THE WAKKER WEEKLY
Issue #1674 – Posted on: 27-February-2023
BREWERY “HOPP”ENINGS! Bushwakker Head brewer, Michael Gaetz, reports that our seasonally available ARCTIC DARK MUNICH DUNKEL, BLACKBERRY MEAD, “MISSILE”TOW ENGLISH BARLEYWINE and CHERRY PASSION FRUIT ALE are currently available. There are still some bottles of the amazing THREE-DOWN BOHEMIAN PILSNER in our offsale cooler. A batch of BARON BOCK and CHERRY LIME ALE are also currently working their way through the brewery.
Much thanks to the group of HMCS Regina crew members who stopped by The Bushwakker on Tuesday night. They are in Regina to reconnect with their ship’s namesake city after a three – year hiatus. We look forward to seeing Bushwakker beer being served on the ship once again following it’s 18 month refit and we will once again be “Bushwakker East” and the frigate will be home to “Bushwakker West.”
The annual Prairie Dog Magazine’s “Best of Food” Regina Awards reader’s poll event is now underway! The first step is the call for nominations. Please visit Best Restaurant | Restaurants (Local) | Best of Food 2023 | Prairie Dog (prairiedogmag.com) to view the various categories, pubs and restaurants and start your delicious journey by selecting your favourites. Then the voting will begin! Celebrate the varied and vibrant Queen City cuisine and culture!
Last week’s Pre-Valentine’s Concert & Dessert Auction was a delight for the taste buds. So many decadent cakes and treats up for bids in this annual fundraiser for The Regina Jazz Society. Kudos to Bushwakker Pastry Chef, Amber Colbourne, for generating the highest dessert auction bid for her Oreo Cheesecake!
This Weekend’s Special Dining Feature for February 24th & 25th is a LOUISIANA GUMBO for $22.95. Our Saturday CLASSIC STEAK & A PINT SPECIAL as well as our Monday and Wednesday WINGS & A PINT SPECIAL and Tuesday PIZZA & A PINT SPECIAL are also great value deals.
Our SASK CRAFT GUEST TAP is currently pouring a DOUBLE WHITE IPA from Regina’s Pile O’ Bones Brewing. Next up is the TROPICAL STRAWBERRY MILKSHAKE OF DOOM IPA from Regina’s Malty National Brewing. This will be followed by YESTERDAY’S IPA from Swift Current’s Black Bridge Brewery.
FEBRUARY PREMIUM WINE FEATURES: This month’s red wine feature is THE MAGIC BOX CABERNET SAUVIGNON from southern Australia. $7.95 for a glass and $21.95 for a half litre. The white wine is VILLA MARIA EARTH GARDEN SAUVIGNON BLANC from New Zealand. $8.95 for a glass and $23.95 for a half litre.
UPCOMING BUSHWAKKER EVENTS
Feb. 27: Monday Night Jazz & Blues. JUST SAYIN’. New name and a new line-up from an act who delivers your favorite Jazz, Rhythm and Blues tunes. 7:30 PM – 9:00 PM.
Mar. 1: Wednesday Folk Night. BLUE LIGHT VALLEY. New acoustic folk trio delivers original tunes and their favourite covers with layered harmonies. Don’t miss their Bushwakker debut! 7:30 PM – 9:00 PM
Mar. 1: MONTHLY ALES CLUB MEETING. If you are interested in delving into the world of homebrewing or are just looking to brush up on your brewing skills then the ALES Club is for you! This month’s presentation topics will be TRAPPIST ALES and CHILLERS/HEAT TRANSFERS. Come to the Bushwakker basement clubroom at 7:00 PM and discover what the ALES Club can offer you. New members are always welcome!
Mar. 3: FIRST FIRKIN FIRDAY! Enjoy the pomp and circumstance of this longstanding Bushwakker monthly tradition! A piper from The Regina Police Services Pipes & Drums leads a keg (the firkin) of special ale throughout the pub in a procession. A guest volunteer tapper is selected to wield the handmade wooden maul affectionately named,The Mighty Firkin Wakker, and attempts to tap the keg in one mighty blow! This month’s firkin offering will be a never-before-attempted CASCADE DRY-HOPPED CHERRY LIME ALE! The suds-soaking spectacular takes place at 5:30 PM.
Mar. 4: FREE SATURDAY AFTERNOON BLUES SHOWCASE. Presented in conjunction with the Mid-Winter Blues Festival. Enjoy this special “Women of Blues” event which will showcase three great local blues acts including The Dara Schindelka Trio, Resonance featuring Christie-Anne Blondeau and Just Sayin’ featuring Jan Seitz. Hosted by Jeff “Redbeard” Corbett. Be sure to enjoy a slice of this annual Bushwakker Blues event dessert, Redbeard’s Chocolate Caramel Cheesecake! 1:30 PM until 4:30 PM.
