KPU brewing faculty create beer to honour outgoing university president

Kwantlen Polytechnic University’s brewing department has launched a pale ale beer called Alan’s Ale to honour the school’s longest-serving president, Alan Davis, as he reaches the end of his term.

To craft the recipe, brewing chair Dominic Bernard and instructors Gonzalo Marquez and Michael Miller worked with Davis, who took part in selecting the ingredients, tasting, and giving his feedback.

“The pale ale is a kind of beer that you can share with a lot of people,” Davis says. “It’s a serious beer, it’s got lots of taste, but it’s not heavy, so I asked them to focus on a pale ale, and that’s what they did. It is a very good beer and it tastes really great.”

The design of the Alan’s Ale beer can features an avatar of Davis in the middle and KPU’s burgundy and white colours. It was released in early May and has subtle berry, citrus, and stone fruit aromas as well as light malt medium bitterness.

Bernard says Davis came to the brewery around early January, and together with the brewing faculty, they tasted different beers to gather all his wishes for the final product and get a direction on what type of beer to work on. 

“He wanted something that was middle of the road, not too extreme on the flavour profiles,” Bernard says. 

Establishing the brewing program at KPU was also Davis’s idea. He put forward the proposal that was supported by Elizabeth Worobec, who was the Faculty of Science and Horticulture dean from 2012 to 2022.

“[Worobec] picked it up and hired two faculty, Dominic and Alek [Egi], and they put together a great program,” Davis says. “Within a couple of years of starting, it became the top college brewing program in North America, based on the quality of the beer.” 

Back in 2022, the brewing faculty also made the beer Betty Boots to honour Worobec as she retired from the dean’s position, Bernard says.

While working on the recipe, the brewing faculty explained everything to Davis, talking about the components, all the chemical changes that take place during the brewing, how to amplify some tastes versus others, and more, Davis says.

“They are really lovely people, and they know their science,” Davis says. “Not only are they devoted to the industry and the craft of beer making, but they are also serious scientists, and that, I think, helps make the beer very good.”

He adds that one of his memorable moments from the process was tasting Alan’s Ale for the first time before the brewing faculty released it to anyone else. 

“Other people I know who do enjoy beer and have a fairly good taste for well-crafted beer all said that it is a very, very good beer. So it makes me feel very good that I inspired somebody to make a beer that other people then enjoy,” Davis says.

Bernard says if it wasn’t for Davis, KPU’s brewery wouldn’t exist. 

“He spearheaded [KPU] getting a brewing program,” he adds.

Davis says he will keep one can of ale as a souvenir and thinks the crafting and naming of a beer after him is a great honour. 

“I can’t think of a nicer way to be thanked for my time here,” he says. “I was paid to do a job and I did my job — I don’t need to have all kinds of gifts or celebrations about it. But this was a unique and very special acknowledgement …. I don’t need anything else. I’m very happy with that.”

To see what’s on tap on Fridays at the KPU Brew Lab at the Langley campus, visit www.kpu.ca/science/beer-sales.