HALIFAX -- Canadian country singer Dean Brody is branching out into the beer business.
“Me and my guys, my band, we’ve always had a passion for beer,” says Brody.
“I was like it sure would be nice to have a beer that represented home to me. For me, that’s the Maritimes, that’s out west, it’s the Prairies, it’s now Ontario.”
Brody collaborated with brewmaster Spencer Gallant, from Borden Carleton, P.E.I., to create a lager with a subtle infusion of huckleberry.
“We had a recipe from the Maritimes, we had huckleberry from out west… we’ve got grains from the Prairies, and it’s brewed in Ontario, all four come together for a beer called Hucklejack,” says Brody.
The beer is only sold in Ontario for now, but Brody hopes it will soon be available in Atlantic Canada.
“We had more of a nation-wide rollout until COVID hit,” says Brody.
“We’re starting with baby steps in Ontario and then we will work our way east and west.”
Brody says he hopes beer drinkers will embrace Hucklejack as a truly Canadian brew.
“My vision was to have something that somebody in Newfoundland could take pride in and somebody in Vancouver Island could say ‘Yeah, this is my beer,’” says Brody.
Brody has also been busy creating new music and released a single Wednesday called “Canadian Summer.”
“I wrote it last year. It’s just like a nostalgic song about what Canadian summer reminds me of. It kind of takes me back, when I wrote it, the first summer love you have and all that kind of stuff,” says Brody.
