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Roughly 40,000 square feet will be used to build a brewery and distilling facility in the Agribition Building at Evraz Place.
The announcement was made Wednesday morning by Regina Exhibition Association Limited (REAL), with YQR Distillery signing a 40-year lease.
The new facility will include a state-of-the-art distillery and brewery along with a restaurant, tasting room, distillery bar, interior and exterior patios, event and banquet space, a liquor store, a barrel-aging facility, a section for warehousing and distribution and a kitchen for teaching.
“We are very pleased to be a part of REAL’s plan to be one of Saskatchewan’s best destinations for food, beverages and entertainment,” Adam Sperling, the CEO of YQR Distillery, said in a release.
“Four years ago, French Laundry vodka won multiple awards around the world and since then we can’t keep up with demand. We knew we had to expand and today I am happy to see that a world-class facility and location will allow us to not only meet existing demand but grow for years to come.”
The new teaching space will allow people to take courses on wine, beer and spirits tasting and food pairing.
“Fermentation Lab aims to create a new era of culinary professionals with an environmental dietary conscience. Included in the courses will be learning about our agricultural processes and how to take the best of what we have and make it better,” said Sperling.
“Fermentation Lab includes a teach kitchen for culinary education, a distillery bar, and a tap house which will function as a fermentation classroom giving an overview of the fermentation processes used in brewing, distilling, wine making, and in nonalcoholic fermentation such as kombucha.
“This will be connected to the culinary component of the Lab where students will learn sustainable cooking techniques such as using spent grains and live fermentation for baking, as well as examine methods of creating viable products using by-products from the fermentation process and offering unique tasting experiences.”
Students will study the evolution of food from field to flask and farm to table, as well as chemical compositions and dietary benefits of certain foods.
“This exciting new development will allow us to be the spirit of locally crafted products at the centre of one of the most exciting redevelopments our city has ever seen,” Sperling said.
YQR Distillery is to begin construction on the new facility this summer and it’s to open in the spring of 2022. Once the facility is complete, roughly 100 to 150 people will be employed there.
