Burnside Brewing
No Frills. No Pretense. Just Good Beer.
Born in Dartmouth and built on a simple belief—Great beer shouldn't ask you to be anyone you're not—Burnside Brewing has spent a decade blazing its own trail through Nova Scotia's craft beer scene, one honest, ice-cold lager at a time.
Burnside Brewing
No Frills. No Pretense. Just Good Beer.
Born in Dartmouth and built on a simple belief—Great beer shouldn't ask you to be anyone you're not—Burnside Brewing has spent a decade blazing its own trail through Nova Scotia's craft beer scene, one honest, ice-cold lager at a time.
Burnside Brewing
No Frills. No Pretense. Just Good Beer.
Born in Dartmouth and built on a simple belief—Great beer shouldn't ask you to be anyone you're not—Burnside Brewing has spent a decade blazing its own trail through Nova Scotia's craft beer scene, one honest, ice-cold lager at a time.
Our Rooted Tale
Thirty Years, someone else's label
Before the beer, there was the deal. Two men who knew every label, every distributor, every handshake— who had built a dozen brands for other people and watched them walk away at the height. One day they looked at each other and asked the only question that mattered: Why not ours?
Andrew Bell and Andy Armstrong had spent decades making other people's beer famous. Through their import agency, Atlantic Spirits and Wines, they built brands, grew portfolios, and cultivated relationships with the NSLC that most brewers spent years trying to earn. They knew the industry not as outsiders looking in, but as the people quietly holding the door open for everyone else.
It was a smart business. And for a long time, it was enough. But the pattern kept repeating: they'd grow a brand to real momentum, then watch it get absorbed into something larger—a national agency, a bigger deal—leaving Andy and Andrew with a handshake and an empty listing slot. In 2015, they stopped asking why and started answering how. They launched Spindrift Brewing Company in Dartmouth, with thirty-plus years of hard-won knowledge and zero illusions about the road ahead.
An unfashionable bet
The Recall that built trust
Beer Without the Pretense
Our Rooted Tale
Thirty Years, someone else's label
Before the beer, there was the deal. Two men who knew every label, every distributor, every handshake— who had built a dozen brands for other people and watched them walk away at the height. One day they looked at each other and asked the only question that mattered: Why not ours?
Andrew Bell and Andy Armstrong had spent decades making other people's beer famous. Through their import agency, Atlantic Spirits and Wines, they built brands, grew portfolios, and cultivated relationships with the NSLC that most brewers spent years trying to earn. They knew the industry not as outsiders looking in, but as the people quietly holding the door open for everyone else.
It was a smart business. And for a long time, it was enough. But the pattern kept repeating: they'd grow a brand to real momentum, then watch it get absorbed into something larger—a national agency, a bigger deal—leaving Andy and Andrew with a handshake and an empty listing slot. In 2015, they stopped asking why and started answering how. They launched Spindrift Brewing Company in Dartmouth, with thirty-plus years of hard-won knowledge and zero illusions about the road ahead.
An unfashionable bet
The Recall that built trust
Beer Without the Pretense
Our Rooted Tale
Thirty Years, someone else's label
Before the beer, there was the deal. Two men who knew every label, every distributor, every handshake— who had built a dozen brands for other people and watched them walk away at the height. One day they looked at each other and asked the only question that mattered: Why not ours?
Andrew Bell and Andy Armstrong had spent decades making other people's beer famous. Through their import agency, Atlantic Spirits and Wines, they built brands, grew portfolios, and cultivated relationships with the NSLC that most brewers spent years trying to earn. They knew the industry not as outsiders looking in, but as the people quietly holding the door open for everyone else.
It was a smart business. And for a long time, it was enough. But the pattern kept repeating: they'd grow a brand to real momentum, then watch it get absorbed into something larger—a national agency, a bigger deal—leaving Andy and Andrew with a handshake and an empty listing slot. In 2015, they stopped asking why and started answering how. They launched Spindrift Brewing Company in Dartmouth, with thirty-plus years of hard-won knowledge and zero illusions about the road ahead.
An unfashionable bet
The Recall that built trust
Beer Without the Pretense
BestSeller Spotlight
Toller Gold Lager
The lager has always been the honest beer—no frills to hide behind, nowhere for imperfection to live. In the tradition of the great North American lagers, Toller Gold is an exercise in clarity: clean fermentation, a gentle bitterness, and a finish that asks nothing of you except to have another.
