New Whitehorse nano brewery to open this spring
Yukon couple turns passion into small business
A new Whitehorse brewery plans to have its first kegs of India Pale Ale and pale ales ready for this spring.
Winterlong Brewing Company is the vision of beer aficionados Marko and Meghan Marjanovic, high school sweethearts who have decided to turn their home brewing hobby into a small business.
The brewery is being built near their home in the Mount Sima subdivision, 15 minutes from downtown Whitehorse.
"You've probably heard of micro-breweries. Well we're actually classified as a nano brewery," says Marko.
Marko and Meghan, who plan on keeping their day jobs, say they will start by selling beer a couple of evenings a week and possibly on the weekend. They say the idea is not to compete with Yukon Brewing, but to offer another option for beer connoisseurs.
"We're going to focus more on ... hop-focused pale ales, IPA, a dark beer for the dark beer lovers," Marko says. "We'll probably rotate a beer once a month or so, something more special like a smoked porter, imperial stout, a German hefeweizen and that sort of thing."
The couple have been home brewing for eight years and say the brewery is a labour of love.
"We love making it, we love drinking it," Meghan says about beer.
She says the increasing popularity of craft beer makes it good timing to start their business. "Craft beer is really exploding everywhere and people are wanting variety."