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:
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.
We had the pleasure of interviewing Jessica and Mataio Gillis last week for the latest video in our Local Connections series. They are the owners of a wonderful local company that operates under quite a few names: Ciao Thyme, In The Kitchen and Incognito. This single business functions as a cooking school (In The Kitchen), catering company (Ciao Thyme) and private dining space (Incognito) and is based right downtown on Unity Street. Best of all, they also feature Boundary Bay Brewery beer!
dining space for Incognito dinners
Jessica works with all the clients and writes menus designed to highlight local, seasonal flavors while Mataio works with local farmers and producers to source the incredible ingredients he’ll be cooking with. They work together to provide catering with menus designed specifically for each event and to each client’s taste, but also to bring the community together through unique family style dining experiences in their space on Unity Street and cooking classes that range from making your own cheese, teaching kids to make Sushi and traveling to Umbria, Italy.
They are members of Sustainable Connections, believe strongly in the international Slow Food movement and in supporting local, sustainable agriculture. They also donate 10 – 15% of their annual revenue each year to local non-profits in an effort to help our community continue to grow and thrive. We are thrilled to have this Local Connections with Jessica and Mataio and are proud that they choose our craft beer to serve as part of their culinary adventures. Check them out!
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.
Bellinghams Best Beer 