Victoria brewing company Whistle Buoy has partnered with the Vancouver-based Superflux to create a beer that’s filled with cannabis flavours, without any THC or CBD, the active ingredients in marijuana.
Whistle Buoy unveiled the beer on April 18, just two days ahead of “4/20,” a day that originated as a cannabis-use protest around the world.
Whistle Buoy says its limited-time beer, called Buds Hazy IPA, has all the hallmarks of a usual hoppy IPA, but also features terpene-derived cannabis flavours.
How it works
Terpenes are chemicals that are present in all plants, and in cannabis they are largely responsible for giving the plant its distinct smell, according to the BC Cannabis Stores website.
Whistle Buoy says it then used a product called BrewGas to enhance its IPA, which uses “botanical terpene-derived cannabis flavour compounds which contain no THC or CBD.”
“Opening a bottle of BrewGas is like sticking your head in a big bag of weed and inhaling, which is wild because none of the compounds used were extracted from the cannabis plant,” said Whistle Buoy in a release Thursday.
There are several types of BrewGas products the simulate different cannabis smells, and Whistle Buoy says it opted for the “Pineapple Express” and “King Louie XIII” blends.
The cannabis flavourings “play nicely with hops since they are actually members of the same genetic family but they’ve been historically kept apart by prohibition,” according to Whistle Buoy, and the new cannabis flavours add surprising layers to hops that one might not expect from a typical IPA.
The Buds Hazy IPA can be purchased for a limited time at the Whistle Buoy Taproom in Victoria, the Superflux Cabana in Victoria, or at the Superflux Beer Company in Vancouver.
“To be clear, this beer does not technically have any cannabis products in it, but the flavours are indeed inspired by the devil’s lettuce,” said Whistle Buoy.
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