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Canada is facing its most devastating wildfires in history, with 17 million hectares of forests reduced to ashes in just two years. From these ashes, a flower has emerged in abundance for the first time: Fireweed, the first flower to grow in the aftermath of wildfires, driving millions of bees to produce an unprecedented amount of Fireweed honey. As a community-driven microbrewery in the heart of the wildfires, Best of Kin saw an opportunity to use this unfortunate new local ingredient to breathe life back into our land.

With this in mind, the agency partnered with the Calgary microbrewery to create Fire Bloom Honey Lager, the only beer made from the ingredients of wildfires to help fight wildfires. Every element of Fire Bloom embodies and amplifies a regenerative cycle. First, from Canada’s burnt woods, we get Fireweed, growing in abundance only because of the worsening wildfire problem. Bees turn Fireweed into Fireweed honey. All-local barley, hops and malt are added to the honey in the brewing process to tie into Fire Bloom’s environmental mission. The beer’s label, painted by Canadian fire artist and environmentalist Steven Spazuk, encapsulates its mission: creation from fire. Spazuk’s fumage technique (derived from the French ‘fumée’, meaning ‘smoke’) is unique to his craft and involves the use of a flame as a paintbrush, with soot as the painted medium. The result is a label painted with flame, true to the contents of the beer. Fire Bloom proceeds are then poured back into our land, funding reforestation through Project Forest and the University of Alberta’s Research Forest, as well as post-wildfire community rebuilding initiatives, such as the Jasper Community Fund. What we are left with is a complete circle: from devastating wildfires comes wildfire honey, from wildfire honey, we brew honey beer, and finally, from honey beer we enable reforestation. Each can of Fire Bloom is thus a regenerative cycle.

From a business perspective, Fire Bloom tells a full story about the urgency of wildfires, emphasizing a need for products like itself on the market—those that offer immediate local solutions to local problems. It’s a light, tangible way for those in affected areas to help make a difference, infusing a desperate situation with hope by combining creativity with environmental advocacy. It helps forests and communities to regenerate while demonstrating to consumers that their everyday choices can also be impactful gestures. It also works as an example to other breweries—and businesses—that by keeping our community at the center of what we do and being more mindful of the way profit is distributed, we can leave a healthier planet behind. Uniquely sustainable, Fire Bloom is poised to influence the way brewers see the interaction between business and the environment: as a motor of renewal and proof that we truly can take with one hand and give back with the other.

So far, Fire Bloom has helped plant 210,000 trees, removing 210,000 tons of Co2 from our atmosphere. It has won the North American Lager Award from Culinaire Magazine, been featured as Beer of the Week by Sobeys, Canada’s second-largest grocery chain, and featured across major Canadian news networks, such as the The Globe & Mail, Global National, CBC, CityTV, and more, reaching over $3.5 million in earned media. With over 258,000 beers sold and each new batch selling out almost instantly, it has gone from a temporary feature to permanent fixture on our menu and those of our partners. Reaching 17M Canadians since launch, our wildfire beer has truly spread like wildfire.