NWT Brewing Company
Yellowknife, Northwest Territories, Canada · Est. 2015
Also known as The Woodyard Brewhouse & Eatery
Tally's Take
Why this matters
The only commercial brewery in the Northwest Territories, and the first ever established in the territory. Everything that goes into the beer — grain, hops, cans — is hauled thousands of kilometres up Highway 3 or across seasonal ice roads, which makes a 112-seat brewpub in Old Town Yellowknife a genuine feat of logistics before it is anything else. It started as a Christmas homebrew kit and a complaint about the price of beer up here. Kicksled Cream Ale took a bronze at the Canadian Brewing Awards in year one, which suggests they were never really just complaining.
The founding thesisMiranda gave Fletcher a homebrew kit for Christmas as a hedge against northern alcohol prices. He was a journeyman mechanic. Eighteen months later they had both quit their jobs.
The Museum
Timeline
- 2014Quitting the day jobs
In January 2014 Fletcher and Miranda Stevens leave full-time work to build a brewery in Yellowknife — a hedge against northern alcohol prices that turned into a business.
- 2015The Woodyard opens
NWT Brewing Company opens in November 2015 in Old Town Yellowknife, with the 112-seat Woodyard Brewhouse & Eatery attached.
- 2016Bronze in year one
Kicksled Cream Ale takes a bronze medal at the Canadian Brewing Awards within the brewery's first year of operation.
The People
Behind the beer
Fletcher was a journeyman mechanic until Miranda gave him a homebrew kit as a Christmas present and it turned into an obsession. In January 2014 the two quit their full-time jobs to build the brewery; it opened in November 2015.
The Beer Library
Beers
Kicksled Cream Ale
Year-RoundCream Ale
Bronze medallist at the Canadian Brewing Awards in the brewery's first year.
Drank this? Add it to your passport →Bug Repellent IPA
Year-RoundAmerican IPA
The flagship hop-forward beer, named for the only thing that outnumbers people up here in summer.
Drank this? Add it to your passport →Travel Guide
Plan a visit
- 112-seat brewpub
- Full kitchen
- Seasonal patio
- Growlers, crowlers & 4-packs to go
- Merch shop
- Wheelchair accessible main level
- Private events
Old Town Yellowknife, near Pilot's Monument and the Great Slave Lake docks. Service dogs only — territorial health code restricts pet dogs indoors. Distributed across the NWT through the Northwest Territories Liquor Commission, with some lines reaching Alberta.
Show your working
Sources
- foundedConfirmed
NWT Brewing Company opened in November 2015 in Yellowknife.
NWT Brewing Company — About · NWT Brewing Company
BreweryHigh reliabilityAccessed 2026-08-07Reviewed 2026-08-07 - controlConfirmed
Owned and operated by Fletcher and Miranda Stevens, in the brewery's own words.
NWT Brewing Company — About · NWT Brewing Company
BreweryHigh reliabilityAccessed 2026-08-07Reviewed 2026-08-07
Only the claims above are sourced. Everything else on this page is the archive's own research and has not yet been tied to a document — which is worth knowing rather than hiding.
Straight answers
Common questions about NWT Brewing Company
- Who owns NWT Brewing Company?
- NWT Brewing Company is independently owned — there is no parent company above it on record. It is based in Yellowknife, Northwest Territories, Canada.
- Is NWT Brewing Company independent?
- Yes. NWT Brewing Company is recorded as independent, with no parent company. Independence is recorded as the brewery states it; where a stake is a minority holding or joint venture, this archive leaves it unmapped rather than calling it ownership.
- When was NWT Brewing Company founded?
- NWT Brewing Company was founded in 2015 in Yellowknife, Northwest Territories, Canada.
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