The first word that comes to mind when you walk through the front doors of Hardisty Brewing Co.’s new Cole Harbour Road space is “cozy.” The lights are dimmed above the sprinkling of tables and high-tops, all clean lines and polished wood grain. The mood is bright as the rainbow-coloured drink menu behind the bar. Co-owner Laura Barbour extends a warm welcome before the door has closed behind you. It’s barely been two weeks since Barbour and her wife and business partner, Char Robichaud, opened the space in the former Light It Up Hydroponics store, and it’s been a rush.
“We haven’t [even] had time to play yet; we’re just trying to get all the tanks full, all the lines full,” Barbour says, as she offers The Coast a tour of her brewery on a wintry afternoon.
Robichaud describes the feeling of opening their 958 Cole Harbour Road space as a mix of “excitement and nervousness.” They’ve already sold out of their latest lager creation, a “peach-infused” batch Robichaud brewed and named 87-29, after their community’s most famous hockey exports. There are plans for a bluegrass brunch music series. For a pair of homebrewers used to making beer in a converted room in their house, it’s all been a little surreal.
“We’ve already heard a lot from the community—a lot of people are excited,” Robichaud says. “For me, it hits me when I see our staff coming in each morning. That’s when the reality hits.”
Like the suburban corridor their brewery now calls home, it’s been a long and winding road to opening up shop in Cole Harbour. More than 20 years ago, when Barbour and Robichaud met and fell in love, they opted to move west to Edmonton. Barbour’s brother lived there. He worked as a master brewer. Neither Barbour nor Robichaud came from brewing—Laura had studied health, while Char studied digital media—but Robichaud took to her brother-in-law’s passion quickly.
“Being young and in our twenties, it was extra cash,” she says. “So I’d go help at the brewery.”
Soon enough, she was making her own beers and experimenting with hops, buying her own mill for grains and accumulating enough gear at home to start a full-fledged nanobrewery—never mind if that wasn’t the plan from the outset. (“It gets to a point where it’s like, how much beer can you really just drink at home?” Robichaud jokes.)
The dream was there, though, for something. And as Barbour and Robichaud relocated to Cole Harbour, and the years passed, Robichaud continued to tinker away on recipes. She gave the beer to friends, but never sold it. Not until the timing felt right. Finally, after nearly two decades of homebrewing, Robichaud and Barbour made a plan to launch Hardisty Brewing Co.—named after their community in Colby Village. They got their license to brew commercially on Jan. 1, 2020. The year felt right. And there was something about a new year and new beginnings, too.
You know what happened next: Not long after Hardisty Brewing Co. launched, Nova Scotia entered its first COVID-19 lockdown. It was a godawful time to be in business. Both the Halifax Brewery Farmers’ Market and Seaport Farmers’ Market closed for months—only to reopen, initially, with limited capacity. Barbour and Robichaud pivoted to home deliveries and dropped their offerings off door by door.
“We were [operating] in our home for three years,” Robichaud tells The Coast. In the end, that might have saved them: Working from home meant they didn’t have an expensive office draining their bank accounts during pandemic closures. And when the farmers’ markets reopened, they were there—both at Alderney Landing and the Seaport.
“I feel like we survived through COVID because of that,” Robichaud says.
Despite the challenges—and together with brewer Amber Turner—they were able to build a following around their beers, which range from imperial stouts to amber ales. They picked the brains of Brightwood Brewery’s Ian Lawson and Matt McGrail, who trod the same path from homebrewers to brewery owners. And they found themselves in the thick of a new community, too: When Barbour and Robichaud opened their brewery’s doors on Dec. 21, 2023, they were welcomed not just by neighbours, but by their competitors. North Brewing brought over flowers to celebrate the occasion.
“I think craft beer has that kind of community feel within the industry,” North’s founder, Peter Burbridge says, speaking by phone with The Coast. “Obviously, on some level, we’re competing with one another, but we’re also providing an alternative to what the large multinationals provide, so we feel a [kinship] in that sense.”
Burbridge says he got the same warm welcome when North Brewing opened its doors on Agricola Street in 2013.
“I remember Brian Titus from Garrison came very early on when we opened, introduced himself and wished us well, and offered to help,” he adds. “We definitely felt that community.”
The longterm plan is for Hardisty to expand its list of in-house tap offerings. Currently, three of their nine taps are guest offerings from the likes of Truro Brewing Co., Boxing Rock and Eventide Mead & Cider. Barbour also has plans for a broader array of non-alcoholic drinks, from hop water to herbal-based cocktails—part of “trying to change the language of people coming into a bar,” Robichaud says. “Because there’s a lot of people that don’t want alcohol—they [might be] newly sober, or they just choose not to. We’ve heard back from the community that they love that they can come in and order a virgin and get a fancy drink that stands on its own.”
For now, Barbour and Robichaud are keeping the taproom open Tuesday to Saturday on a “bit of a limited schedule” as they build out their staff. They’re hoping to make their space available to community groups to book, as well.
“The community aspect is really important to us,” Barbour says.
Hours for Hardisty Brewing Co. (958 Cole Harbour Road, Unit 4):
Tuesday-Saturday: noon-8pm
Sunday-Monday: closed
