.
Since their opening a little over two years ago, Bayview Brewing has garnered four awards, including Top Rated Craft Beer in both 2023 and 2024 by Creekside Crafters and in 2022 the partners took a silver in the BC Craft Brewery awards and just a few weeks ago the bronze in the Canadian Brewing Awards.
