Beer created in honour of slain Edmonton constable
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Edmontonians raised a glass to remember deceased Edmonton police officer Const.. Daniel Woodall at a memorial brew launch held at CRAFT Beer Market Tuesday night.
Fort Saskatchewan brewery Two Sergeants Brewing Inc. received input from Woodall’s widow Claire to create Patrolman’s English Style Bitter, which is meant to reflect the type of beer Woodall himself would have drank.
For the next three months, $1 from all pints of Patrolman’s English Style Bitter sold at CRAFT will go toward the Daniel Woodall Family Fund. After three months, Two Sergeants will bottle the brew to be sold in stores and donate 10 per cent of all proceeds to the family fund.
“It's part of our mandate to do charitable initiatives with a lot of our brews,” said Two Sergeants owner and brewmaster Kevin Moore.
“CRAFT actually came up with the idea, they were looking for a brewery to do a custom brew for Daniel Woodall and of course we jumped all over it because it fits with exactly the type of thing we do,” he added.
The beer is described as a “medium-to-dark brown ale, malt-forward with medium bitterness and a smooth mouth feel.” Moore said the beer was modeled on a profile similar to a Newcastle Brown Ale, which was one of Woodall’s favourites.
Claire Woodall thanked everyone for attending and said the brew closely resembled the British-style pub ales her husband enjoyed.
“It really means a lot that everyone still wants to acknowledge everything he was doing,” she said. “This was a perfect opportunity to remember him with something I knew he would like. And I think you’ve done really well with the beer — it tastes like an English ale.”
CRAFT night manager Shaun Caron said the event was an ideal way to support a local brewery new to the Edmonton scene while paying tribute to an important figure.
“One of our core values is making the world a better place one beer at a time,” he said. “So if there’s any way we can give back to the community in an interesting way, we definitely will.”
“It’s easy for us to sell a beer and make a difference,” he added.
Usually, Two Sergeants spends about six months to a year testing one of their brews before releasing it to the public. This time around, they only had about six weeks to brew something up.
The brewery did about eight test brews and many tastings before finalizing Patrolman’s English Style Bitter, Moore said.
“We're ecstatic with the finished product. It came out even better than we could have hoped.”
