B.C. brewers mourn the loss of craft beer pioneer Frank Appleton
Craft brewers in B.C. are mourning the loss of a pioneer of the industry in both the province, and the country. Frank Appleton, who helped open the Horseshoe Bay Brewery, is widely credited with helping launch more than two dozen breweries throughout the province.
Appleton's friend and former apprentice, Sean Hoyne of Hoyne Brewing Company, said Appleton was a great friend to many in the specialty beer business.
"We all in the community have so much to be thankful for with regards to Frank," he told All Points West host Kathryn Marlow.
"He was an amazing guy, he was a remarkable man, he had a great intellect and he will be greatly missed."
Appleton came to Canada from the United Kingdom in the late '60s to work at Carling O'Keefe, one of the three big breweries in Canada at the time, doing quality control.
"During that time he became increasingly disillusioned with the beers big breweries were putting out," Hoyne said.
Eventually he left that job and moved west to Edgewood, in B.C.'s West Kootenay region.
There he started writing magazine articles, one of which caught the attention of a Horseshoe Bay businessman named John Mitchell. Mitchell contacted Appleton after reading a piece in Harrowsmith Magazine about making beer in small batches.
"[It was about] how you could make a beer with colour and character and flavour, beers that were missing from the Canaidan landscape at the time, and beers he missed from having grown up in the U.K.," Hoyne said.
The pair opened up Horseshoe Bay Brewery in 1982. Two years later, they helped open Spinnakers Brew Pub in Victoria.
"Before you know it, Frank's phone was starting to ring, he was being commissioned to help start up microbreweries," Hoyne said. Among the breweries he helped launch were Oregon's Deschutes Brewery and the iconic Swan's Pub in Victoria.
That's where Hoyne did his apprenticeship with Appleton.
"Under Frank, that's where I learned so much from him and I'm so grateful to have known Frank and spent that time with him back in those days," he said.
Appleton's influence on Hoyne has trickled down to brewers all over the province. The knowledge Hoyne picked up as an apprentice is what he continues to pass on to the next generation of brewers today.
"He insisted upon brewing with integrity and that's a lesson I have kept with me my entire brewing career," Hoyne said.
"He insisted you ought to get the best ingredients you can possibly get, you ought to adhere to sound, scientific brewing principles and that brewing is hard work, you ought to enjoy that hard work."
To hear Sean Hoyne's interview on All Points West, click here:
