琉璃神社鈥檚 newest brewery opened last week - and it all started from a driveway.

Railside Brewing opened on Friday, Aug.5, making it the city鈥檚 16th brewery.

While it only took owners Rob Leinemann and Matt Grieve eight months to put everything together, it all started in Rob鈥檚 front yard.

鈥淲e both love drinking beer, that鈥檚 always a good start,鈥� said Leinemann. 鈥淚鈥檝e been a home brewer for the last three years, just brewing beer in my driveway.鈥�

Leinemann had been thinking of getting into the brewing industry for eight years, before starting to brew beer at home. When it started to become more of a reality, he already had his sights set on the location.

鈥淚鈥檝e had my eye on this building for quite a few years with that in the back of my mind in potentially doing something,鈥� said Leinemann.

About two years ago, Grieve asked Leinemann if he needed a business partner and they immediately started looking into putting the brewery together. With their backgrounds, they were able to put together the majority of the place themselves.

鈥業 was a carpenter, and Matt鈥檚 an electrician so we build like 95 per cent of this place ourselves,鈥� said Leinemann.

It took them eight months to build their dream together, as they got possession of the building on Jan. 5.

As for the name, with the location being beside the Okanagan Rail Trail just off of Clement Avenue, Leinemann had an idea in his mind for it before the dream became a reality.

鈥淲e wanted rail-something; it was going to be railway, rail-line and then Matt came up with Railside and we loved it,鈥� said Leinemann.

To start, Railside has seven beers on the menu, with their favourite being the Summer Ale.

鈥淲e have small batch beer here and my homebrew system is smaller than what we have here so I had scale them up but I took my favourites from what I was brewing at home,鈥� said Leinemann. 鈥淥ur Summer Ale, which is my favorite beer to brew at home, we scaled that up to a thousand-litre batch. Our other (beers), we鈥檝e been working with a brewing consultant who鈥檚 been helping us out just to develop some of our other recipes.鈥�

Railside Brewing is located at 1186 High Road.

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jordy.cunningham@kelownacapnews.com
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