CURRENT HOURS OF OPERATION AND RESERVATIONS NOTES
We are open Monday – Thursday from 11:00 AM – 10:00 PM. The kitchen closes at 9:00 PM and last call is at 9:15 PM. Fridays and Saturdays we are open from 11:00 AM until midnight. The kitchen is open until 11:00 PM and last call is at 11:15 PM. Closed Sundays.
Reservations are accepted and encouraged. We accept a limited number of reservations as late as 6:00 PM every day except Fridays. Fridays we accept reservations as late as 3:00 PM. Call us at 306-359-7276 to secure your table. Our two banquet rooms are also available for private party rentals. Call Kelly at 306-359-7276 to book either our main floor Arizona Room or basement Clubroom.
Craft Maltster and Farmer Thrives by Sheer Determination
By Trevor Bacque
“My mentality was,” says Enns of the Maker’s Malt concept, “if I do this right, it’s going to work.” Photo: David Stobbe
“There’s a lot of different things you could do,” Matt Enns says. Every farmer knows that kind of feeling. There aren’t enough hours. There are way more ideas than time to work on them.
“I wish I had eight lives to live to do all the things I want to do,” Enns says. Again, it’s something every farmer knows.
Still, five years into building his Maker’s Malt business, it’s clear Enns has found some kind of recipe, not only for choosing an idea and making it as good as he can, but also for delivering on it. It makes tons of people ask: How did he do it?
Of course, every story is partly unique. His is too. Enns’s path back to the farm has proved both exceptional and, in retrospect, predictable. How many times have we seen a farm kid set off to see the world only to find, with time and distance, how much the farm really means?
Yet even when Enns began to sense this for himself, he knew that grain growing back home near Rosthern, Sask., wouldn’t be a total answer for him. There had to be more.
It explains how one day in Florida, he suddenly saw an opportunity for a vertically integrated, value-added future on the farm. The answer? The craft malting sector.
That kind of vision is part of what makes him a business success. But only part.
Craft malting was almost unheard of in Canada five to 10 years ago but has become slightly more common since, with dozens of such breweries operating across the country today. As the craft beer boom has exploded in many provinces, most notably and recently in Alberta and Saskatchewan, it has likewise given rise to craft malthouses.
Craft beer is all about small(er) scale, so it is only natural that somewhere along the line, the malting phase of production, would follow suit.
Of course, how these businesses start is often as curious as where they get to, and that’s just the case with Enns, a plucky 43-year-old who does everything with all-or-nothing conviction.
While Enns did enjoy his Prairie upbringing, he never ate, slept and breathed agriculture the way many of his peers did. Growing up, he excelled at music and he still loves to sing and play cello. Physically, too, he was a sports nut and played every game there was, although volleyball was his passion. As a university student, he played for the University of Saskatchewan Huskies’ volleyball team while studying physiotherapy and in 2004, he graduated and capped off his university career with a CIS national championship, the last U of S men’s team to lift the volleyball trophy.
But why was he becoming a physiotherapist? The move, he now knows, was driven by his interest in human anatomy and by the state of farming at the time, and by the fact that he’s fascinated by a lot of things.
TIME OUT
MacGregor is taking a walk in Wascana Park in Regina when he sees a very attractive lady of similar age sitting on a bench near the Lake.
He decides to take a chance and sits down and introduces himself. After some small talk about the weather, the man tells her he is a widower. She acts surprised and says she is a widow as well. Four times over.
“So, all four husbands died while married to you?”, queried MacGregor. “How horrible for you to lose four husbands, how did they pass?”
“My first husband died after eating my potato salad at a picnic” she tells him…
“That’s sad.” he declared. “and the 2nd?”
“We went to a family picnic, and he died after eating my potato salad.”
“Oh my, that must’ve been devastating. How did the third chap die?”
“My third husband, George, died after eating a double helping of my potato salad”
“I’m starting to see a pattern here. So did your fourth husband die after eating your potato salad?”
“No” she pined, “he was made of sterner stuff, I had to use a cast iron frying pan instead.”
No worries about that! Our upcoming St. Patrick’s Day Party will feature plenty of delicious Irish cuisine (including veggies), Irish dancing, two live Celtic bands, a firkin tapping, two Irish stouts, Irish Cider, Irish single malt whiskey…and yes, Green Shamrock Ale too!
