I’m just a guy who likes Prairie beer.

Really, that’s all there is to say. I’m not BJCP certified in any way at all; I’ve never worked in a brewery, distillery, bar, or pub; I don’t homebrew (yet); I don’t have a wide variety of adjectives to describe beer flavours & smells (“yum!” and “oooooh boy!” aren’t adjectives, are they?)…

I love where I live, and am very proud of my local breweries, distilleries & wineries – spotlighting them was the reason I started flatlandBEER. BC, Ontario & Quebec breweries tend to get most of the attention (and rightfully so – they are producing some amazing products), but there’s also a thriving brewing scene in Saskatchewan.

In Regina, where I live, the Bushwakker Brewpub has been producing award-winning beers, and topping “must-visit” lists for almost 25years. Every local knows about Bushwakker, and most beer folks on the prairies know it’s a must on any trip to Regina.

Equally exciting are the new breweries that have popped up across Saskatchewan recently. Since 2014, Sask went from 3-4 breweries (depending on which you include) to nearly 20 – with at least 6 more planned openings in 2020! And most of these are solid independent breweries with a great future of award-winning beers ahead of them. In this same timeframe, over 20 artisanal wine, spirit & kombucha producers have also opened.

In 2019, a buddy in Winnipeg began contributing to the flatlandBEER social media accounts – I can barely keep up with what’s going on in Sask, so a local to keep an eye on Manitoba is helpful (though, Cody at BeerCrank does a bang-up job already…). Here & there, you may see tweets, Facebook posts & maaaaybe a blog post from him with a focus on Manitoba.

The other reason I started flatlandBEER was as a platform to encourage positive changes to the liquor regulatory & retail environment in Saskatchewan. Our government has made many significant changes over the past decade – many involving significant public policy shifts, and fundamental reforms. These are positive things… but they only brought us from Prohibition-influenced nonsense to 1980s-era policy (at best)… more change is needed.

Anyway, that’s me & that’s basically why I created flatlandBEER.