The Richmond brewery that took the name BRB in 2015 closed about a year later, so this page cannot tell you where to drink, and the useful version of it is a short history of the place, the one claim in the original tasting note that a search still supports, and a look at which parts of a local review expire first. What follows keeps the afternoon the writer had and throws away the advice, because the advice has been wrong for years.
What The Flyer Says And What The Text Says
The 2015 poster advertises a Tap Takeover at NY Grill on Friday, September 25, from four until ten in the evening, with 2015 printed across the top and a badge on the tap reading Est. 1997. The article's own sentence calls the same event a 2017 date, and the flyer is the more reliable of the two. September 25 fell on a Friday in 2015, a Sunday in 2016 and a Monday in 2017, and the web address of this page still carries the September 2015 date under which it was first published. The visit belongs to the autumn of 2015, and the year in the text was wrong before anyone archived it.
The four beers are a second problem. The prose lists a blonde ale, an english light ale, a pale ale and an oatmeal stout, then a table underneath gives headers of Blonde Ale, English Mild Ale, East Coast Pale Ale and Oatmeal Stout with the figures 3.6, 4.1, 4.2 and 4.7 beneath them. Those were the site's scores rather than alcohol levels, which is exactly the confusion a table like that invites, since a row of single figures under four beer names reads as a strength list to almost everyone. The table has been removed, and so has the sentence claiming the stout was the second highest rating the Council had ever given out, because it cannot be checked and a reader loses nothing by never having read it.
Where BRB Came From And Where It Went
A Growler survey of closed British Columbia breweries lists the Richmond operation as opening in 1997 as the Big River Brewpub at the Riverport development, rebranding in 2015 as BRB, short for Be Right Back, Brewery and Eatery, and closing a year after that. The same article gives the useful line of descent, which is that Fuggles and Warlock brewed its first beer at BRB before opening its own Richmond plant in December 2015. A kettle in that building made a beer line that outlived the company sitting on it.
The Growler also lists Monkey 9 Brewing as a later occupant of the same address, and that name has its own unsettled recent history, which is why this page stops there rather than saying what stands on that corner today. The brewery that describes itself as the only one in Richmond making its own beer on site is Fuggles, now trading as Fuggles Beer Co. at 11220 Horseshoe Way, and it is the number to call if you want the descendant of this story instead of the story.
The KPU Connection Is The Part That Survives
KPU's news release dated 28 August 2015 described a black IPA as the university's first industry-partnered brew out of its teaching brewery. The recipe came from BRB's marketing manager Nathan Griffiths and the brewery's brewer Steve Pearce, and KPU brewing instructor Dominic Bernard adapted it for the two-hectolitre pilot plant on the Langley campus, with the finished beer poured by pint and growler at the Richmond address from that September. It is the reason the sampling mattered to the writer at the time, and the only claim from 2015 that a search still stands behind. The release itself no longer resolves at its old web address, which is the fate these pages share with the brewery.
What does still resolve is the record of the next event. BRB hosted the first Casks for Kwantlen cask festival on 23 January 2016, and the festival write-up names Old Abbey Ales, Steamworks, Dead Frog, Steel and Oak, Howe Sound and Parallel 49 alongside KPU brewing students, with all of the ticket and beer money going to the scholarship fund in KPU's brewing diploma. A fundraiser that size is proof the college relationship was real rather than a line in a tasting note, and it happened in that building, under the BRB name, with the brewery still pouring.
What The Four Styles Actually Are
The style names outlive the brewery, so they are worth setting out properly. A blonde ale is the least demanding thing on that list, light in body, clean and built to be drunk cold outside, which is why the writer could shrug at it while two friends liked it better. An English mild is low in alcohol and led by malt, with biscuit and toast rather than roast, and mild describes the balance of malt and hops rather than how strong the beer tastes. The 2015 write-up called the same beer an english light ale in one paragraph and an English Mild Ale in its table, and the second is the real style.
A pale ale labelled East Coast sits between the citrus and pine of a West Coast beer and the earthy hop character of English brewing, and an oatmeal stout takes its name from oats in the grist, which add a silky thickness to a dark, roasted beer without sweetness of their own. The stout is the style the writer scored highest, and the only judgement left on the page that a reader can still test at any number of BC taps.
Why Dated Local Reviews Go Bad So Quickly
A description of a style stays true for decades, and almost everything else in a local review expires within a year or two. The venue moves or loses its licence, the lineup changes with the next batch, the person behind the bar leaves, and eventually the company itself closes, at which point the page stops being a recommendation and becomes a record of somebody's afternoon. The two most affectionate lines here show the mechanism, since being one of the only breweries in Richmond was true for a moment, and the promise of a sanctuary to retreat to between classes described a building with less than a year left in it. The closing line borrowed a film quote and reversed it, because the original has someone else doing the building, and the promised updates never came. None of that was dishonest. It was written by a student who assumed the brewery, the pub and the campus all had futures, and the lesson is that the sensory part of a local review lasts while the practical part goes first.
Frequently Asked Questions
Is BRB Brewing still open in Richmond?
It is not open, and there is no taproom to plan a visit around. The brewery took the BRB name in 2015 and closed roughly a year later according to the records that document it, so any page still sending readers to that Richmond address is out of date, including anything written while the kegs were still cold.
Was the KPU collaboration real?
Yes, and it is the best-documented thing about the brewery. KPU's own release from August 2015 describes the college's first brew with an industry partner, a black IPA made with BRB, and names the people on both sides of it. The January 2016 cask festival held at the brewery for KPU brewing scholarships points the same way.
Were those numbers in the old table alcohol percentages?
No, they were the scores this site gave the beers, which is the reason the table is gone rather than tidied up. A row of figures under four beer names invites the alcohol reading, the post never explained the scale, and a reader who did understand it still could not use it, since the brewery and all four beers have been gone for years. What a reader should want from a Richmond beer page is something maintained, checked on the day it is used and tied to a phone number, which is what this page is not.
Keep The Note And Drop The Recommendation
If you came here looking for somewhere to drink in Richmond, this page cannot help: the brewery it was written about closed. What is left is a small piece of the region's brewing history: a brewpub that opened in 1997, took a joke for a name in 2015, lasted less than two years under it, and gave the brewers behind Fuggles their first place to make beer. The college program that ran that collaboration is still teaching, which is more than the brewery managed to leave behind.
