New Whitehorse nano brewery to open this spring

A new Whitehorse brewery plans to have its first kegs of India Pale Aleand pale ales ready for this spring.

Winterlong Brewing Companyis the vision of beer aficionados Marko and Meghan Marjanovic, high school sweethearts who have decided to turn their home brewing hobby into a small business.

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The brewery is being built near their home in the Mount Sima subdivision, 15minutes from downtown Whitehorse.

The couple plans to brew roughly 350 litres a week.

"You've probably heard of micro-breweries. Well we're actually classified as a nano brewery," saysMarko.

Marko and Meghan, who plan on keeping their day jobs, say they will start by selling beer a couple of evenings a week and possibly on the weekend. They say the idea is not to compete with Yukon Brewing, but to offer another option for beer connoisseurs.

"We're going to focus more on ... hop-focused pale ales, IPA, a dark beer for the dark beer lovers," Marko says. "We'll probably rotate a beer once a month or so, something more special like a smoked porter, imperial stout,a German hefeweizen and that sort of thing."

He notes that because of the small scale of their brewery, stock will be limited.

The couple have been home brewing for eight years and say the brewery is a labour of love.

"We love making it, we love drinking it," Meghan says about beer.

She says the increasing popularity of craft beer makes it good timing to start their business. "Craft beer is really exploding everywhere and people are wanting variety."