The list of small town Alberta breweries continues to grow. The latest is Dog Island Brewing (link is to their Facebook page – no website yet) in the northern town of Slave Lake (about 2 hours north of Edmonton; population 6,800). Dog Island got its AGLC licence in mid-July and should have its first beer for sale in the coming days.

Dog Island is creation of Ben Fiddler and Chad Paulson, two longtime Slave Lake residents. And I mean it is wholly their creation. Self-financed, self-built, self-everything (except for the logo which was designed by a friend). Fiddler and Paulson both work in the oil and gas industry. Actually that is how they met, working for the same instrumentation company. They discovered a mutual love of beer and started homebrewing together. “We started with kits, then we built a 55-gallon (208 litre) Blichman system” says Fiddler. To be clear, that is one big  homebrew system (my More Beer system clocks in at about 40 litres).

When brewing on a system that big, the jump to professional brewing becomes a very attractive siren.  “We have been working on it for a couple years – probably a year before they changed the law,” says Fiddler. “At the time we noticed the hurdles and the minimum production requirement and so said, ‘let’s just keep up the homebrewing’. When they changed the law we knew that is when we should start doing it.”

Jumping into the choppy waters of beer was an attractive prospect for Fiddler and Paulson. “We come from oil and gas, which is very competitive. People don’t like each other, everyone is fighting over jobs, outbidding each other” says Fiddler. “Coming into beer world it is so different. It is still competitive but everyone are friends, they help you out. That was biggest factor for us. We were tired of oil and gas and not knowing if you were going to be working next month or next year.”

“And we like beer!”, Paulson adds cheerily.

Both Fiddler and Paulson are still working “when there is work”, however. They have been building the brewery in fits and starts over the past year or so. “Spend one month do this, then we go back to work for couple months. Once it got slow [due to the economic downturn] that is when it really kicked in” says Fiddler. “It kicked us in the butt to get going,” adds Paulson.

Their current AGLC license is for their homebrew system, meaning for now they are brewing 200-litres at a time. They are currently housed in a bay at the electrical shop they are employed with. They see this as just a way to get started however. ” We just want to get the name out there, get product out there, get some traction”, says Fiddler. They will be purchasing a 20hL system in the near future – once finances allow – which will mean more standard craft beer sized batches.

Given the small batches, for now they are only going to offer kegs and growler fills, but they have hopes that once they get a bit bigger they hope to hire a mobile canning company to package some of the product in cans. But that is a fair ways off yet.

Like most of the small town breweries, Dog Island’s primary focus will be on selling beer to the local community. “Slave Lake is not really a craft beer market”, Paulson admits. “But younger people are starting to know about it, even if the older people are drinking Bud Lite.” They see their project as opening doors to the craft beer world. “Friends come by, turn their nose up at first, but taste the beer and say ‘wow’. We are opening a lot of eyes”.

Early signs are positive. “The initial reception has been insane. Almost feel like in the old days when every town had a brewery. The town has totally embraced it. It makes you feel like you made the right decision,” observes Fiddler. Plus the town is slowly changing. “The guy who runs the golf course restaurant, he started getting craft beer there, opening the eyes of a bunch of  people. So it gives them a reference point.”

Their local connection extends to ingredients. They are brewing with local fruits, including recently harvested raspberries, saskatoon berries and, soon, a sour beer made with crab apples. The beer names also reflect local landmarks and references. Their starting line-up will be The Pits Wit, Nine Mile Session Ale, DiBs Berry (a Raspberry Wheat Ale), and Saskatchatoon Wheat (made with saskatoon berries). But Fiddler notes that people should expect the line-up to change as they dial in what works. For now they are aiming to make good “summer beer that are crisp and refreshing”, says Paulson.

Local, of course, also extends the name of the brewery itself. Dog Island is a prominent island near the townsite on Lesser Slave Lake. “If you are from Slave Lake, you know Dog Island”, says Fiddler, meaning finding the name was easy.

While Dog Island is incredibly small at the moment and will, for the time being, service Slave Lake – although they do hope to get the occasional keg down to Edmonton once in a while – they have bigger plans for the future. Within a few years they hope to see themselves distributing through Alberta, especially Edmonton and Calgary. Plus, ” one of our main goals is to get a brewpub, a restaurant with a big tap room and outdoor patio” to become a local destination, says Fiddler.

But for now Dog Island is just two guys with a big homebrew system, a willingness to work hard and a dream of making this project succeed. In a way the name Dog Island is ironic, as these guys are definitely not doggin’ it as they build their dream.