Drumheller’s only craft brewery was recently voted the best out of nearly 40 India Pale Ales at a Calgary brewery’s beer awards last week.
    Valley Brewing’s Namesake IPA was deemed the best by a panel of beer judges at the Last Best Brewery’s IPA Tap Takeover on October 24. It’s the first accolade from the Alberta craft beer industry for the Drumheller brewers.
    Brewmaster Nick Patterson says the Namesake beer is a hazy style IPA which has tropical, citrusy flavours that aren’t as bitter as other IPAs. The beer is thick looking due to the type of yeast used and “dry hopping,” where they add hops to the beer at different points during the fermentation process that increases its turbidity.
    “There is a tonne of aromas and flavours, mostly tropical flavours like pineapple and mango,” Patterson says. “That version of the beer was the first batch of beer we brewed here, so ideally for us the recipe should only get better as we continue to tweak it.”
    The recognition is a first for the brewery, which only opened this year, and it was a chance for them to get other brewers in the Alberta craft beer industry to see what Drumheller has on tap.
    “That’s the first time we’ve ever taken a beer to an invite, which is cool… it’s kind of nice to get something for Drumheller,” says Patterson. “A lot of people at that event had either never heard of us, or had heard of us and hadn’t had a chance to try any of our products. We got a good response.”
    Although it’s a first for Valley Brewing, it isn’t the first industry award for Patterson, who taught himself the art of brewing and took his first step into the craft beer market with Strathmore brewery Origin.
    Valley Brewing has enjoyed a successful inaugural season, but as the tourist season winds down and they get less foot traffic in their doors, Valley Brewing hopes to start selling more beer across the province. They’ll be sending a few pallets of beer to an Edmonton distributor this week.
    “We’re busy enough during the tourist season that we don’t have to sell beer outside of this area, but now that we’re coming into the wintertime we’re going to be trying to pick up a few places outside of town.”
    Valley Brewing is located on the corner of Highway 56 and 3rd Avenue W downtown.

Starland County is sponsoring a resolution to be presented at the meeting of Rural Municipalities of Alberta to lobby for municipal recourse for solvent energy companies choosing not to pay taxes.
    With the downturn in the economy, Starland County has been hit hard by companies that have not paid their municipal taxes, and Starland had no recourse. The county is hoping  Rural Municipalities of Alberta will make it an area to lobby for changes.
    It resolves “that the Rural Municipalities of Alberta lobby the Government of Alberta to direct the Alberta Energy Regulator to add unpaid municipal taxes to the grounds for which a company may be denied a licence to operate in the province of Alberta.”
    Its proposal states that under the Municipal Government Act if a landowner refuses to pay taxes, there are several remedies for a municipality to recover those taxes, with the ultimate being the seizure and sale of the property. It has no recourse when dealing with the energy industry as it is the Alberta Energy Regulator that has the ability to licence energy companies to operate.
    Under the directive of the AER, it can consider many factors when licensing a company to operate or to revoke that licence. Paying taxes is not one of them.
    “While it almost certainly implies in this section that not paying debts, such as property taxes, are grounds for the termination of licenses, it does not say so explicitly,” states the resolution.     
    “We now have a situation where companies are using the lack of a specific threat to either seize their property or shut them down to extort municipalities into favourable tax treatment over their fellow businesses operating in the community. It is important to remember this resolution is referring to solvent companies. It would be difficult to imagine this situation if the threat were directed at federal and provincial business taxes or royalties.”
     Reeve Steve Wannstrom says the resolution has already passed at the Zone level. This means it will be presented at the November convention of the Rural Municipalities of Alberta. If the resolution is accepted by the membership it shall be active for three years as a lobbying priority for the association.