MONTAGUE, P.E.I. - P.E.I. will soon have another venue where patrons can indulge in locally crafted beer.
For more than a decade, Montague native David McGuire dreamed about opening a brewery in his home town.
After years of planning, his dream will soon become a reality when he opens Bogside Brewing this spring.
The brewery, taproom and restaurant will include local craft beer and Island-sourced ingredients, McGuire told The Guardian on Jan. 17.
“For the most part, our plan is just to do local, local, local.”
Brewing will be done on-site in the 10,000 square foot location on Brook Street, where a glass door will separate the production side from the public side.
“So, at all times the public can see what’s happening in the brewhouse,” McGuire said. “We want to be very open and friendly and welcoming.”
They also hope to produce cider.
The restaurant/bar area will seat about 90 patrons and will feature an L-shaped bar in the corner that will hold 16 beer on tap, including four Bogside brews and beers from different Island brewers and other jurisdictions.
The taps will go straight into the kegs housed in a walk-in cooler, which McGuire said will result in “fresh, crisp and delicious beer”.
The newly constructed patio with a view of the waterfront will have about a dozen picnic tables that will hold between 75-80 people.
On Saturday mornings, the brewery will become a farmer’s market where local produce will be sold.
McGuire said he hopes his business draws people to the area, so they have the chance to experience all the Montague has to offer.
“We’re going to develop some culinary events, community events, beer/cider events,” he said, adding weddings are also an option.
McGuire did business research by travelling across Canada and Europe exploring a hundred different breweries and asking a lot of questions. He appreciates how accommodating the brewers on the Island and in Atlantic Canada have been.
“We’ve had so many people just take us in, show us behind the curtain. It’s really been unbelievable.”
“We have this super badass smoker and we’re outfitting the rest of the kitchen with some pretty rad gear. We want to focus on the great ingredients that P.E.I. has to offer like the seafood, the veg, all the pork, all the beef that’s here.”
-Dave Mottershall
The brewery was supposed to open two years ago but it’s taken until now for all the pieces to fall into place.
“It takes a lot of time and effort and work and money,” he said. “We did a community economic development business which allowed us to engage members of our community who were interested to come on board.”
This type of funding allows local people to invest in their local community and they are provided with a tax credit from the province, he said.
“We’re one of maybe a handful of companies on P.E.I. that have done that. It’s really been a good process for us.”
The rest of the funding came through loans from the bank and from the Atlantic Canada Opportunities Agency.
Bogside Brewing will be the second brewery in the area along with Copper Bottom Brewing, but McGuire isn’t concerned about the competition.
“I think there’s lot of room for small breweries around,” he said, adding that while the focus for both is obviously beer, he thinks the different elements from the two breweries will complement one another.
“They’re doing well with entertainment, where our focus is more on the food side. They’ve taken that entertainment piece, we want to follow with the food piece and it makes a better package for the community.”
McGuire is excited about Bogside’s kitchen, and has partnered with Chef Dave Mottershall.
Mottershall, who opened Terre Rouge in Charlottetown before moving to Toronto to open a restaurant, has recently returned to the Island and worked as a butcher at the Inn at Bay Fortune last summer.
“We met towards the end of the summer-early fall and started talking,” McGuire said. “The more we talked, the more we realized it’s a good fit. So, he’s going to take the food side and run with it.”
Mottershall decided to check out McGuire’s business.
“I was like, ‘wow, this place is pretty crazy’,” he said. “He was looking for a chef and I was looking for a spot and it just sort of came together pretty quickly.”
The restaurant will be barbecue-focused, he said.
“We have this super badass smoker and we’re outfitting the rest of the kitchen with some pretty rad gear,” he said, adding they’ll be making house-cured meats such as bacon, ham and salami.
“We want to focus on the great ingredients that P.E.I. has to offer like the seafood, the veg, all the pork, all the beef that’s here.”
The open kitchen concept will allow the public to interact with kitchen staff. When the patio is open, they plan to have an outdoor station set up where they will shuck oysters.
McGuire and Mottershall both said there is an end in sight and they are excited to open. They hope to be in business come April.
RELATED: Montague's Copper Bottom Brewing hopes to supply restaurants and liquor stores
What’s in a name?
Bogside Brewing owner David McGuire said the name is a nod to its location and history.
About a hundred or so years ago, the other side of the river from where the brewery sits on Brook Street was the city side.
“This was the bog side,” McGuire said. “I don’t necessarily think it was complimentary when they said you’re from the bog side, but I’m a sucker for alliteration, I like an underdog, we’re bog-side, and we wanted a one-word name that was memorable.”
The only other Bogside establishment he said he’s aware of is in Derry, Northern Ireland, where he travelled to several years ago.
“It’s a blue collar, hard-scrapping neighbourhood,” he said. “There’s a lot of history there.”
That was the location of the infamous Blood Sunday, where in 1972, British soldiers opened fire on a group of unarmed protesters, killing 13 and injuring more than a dozen others.
McGuire said the resilience of the town’s people was “inspirational”.
“They don’t say no, they just keep working; it’s pretty cool.”
