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There was a time when Bob Lawrence sent samples of the P.E.I. Brewing Company’s award-winning beers to Chicago. It wasn’t, he explains, an attempt to tap into a lucrative market; it was strictly for product analysis.

“We’re a craft brewery and we don’t have the equipment on site to analyze things such as IBU, alcohol content or the colour of our beer,” says the company’s senior vice president of operations. “It was the closest lab we could access, and it was rather cumbersome and expensive to send alcohol across the border for testing. I thought there had to be a better way to do this.”

Then, in December 2013 came welcome news for Lawrence via a visit from Dalhousie’s Dean of Engineering, Dr. Joshua Leon. Dr. Leon informed him that the university’s Canadian Institute of Fisheries Technology (CIFT) had expanded into fermentation services for the region’s rapidly growing craft brewery, wine and cider industries.

“He was asking what kind of expertise we were looking for and the services they could provide. I said, ‘if you’ve got the ability and the methodologies to do this analysis in Halifax, that’d be great.’ Soon after, I was sending samples to Dr. Andrew Macintosh at CIFT and he was sending the results back.”

A biological engineer and assistant professor in the department of Process Engineering and Applied Science, Dr. Macintosh’s hiring was a key step in CIFT’s expansion into fermentation services. He first became interested in the process while earning his master’s degree, exploring the production of antibiotics through fermentation. That experience inspired him to earn his PhD, examining the role of carbon dioxide during standard brewing operations.

“What fascinates me about fermentation is that it’s both an art and a science. We’ve taken advantage of it since the dawn of civilization, we’ve studied it thoroughly and yet there’s still so much we don’t fully know about it.”

Even so, what Dr. Macintosh and his colleagues do know about the process will be vital in helping Atlantic Canada’s craft beer industry grow. With CIFT’s expanding focus, small breweries now have ready access to the same kind of analytical expertise and equipment that large scale brewers have built into their operations, all without having to make costly investments. They can monitor water pH to see how it impacts the quality and consistency of their product. They can even take advantage of a pilot brewing operation to experiment with new products and recipes says Dr. Allan Paulson, CIFT’s director, who led the Institute’s expansion.

“If they want to try a different fermentation process, yeast, grains or hops, we can do it on a small enough scale so that they can take more chances on innovative products and it won’t cost them much time or money, or tie up their production facilities.”

That’s something Lawrence would eventually be interested in. Right now, he’s happy that he can get analysis of the company’s beers with a frequency that wouldn’t have been possible if he were still using the lab in Chicago.

“Having access to CIFT has allowed us to make adjustments in the hops we’re using, or the amount we use, so we can more consistently hit the targets we want to hit for alcohol content and bitterness. But the brewing capability opens up an opportunity to use them as a true pilot scale operation to explore product and process development.”

The collaboration with the PEI Brewing Company has also been beneficial for CIFT as Dr. Macintosh’s says it has given him a better understanding of how they can serve the needs of the region’s craft brewers. “They’ve helped us determine which analyses are most useful, the kind of turnarounds and accuracy they require, and other ways we can use our expertise and equipment to deliver the data they need.”

As for the future, CIFT will continue to offer traditional services as it expands into other aspects of fermentation. Dr. Macintosh would like to work with the winemaking industry in developing more value-added products. He’d also like to see CIFT invest in new technologies that will not only stimulate craft brewing and winemaking growth, but also result in groundbreaking fermentation research and an enhanced educational experience for students.

“Our mandate is to produce high-quality scientists and engineers. By introducing them to fermentation and analytics at the university level, we can give them a competitive advantage in their careers that will also serve to advance research and support the industry in Atlantic Canada. That’s the win-win-win we want to achieve.”