What Makes It Special: Toller was launched in 2019 at a moment when craft beer's prestige brands were heading in the opposite direction—more complex, more expensive, more exclusive. Burnside went the other way. Easy-drinking, four-percent approachability. Launched first in a 24-pack format that nobody else in Nova Scotia was offering, it arrived on the market like a quiet argument: great beer doesn't have to be a special occasion. The Gold now anchors the Toller family alongside the light lager, and together they're the bestselling products the brewery has ever made. Cold, consistent, and deeply easy to enjoy.
Killick
Named after the makeshift anchor used by Atlantic fishermen—a stone lashed to a wooden frame, dropped to hold position in uncertain waters—Killick is a beer that knows where it stands.
What Makes It Special: Born in 2017 through a partnership with the Devour Food Film Fest, Killick was Burnside's first real statement of intent. A Munich Helles-style lager—though you won't find that on the can—it's brewed with Saaz hops from the Czech-German growing regions and a specialty Heidelberg malt that gives it a faint, pleasant acidity, almost a gentle tang. The result is what you might call a European lager's disposition wrapped in a distinctly Nova Scotian can. Carlsberg drinkers recognize something familiar in it. Craft beer fans find something more considered. Killick exists happily in that in-between, which is, as it turns out, exactly where Burnside lives.
Happy Place Double IPA
Because even a lager-first brewery needs somewhere to let its hair down.
What Makes It Special: Burnside will be the first to tell you they don't chase trends—but that doesn't mean they ignore what people love. The Happy Place Double IPA is the brewery's concession to the undeniable fact that hop-forward big IPAs have earned their place in the craft canon. Bold, resinous, and unapologetically intense against the backdrop of all that clean lager, Happy Place is Burnside having fun. It doesn't compete with Toller for your Wednesday evening. It's more of a Friday night thing. That it sells as well as it does tells you something about the range of people who've found their way into the Burnside orbit—and decided to stay.
BestSeller Spotlight
Toller Gold Lager
The lager has always been the honest beer—no frills to hide behind, nowhere for imperfection to live. In the tradition of the great North American lagers, Toller Gold is an exercise in clarity: clean fermentation, a gentle bitterness, and a finish that asks nothing of you except to have another.
What Makes It Special: Toller was launched in 2019 at a moment when craft beer's prestige brands were heading in the opposite direction—more complex, more expensive, more exclusive. Burnside went the other way. Easy-drinking, four-percent approachability. Launched first in a 24-pack format that nobody else in Nova Scotia was offering, it arrived on the market like a quiet argument: great beer doesn't have to be a special occasion. The Gold now anchors the Toller family alongside the light lager, and together they're the bestselling products the brewery has ever made. Cold, consistent, and deeply easy to enjoy.
Killick
Named after the makeshift anchor used by Atlantic fishermen—a stone lashed to a wooden frame, dropped to hold position in uncertain waters—Killick is a beer that knows where it stands.
What Makes It Special: Born in 2017 through a partnership with the Devour Food Film Fest, Killick was Burnside's first real statement of intent. A Munich Helles-style lager—though you won't find that on the can—it's brewed with Saaz hops from the Czech-German growing regions and a specialty Heidelberg malt that gives it a faint, pleasant acidity, almost a gentle tang. The result is what you might call a European lager's disposition wrapped in a distinctly Nova Scotian can. Carlsberg drinkers recognize something familiar in it. Craft beer fans find something more considered. Killick exists happily in that in-between, which is, as it turns out, exactly where Burnside lives.
Happy Place Double IPA
Because even a lager-first brewery needs somewhere to let its hair down.
What Makes It Special: Burnside will be the first to tell you they don't chase trends—but that doesn't mean they ignore what people love. The Happy Place Double IPA is the brewery's concession to the undeniable fact that hop-forward big IPAs have earned their place in the craft canon. Bold, resinous, and unapologetically intense against the backdrop of all that clean lager, Happy Place is Burnside having fun. It doesn't compete with Toller for your Wednesday evening. It's more of a Friday night thing. That it sells as well as it does tells you something about the range of people who've found their way into the Burnside orbit—and decided to stay.
BestSeller Spotlight
Toller Gold Lager
The lager has always been the honest beer—no frills to hide behind, nowhere for imperfection to live. In the tradition of the great North American lagers, Toller Gold is an exercise in clarity: clean fermentation, a gentle bitterness, and a finish that asks nothing of you except to have another.
What Makes It Special: Toller was launched in 2019 at a moment when craft beer's prestige brands were heading in the opposite direction—more complex, more expensive, more exclusive. Burnside went the other way. Easy-drinking, four-percent approachability. Launched first in a 24-pack format that nobody else in Nova Scotia was offering, it arrived on the market like a quiet argument: great beer doesn't have to be a special occasion. The Gold now anchors the Toller family alongside the light lager, and together they're the bestselling products the brewery has ever made. Cold, consistent, and deeply easy to enjoy.
