Thirty years ago, the nearest craft brewery to Penticton was 45 kilometers away in Kelowna.
Then in 1995, Tin Whistle Brewing was born. Soon after, the folks at the Barley Mill Pub began brewing their own beer too.
At the turn of the century, a third brewery, Cannery Brewing, had begun operations.
Three breweries for a town of 35,000 seemed pretty adequate. Until 2014 that is, when the appearance of Bad Tattoo Brewing in the downtown core signaled a craft brewery explosion that didn't end 'til 2022.
By the time it was over, four more breweries -- Highway 97, Slackwater, Neighbourhood, and, on the KVR Trail leading to Naramata, Abandoned Rail -- had all joined in on the fun.
Along the way, famed travel website Expedia named Penticton one of Canada's best beer towns. Men's advice website Ask Men chose Penticton as the only Canadian stop on a ten-city global beer tour. And Lonely Planet called Penticton "Canada's craft beer capital."
Today, we have hugely popular beer-themed events too, like April's Fest of Ale and October's Penticton Beer Run. Penticton has clearly become a craft beer epicenter.
But which brewery is best? We asked you, our readers, that very question. And you responded.
All the above breweries, plus one more just up the road in Summerland, Giant's Head Brewing, made our finals.
But only four would win medals, and we present them to you now in this, our look at The Best Craft Breweries, presented in association with our good friends at Visit Penticton.
Located just a couple blocks from each other in downtown Penticton's new food and drink region, Bad Tattoo Brewing and Slackwater Brewing are modern, spacious affairs that each opened in the 2010s and continue to pull in the crowds today.
Bad Tattoo, the first-ever downtown brewery at the corner of Winnipeg Street and Estabrook Avenue, is famed not only for its beer but its food (pizza a specialty), its ambience, and its open-concept space that includes a covered but partially open patio and a new, 100-person fully outdoor space called "The Badlands."
That it's the closest brewery to Okanagan Lake Beach is an obvious perk.
Meanwhile over at Slackwater Brewing on Martin Street, one of the largest breweries in the region -- with two floors, two patios (one on the sidewalk, one perched on the roof), 250-plus seats and a performance stage -- is seemingly ready for anything.
Built over the course of a year is the same spot as one of Penticton's most notorious nightclubs and debuting in 2019, Slackwater sports one of the busiest event calendars in the city. From game nights to drag and burlesque acts to comedy shows to music (folk to metal and all things between), Slackwater is a happening place.
Silver: Neighbourhood Brewing
Constructed from the ground up between 2019 and 2021 on a key corner in downtown Penticton that previously housed a number of aging single-story structures, the bold and beautiful two-storey Neighbourhood Brewing helped transform a region.
It now sits squarely in the centre of downtown's new food and beverage zone, surrounded by restaurants and other breweries and nightspots.
Neighbourhood's beer builds on the experience of the owners, who founded and still captain celebrated Port Moody brewery Yellow Dog. Is food is a tasty and Mexico-centric. And its space is truly enormous.
Walk in and you're greeted with mile-high ceilings (at least it seems that way), hundreds of seats distributed over two floors, a massive patio, and a brick and metal motif that somehow seems more homey than industrial.
Gold: Cannery Brewing
There are newer Penticton breweries and there are bigger Penticton breweries. But to our readers, Cannery Brewing, at the edge of downtown on Ellis Street, is the clear gold medal winner.
The history of brewing in Penticton is intertwined with the history of this, the third oldest brewery in town.
It all began in the late 90s at the Country Squire restaurant in Naramata, where owners Ron and Pat Dyck and head chef Terry Schoffer got into home brewing. In time, the threesome opened a small commercial space in a former fruit and vegetable canning plant now called the Cannery Trade Centre.
In 2015, the move was made to its brand new downtown digs on Ellis. And in 2020, the venue debuted its second patio -- the spacious and welcoming "Backyard."
Inside, the venue offers two distinct seating/social areas -- the laid-back "Taproom" and "Ale-Catraz," a lounge in the rear of the facility with towering walls made of empty beer cans that hosts special events, often in conjunction with one of Cannery's many community partners.
And that's how you win a gold medal.
