Christmas Trees at the Hotel Bellwether

We have some talented decorators over at Boundary Bay Brewery. Head on over the the Hotel Bellwether on Saturday, December 6th from 4-6pm and check out our beer-themed tree!

Join us for the 3nd Annual Holiday Tree Lighting event benefiting the Opportunity Council’s Dorothy Place, A secure 21-unit facility in Bellingham that provides support services and transitional housing for single women and women with children who are survivors of domestic violence.

Local Bellingham businesses have masterfully decorated a themed tree at the hotel and we’re asking you to vote for your favorite! Voters are eligible to win a FREE night stay in the hotel Bellwether’s Light House Suite!

Tis the season of giving – so we kindly as that you bring along a nonperishable food items or provide a monetary donation. Throughout December, monetary and canned food donations will be collected to benefit Dorothy Place and donations will be met with a 10% discount to the Lighthouse Bar and Grill!

Holiday trees are on display through December. You are welcome to come down at any point during the week and vote starting this Saturday, December 6th from 4-pm! Cheers!

Local Connections – K & M Red River Farm

We had the pleasure of spending one of Fall’s last beautiful, sunny days out at K & M Red River Farm with Mike who gave us a farm tour, talked with us about sustainability and told us how he and Boundary Bay Brewery became connected.

K & M Red River Farm was one of our first local suppliers and we’ve been getting our salad greens from him for many years now. His small farm in the Lummi Flats is organic, uses no fertilizer at all and is farmed by just Mike and his single assistant.

Check out our newest Local Connections video to find out more about the products we get from this great local farm:

Local Connections: Cloud Mountain Farm

Nestled at the foot of Sumas Mountain in the far Northwest corner of Washington State, Cloud Mountain Farm is situated on 20 acres of orchards, vineyards, nursery fields, greenhouses and trial gardens.  They propagate and grow fruit trees, nut trees, berry plants and ornamental plants.  You’ll also find they sell a large variety of dwarf conifers and Japanese maples, hard-to-find orchard and garden supplies, quality tools, and garden books.

They’ve been growing apples commercially since their beginnings in 1978. They supply a number of restaurants in town and we are lucky enough to be one of them!  The menu here at Boundary Bay Brewery regularly features produce grown locally for us at Cloud Mountain Farm and we even serve up their hot apple cider on chilly Winter days.

Education has always been hugely important to the staff at Cloud Mountain Farm.  They have extensive trial gardens to test out crop development and which varieties work best in our climate.  For consumers, their goal is to make sure that when your leave their nursery, you have the right plants, tools and information to be successful in all your gardening endeavors. Their focus on education will certainly grow now that they’ve become a non-profit!  The farm will become an educational/training center for market farmers and consumers.  They will continue to grow and sell to the public through the farm stand, the Bellingham Farmers Market, local restaurants and CSA shares.  But now they will also expand their educational opportunities to include training programs for people wanting to learn the business of farming for market and providing consumer education for food production and ornamental gardening.

We were lucky enough to get to tour Cloud Mountain Farm in September and meet the incredible staff who run the farm.  We spent a lovely morning wandering through the fields with Cheryl, learning about farming for food and snacking on delicious tomatoes, grapes and apples.  Check out this video to find out more about Cloud Mountain Farm, the people behind it and their incredible produce that we use in our menu here at the brewery.

 

Striving for Sustainability

Boundary Bay joins Sustainable Connections’ Toward Zero Waste campaign alongside local governments and over 100 other local businesses that have made a commitment to reduce at least 50% of their waste this year. Our aim is to reduce or eliminate waste going to local landfills, increase reuse and recycling of existing resources and purchase more products available to us through local businesses. So far, we use food waste bins, so all of our kitchen waste gets recycled and we have disposable silverware (for takeout and for use down in the beer garden) made of biodegradable corn starch. Most importantly, all of our spent grains from our brewing goes to local farms where it gets used for livestock feed. We will be continuing to implement procedures to further this zero waste goal.

Many of our food products come from local businesses thereby reducing gas consumption as well as supporting other local businesses. In our new menus at Boundary Bay, any food item or beverage that utilizes local ingredients is marked with a Buy Local Be Local logo.

We get our seafood from Barlean’s, our dairy from Breckenridge Farm and our ravioli from Pastazza. Ralf’s Bavarian Bakery supplies us with buns as well as pretzels, Grace Café makes our pies, and our produce is supplied by K & M farm. Our honey comes from Gilemette, our breads from Avenue Breads and Great Harvest Breads and our sprouts from Happy Valley farm. We, here at Boundary Bay, are trying to take steps to tangibly decrease the environmental impact of our business. In turn, we hope to inspire other businesses and individuals to take similarly sustainable actions and work together to move this community Toward Zero Waste!