Killick
Named after the makeshift anchor used by Atlantic fishermen—a stone lashed to a wooden frame, dropped to hold position in uncertain waters—Killick is a beer that knows where it stands.
What Makes It Special: Born in 2017 through a partnership with the Devour Food Film Fest, Killick was Burnside's first real statement of intent. A Munich Helles-style lager—though you won't find that on the can—it's brewed with Saaz hops from the Czech-German growing regions and a specialty Heidelberg malt that gives it a faint, pleasant acidity, almost a gentle tang. The result is what you might call a European lager's disposition wrapped in a distinctly Nova Scotian can. Carlsberg drinkers recognize something familiar in it. Craft beer fans find something more considered. Killick exists happily in that in-between, which is, as it turns out, exactly where Burnside lives.
Happy Place Double IPA
Because even a lager-first brewery needs somewhere to let its hair down.
What Makes It Special: Burnside will be the first to tell you they don't chase trends—but that doesn't mean they ignore what people love. The Happy Place Double IPA is the brewery's concession to the undeniable fact that hop-forward big IPAs have earned their place in the craft canon. Bold, resinous, and unapologetically intense against the backdrop of all that clean lager, Happy Place is Burnside having fun. It doesn't compete with Toller for your Wednesday evening. It's more of a Friday night thing. That it sells as well as it does tells you something about the range of people who've found their way into the Burnside orbit—and decided to stay.
Meet the Brewers
Andrew Bell & Andy Armstrong
Industry veterans. Reluctant pioneers. The guys who finally built something for themselves.
Andrew Bell and Andy Armstrong didn't come to brewing as dreamers. They came as two industry veterans with over sixty years of combined experience, who had spent decades building other people's brands and watching them walk away at the height. The decision to start Burnside wasn't romantic — it was the logical conclusion of too many handshakes and empty listing slots. They knew the market, the regulations, the NSLC, and most importantly, what Nova Scotians actually reached for when the novelty of craft beer wore off.
What sets them apart isn't ambition — the industry is full of that. It's conviction. They built a brewery not to impress the craft beer world, but to serve the people who live and work in it. Their focus has never drifted from what their customers actually want. Ten years in, with four taprooms and a portfolio grown entirely on their own terms, they've built something rarer than a celebrated brewery — a trusted one.
Meet the Brewers
Andrew Bell & Andy Armstrong
Industry veterans. Reluctant pioneers. The guys who finally built something for themselves.
Andrew Bell and Andy Armstrong didn't come to brewing as dreamers. They came as two industry veterans with over sixty years of combined experience, who had spent decades building other people's brands and watching them walk away at the height. The decision to start Burnside wasn't romantic — it was the logical conclusion of too many handshakes and empty listing slots. They knew the market, the regulations, the NSLC, and most importantly, what Nova Scotians actually reached for when the novelty of craft beer wore off.
What sets them apart isn't ambition — the industry is full of that. It's conviction. They built a brewery not to impress the craft beer world, but to serve the people who live and work in it. Their focus has never drifted from what their customers actually want. Ten years in, with four taprooms and a portfolio grown entirely on their own terms, they've built something rarer than a celebrated brewery — a trusted one.
Meet the Brewers
Andrew Bell & Andy Armstrong
Industry veterans. Reluctant pioneers. The guys who finally built something for themselves.
Andrew Bell and Andy Armstrong didn't come to brewing as dreamers. They came as two industry veterans with over sixty years of combined experience, who had spent decades building other people's brands and watching them walk away at the height. The decision to start Burnside wasn't romantic — it was the logical conclusion of too many handshakes and empty listing slots. They knew the market, the regulations, the NSLC, and most importantly, what Nova Scotians actually reached for when the novelty of craft beer wore off.
What sets them apart isn't ambition — the industry is full of that. It's conviction. They built a brewery not to impress the craft beer world, but to serve the people who live and work in it. Their focus has never drifted from what their customers actually want. Ten years in, with four taprooms and a portfolio grown entirely on their own terms, they've built something rarer than a celebrated brewery — a trusted one.
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Collaborate with us to craft your story and make your customers fall in love with your unique journey.
© Rooted Tale 2025 All Rights Reserved
Designed with ❤️ for local brands.
Collaborate with us to craft your story and make your customers fall in love with your unique journey.
© Rooted Tale 2025 All Rights Reserved
Designed with ❤️ for local brands.
Collaborate with us to craft your story and make your customers fall in love with your unique journey.
© Rooted Tale 2025 All Rights Reserved
Designed with ❤️ for local brands.