I have two culinary vices, both regularly ingested as liquids. One is coffee… and probably the hardest to give up. The other is craft beer.

So it was with astonishment and delight that I found a spot that caters to both these vices, in Innisfail, Alberta of all places.

The name says it all: Dark Woods Brewing & Coffee Roasting. Under one roof in this central-Alberta town, local brothers Nick and Scott Bell are brewing some 10 types of beer and roasting five varieties of coffee beans. Here’s a third thing they’re doing in-house—slow roasting barbecue meats in backyard smokers for their taproom handhelds.

So of course, when I hit the taproom recently, I had to go for the trifecta. That involved a Daines Ranch pulled-pork sandwich (10-hour smoked port butt), washed down with a Gnarly Stump IPA and chased with a dark-roast coffee.

How much better does it get than that?

Note: Dark Woods also runs a coffee booth at the new Red Deer Farmers’ Market

Dark Woods Brewing & Coffee Roasting
4720 50 Street, Innisfail, Alberta
Taproom opens 7 am weekdays and 10 am weekends
403-227-3630