The gentle landscape of the Saanich Peninsula, only a short distance north of Victoria and perfectly suited for daytrippers, is home to many of Vancouver Island’s best agritourism destinations. While the rest of Vancouver Island is most well known for its stunning nature, popular among hikers and backpackers, visitors to the Saanich Peninsula are typically foodies, or those interested in trying the local wines, beers, ciders, or spirits produced in the region.
There are a lot of options to choose from when it comes to drink on the Saanich Peninsula, and a wide range of flavours to suit your palate. What all of the producers listed here do have in common is a passion for local flavour and community that shines through in the award-winning quality of their product. So whether you’re a Victoria local, or if you’re looking for one of the best things to do on Vancouver Island while just visiting, I highly recommend exploring some of what the Saanich Peninsula has to offer.
As always, this list of the best breweries, cideries, and distilleries on the Saanich Peninsula is not ranked, and is ordered from south to north, or nearest to furthest from Victoria. If you think I’ve missed something, feel free to leave a comment below!
Devine Distillery
Devine Distillery is one of the best distilleries on Vancouver Island to find high-quality small-batch spirits that no one else is making. One of the highlights here is the award-winning “Ancient Grains” whisky, made from locally grown grains including barley, spelt, emmer, khorasan and einkorn, and tasting distinctly unlike any other variety of whisky you might have tried. They also make a genever, a ‘rum’ made from honey, and the Glen Saanich Single Malt, which consistently sells out very quickly, and like nearly all of their spirits, is highly decorated in awards. Sadly Devine doesn’t offer tastings, so if you visit the distillery your only option is to take a bottle home with you, but chances are good that you were going to do that anyway.
Junction Orchard & Cidery
Jillian and Cody Brown are both passionate about their local community as well as about cider, both of which are evident to anyone who visits the beautiful rustic property that Junction Orchard & Cidery calls home. There are a wide variety of local events that are held at the cidery, and the place is a bit of a community hotspot. Don’t be surprised to see yoga classes, food trucks, or local musicians performing during your visit to the dog-friendly property, and don’t forget to say hi to the chickens that roam the orchard as a natural form of pest control. Ingredients for the ciders are sourced as locally as possible, with the exception of hops which are sourced from around BC. Junction is one of the newest cideries on Vancouver Island, but nonetheless a must-visit.
Category 12 Brewing
Coming off of a job at a scientific software company and with a doctorate in microbiology and biochemistry from UVic, Michael Kuzyk changed careers and opened Category 12 in late 2014, along with his wife Karen. He brought his scientific background with him though, and Category 12 prides itself on the amount of experimentation it goes through to make its beer. Before recipes are brewed at Category 12’s full 1500 L capacity, they’re first tinkered with on a 50 L pilot brew system, and a wide variety of yeasts are grown on site. There’s a lot on offer here especially for the IPA lover, but keep an eye out for some of the rarer more esoteric limited releases which often include barleywines, barrel-aged stouts, and belgians.
Sea Cider
The road to Sea Cider’s rustic ciderhouse leads past their large certified organic apple orchard overlooking the Salish sea, with spectacular views of James Island and Mt Baker in the distance. It’s no surprise that the picturesque location is a popular wedding venue and agritourism destination. With over 50 varieties of apples growing here, there’s a wide variety in the types of award-winning ciders produced. In addition to their flagship “heirloom” line of ciders, they also make seasonal & barrel-aged ciders, as well as a series of ciders inspired by invasive species, a portion of proceeds from which support efforts to combat invasive species in sensitive ecological areas.
Victoria Cider Co.
There are a lot of different varieties of cider made at Victoria Cider Co, but what really sets them apart is the keeved cider. This traditional cider-making method involves a long ferment (five months!) at low temperatures, plus another two months of bottle conditioning. The process starves the yeast of nutrients before it can convert all of the natural sugar to alcohol, and results in a cider that’s naturally sweetened with the residual sugars. Keeved cider is thought to retain much more of the apple’s terroir than other methods. There’s a lot of luck involved in getting it right, which is why there are only three other places in BC that make it, and it’s only widespread commercial production nowadays is in France. Victoria Cider Co. also makes whisky, bourbon, port, and sherry barrel-aged ciders, a cyser (apple mead), and a lavender cider that’s as pretty to look at in the glass as it is delicious to drink.
