The Andina Brewing Company is located at 1507 Powell Street in East Vancouver, just a few minutes away from two other breweries in the area, namely the Callister Brewing company and Powel Street Craft Brewery. The brewery is unmissable, thanks to the sunshine/banana yellow building that is reminiscent of Colombia, where the co-owners and brothers are originally from.
Andina is one of our feature stops on our Seasonal release brewery tour of fall 2017 in Vancouver.
The brewery was named after Andina, which is the name given to a female that comes from the Andes while the logo of the brewery is a tribute to Policarpa Salavarrieta, a Colombian female protagonist that helped free the nation from the Spanish regime back in the 1800s.
The spacious tasting lounge is large, approximately 2,000 square feet, and well decorated to suit the tradition of craft beer in Vancouver and the West Coast. Andina is driven primarily by its South American roots, which is why it produces South American craft inspired beer.
The brewery, which took almost five years to create, was the brainchild of Owners Andrés and Nicolás Amaya, who both have been creating craft beer for years before they decided to open up their own establishment. Andina’s Head Brewer, Andrew Powers, collaborates and works alongside co-owner Nicolás to come up with new recipes and ideas for new varieties of beer. To keep in line with South American culture and history, the brewery also serves South American cuisine and only uses fruit from South America, Patagonia Malt, Malted barley from Chile and panela, which is a type of brown sugar that is produced from sugarcane.
Like most other breweries in the BC area, the tasting room in Andina has wood topped bars, tables, and stools that add a nice contrast against the walls. The tasting room also has bright windows that allow in the sunshine, further making it more vibrant. Andina uses a 23HL brewing system. The brewery also has 4 fermenters that are 60HL and a 46HL brite tank. To experiment with new profiles and flavours, Andina also has a test batch system.
So far, Andina offers six beers on tap, two of which are De Temporada, or seasonal beers while the other four are principales or what makes up the flagship lineup. The principales are made up of the Ay Ay Ay Pale Ale, Melcocha Andean Mild, Totuma Kolsch and the Monita Belgian IPA. Some of the seasonal beers are the Maraca Passionfruit Black IPA and the Mapale Milk Stout. All the beers have a distinct flavor owing to the high-quality ingredients used in the production process.
Ráquira Dark Lager with Feijoa, ABV- 5.7% IBU-20
Pours a hazy milk chocolate brown with aromas of Feijoa (minty, musky, barrel cellar) and dark malt (Think chocolate covered dry plums) both equally present. The taste starts chocolatey and nicely sweet, then moves into a mid light tart (Feijoa) and rounds out at the end with a slight bit of salt.
The Feijoa is an egg-sized oval shaped fruit imported from Colombia specifically for this beer, it has smooth dark green skin and tropical overtones including pineapple, mint and guava. Now doesn't that sounds delicious?
Name Inspiration: The name Raquira, comes from a picturesque town in central Colombia ( the area where the Feijoa is cultivated) famous for its colony of artisans, who produce traditional Andean pottery & hand-woven goods.
Bambuco Belgian ISA, ABV 4.1% IBU 30
Pours a golden yellow with a pillowy head and has healthy aromatics of banana, cantaloupe, hints of lemon zest and wet hop freshness. The biscuit and honey maltsused in this beer shine through at first smell and give way to a pleasantly dry finish that is nicely effervescent with a medium forward hop bitterness.
Name Inspiration: Bambuco is a traditional music genre and dance born in the Andean region of Colombia. It has a beat structure similar to the European waltz.
