Wood Buffalo Distillery

Wood Buffalo Brewing & Distilling was a brewery and craft distillery in Fort McMurray, Alberta. It opened in 2013 as part of Bearhill Brewing, the Alberta-based group behind Jasper Brewing Company, Banff Avenue Brewing and, later, Last Best Brewing & Distilling in Calgary. Wood Buffalo Brewing was described as Fort McMurray's first and only microbrewery and distillery and became a local producer of beer as well as spirits.
The brewery operated at 9914 Franklin Avenue in the Morrison Centre. Contemporary descriptions note that its beer was brewed on site and that the business also operated a distillery. The distilling side produced spirits including vodka, gin and whisky, while the brewery remained the more visible part of the business.
One of the distillery's best-known projects was created in response to the 2016 Fort McMurray wildfire. When the evacuation took place, a pallet of heavily peated Scottish malt remained outside the brewery. After the fire, the malt had absorbed smoke from the wildfire. The malt was tested by Canada Malting and found safe to use, after which Wood Buffalo's distillers Bryce Parsons and Spike Baker decided to turn it into a one-off whisky.
The whisky was eventually named The Beast. The spirit was distilled at Wood Buffalo and placed into oak barrels to mature. After six years of ageing, the whisky was bottled and released in 2022 through a project involving the Fort McMurray Fire Fighters Association. Only a small number of bottles were released through charity auctions, with proceeds going to local causes.
Wood Buffalo Brewing & Distilling survived the 2016 wildfire and reopened, but the business later closed. A 2024 article in The Whisky Explorer states that the brewery and micro-distillery did not survive the economic downturn that followed the wildfire and closed in mid-2019. Contemporary evidence also places the closure in 2019: a June 2019 visitor review already referred to the Wood Buffalo Brewing Company as closed.
The closure did not end the careers of everyone involved. Head Distiller Bryce Parsons later became Master Distiller at Maligne Distillery, while the Wood Buffalo name remained associated with a small number of unusual spirits and with The Beast, one of the more distinctive whisky projects to emerge from the Alberta craft-distilling scene.
Meatsweat Aquavit was one of the more unusual products associated with the Wood Buffalo distillery. Its combination of peated Canadian and Scottish malt, aquavit botanicals, bison treatment and maturation in new American and toasted Canadian oak reflects the experimental approach that the distillery occasionally applied to spirits production.