Toronto-based Province Brands is developing the world’s first beer brewed using raw materials from the cannabis plant, The Guardian reports.
Other companies have undertaken similar projects, but those companies typically create a beer from barley and hops and then infuse the beverage with cannabis or hemp oils, according to Province Brands’ Dooma Wendschuh.
“That’s not what we do. Our beer is brewed from the stalks, stem and roots of the cannabis plant.” — Dooma Wendschuh, CEO and co-founder of Province Brands, via The Guardian
The final product is a gluten-free, non-alcoholic beer that will get you high. “The beer hits you very quickly, which is not common for a marijuana edible,” Wendschuh said.
Wendschuh told The Guardian he moved from Miami to Toronto in 2016 to capitalize on Canada’s pending legalization. He said the idea for a purely cannabis-based beer was born from the desire for something to “serve the role that alcohol serves in our society … using this monumental sea change that is happening in our world.”
“I don’t think there was anywhere else in the world where we could do this business. Canada is already leading the world in creating an industry around medical cannabis and we expect them to continue to lead the world in trading and industry around adult-use cannabis.” — Dooma Wendschuh, CEO and co-founder of Province Brands
According to Wendschuh, the beer has gone through several iterations during its development. The earlier prototypes “tasted horrible … like rotten broccoli,” he said, but more recently the beer has settled into a “dry, savoury” product that is “less sweet than a typical beer flavor.”
Adult-use cannabis will become legal in Canada on October 17 — edibles products, however, will not be available at market launch. Experts predict it will take about a year before edibles, including beverages, become legal under the national cannabis regulations.
In May, Province Brands received a $300,000 grant from Ontario’s government to help develop the beer.