Episode #252: A Beer of Time and Place with Mike Foniok of The Establishment | Adjunct Series
Calgary, Alberta has been the biggest surprise of 2026 for us here at BAOS. While it's not exactly a secret that they have an incredibly vibrant and supportive craft beer scene, it's kind of blown our minds just how good the liquid is. Co-Founder Mike of The Establishment jumped on the pod with Cee and Nate to talk about his move from homebrewer to pro with no other brewery experience, the lessons and challenges that came with that, how they do their fresh hop beers and how they work with the hop farmers, their impeccable barrel program and how they turned that into crushable flagships, cross-provincial collaborations and what opening up the trade barriers in Canada has done for them, their recent influx of beer awards, the importance of date codes, why their haze is so good, their approach to their farmhouse beers, and their killer barleywine and stout programs. They got into nine impeccable Establishment brews: Chaise Lounge Table Beer, Houseplants Fresh Hop West Coast Pilsner (with Water Valley hops), Plantasia Fresh Hop West Coast IPA (with Water Valley hops), The Magic Number Hazy IPA collaboration with Segal Ranch Hop Farms and Charles Faram, Spectral Beings Double IPA, Rare Hearts (2025) barrel-aged Farmhouse Ale aged on strawberries, Erlton Street (2025) Lambic-style Ale, Nightmare Logic Barleywine x Stout blend, and Witching Hour Barrel-Aged Stout with cinnamon, orange peel and chiles. This was an incredible chat - cheers!
Audio note: We had some major echo issues with this episode. We did our best to fix it - the first half gets a little sketch, but the second half settles down a lot - it's a great conversation, so stick with it if you can!
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