Howl Brewing
As of April 2024 Howl has closed their taproom, and is working on moving into a new location. You can still try the beer in liquor stores, but that is for now the only way to get your hands on a taste. Howl classifies themselves as a picobrewery, meaning that they operate at an even smaller scale than most microbreweries. The benefit of the small batches (only 280 litres at a time) is that there’s a lot of room for experimentation. There are no flagship beers at Howl Brewing, so every time you visit you can expect to see something new and different, often using local ingredients. Brewer Dan Van Netten researches ancient brewing techniques to produce some archaic beer styles you won’t find anywhere else except for history books, and there’s spirit of experimentation and fun in everything. For some of the most unique beers anywhere on Vancouver Island, Howl Brewing is a must-try.
Small Gods Brewing Co.
Small Gods Brewing takes literary inspiration and turns it into brewing practice, with both their name being a literary allusion (more on that here) and all their beers are named after books linking to styles or ingredients’ countries of origins. For example, their Neverending german pilsner is named after the classic German tale, The Neverending Story. It’s appropriate, since Sidney is Canada’s only book town, a designation recognizing a high concentration of antiquarian or second-hand bookstores in a small town or village. What matters at the end of the day is the quality of beer, and the beer at Small Gods is exceptional. There’s a wide variety of styles here, and a lot of creativity at play, especially when it comes to unexpected (often locally sourced) ingredients. Check out their dog-friendly patio, and make sure to reference their events calendar, as there are community events happening nearly constantly.
Beacon Brewing
Both Beacon Brewing and Small Gods Brewing benefit from being next-door neighbours in downtown Sidney, so if you’re visiting one it only makes sense to visit the other as well. Similarly to Small Gods, Beacon Brewing has a (new!) dog-friendly patio area and a full events calendar. When Beacon opened it’s doors in 2021 it was downtown Sidney’s first brewery, but it’s been embraced and a thriving beer culture has grown around it and it’s delicious brews. The beers here are easy-drinking and approachable, with a core lineup including a lager, a dark mild, a pale ale, and an IPA. In addition to their flagship beers, check out the rotating sour beer tap, hoppy beer tap, pilsner/lager tap, and seasonal tap.
Best Coast Distillers
There’s a standard procedure when you open up a distillery on Vancouver Island, and that’s to start by producing a vodka and a gin, maybe a few liqueurs, and then after three years release your first whisky. Cory Hastings and Corey Wood’s Best Coast Distillers skips all of that, and instead is set on defying convention. The two have begun production on an agricole sorghum rum and a “tequila”, along with a couple of of coffee-infused whiskys, a cinnamon whisky, and a few other surprises. If the thought of growing sorghum and agave on a 100 year-old North Saanich farm sounds strange to you, that’s because it is. The two crops are much more comfortable in sunny Texas and Jalisco respectively, so growing them here is pretty innovative stuff. Currently the newest distillery on Vancouver Island, Best Coast doesn’t have a tasting room yet, but they can be found at local farmers markets.
Victoria Distillers
You may not have heard of Victoria Distillers, but if you’re into gin you’ve almost certainly heard of their award-winning Empress 1908 gin. This vibrant indigo gin gets its distinct pigment from butterfly pea flowers found in the Blue Suede Shoes tea blend from the iconic Empress Hotel in downtown Victoria, as well as its distinct flavour. Despite only launching the gin in 2017, it’s quickly become more popular and recognizable than the rest of the brand, and is one of the most well-known Canadian gins on the market. In fact, in 2020 Victoria Distillers even tried to trademark the colour blue in gin, potentially preventing other distillers from using butterfly pea flower. Recently Victoria Distillers has rebranded the rest of their gins to match Empress 1908, and though they might be somewhat overshadowed by the popularity of the flagship gin here, all the spirits here are worth a try.
