Barkerville Brewing Co.

Beer has long held an esteemed place in British Columbia’s Cariboo region. The original Barkerville Brewery was built in the 1860s, located in an empty lot between Barkerville's drugstore and Masonic Hall.

Barkerville Brewery’s Triple X Ale amassed a number of prizes in the local fairs and, story goes, the beer gained its unique flavour and superior quality from natural spring water drawn from a nearby hill.

But, on September 16, 1868, the town of Barkerville was reduced to a mass of smouldering ruins, with charred timber and heaps of rubbish replacing what was once the metropolis of the Cariboo. The first lick of flames appeared on the roof of the saloon near the centre of Barkerville a little after 2:30pm and, just one hour and twenty minutes later, the entire town was nearly burnt to the ground.

Although immediately rebuilt, with 90 buildings reconstructed in just six weeks time, it has taken over a century for a Barkerville Brewery to once again stake its claim.