First Bites - July 2022 - Beat the Heat

Frozen Fruit
Agustin Ibanez, the owner of MaxFrut, started his company with the idea of changing up the Mexican ice pop known as a paleta, with a view to introducing healthy snacks into schools. He operates the company with partner Maria Rizzo. “Traditionally, the paleta can be quite sweet. We focused on putting in more fruit and using less sugar,” Ibanez says. MaxFrut’s line of frozen fruit pops includes an impressive array of flavours, drawing on fruits and vegetables including raspberries, watermelon, cucumber, lime, mango, tamarind and hibiscus. There are also seasonal blends such as blueberry lavender, vanilla peppermint bark and chocolate peppermint.

“The recipes are created by trial and error,” says Ibanez, who relies on a core group of family and friends to test new fla- vours. The frozen bars often have pieces of fruit incorporated into them. Ibanez says he wants customers “to have the same sensation as eating fruit. We go through a long process of adjustment because we want to get it right.”

The company sells its frozen fruit bars primarily through hot lunch programs and fundraising events, often operated by parent advisory councils. Luckily, going back to school isn’t the only way to get them. The refreshing snacks can also be found in small local shops, in a veritable rainbow of flavours, primarily on the North Shore and in community centres.

MaxFrut
maxfrut.ca | @maxfrut_bars

Find it at: Capilano Market, End of the Line General Store (North Vancouver), Bean around the World (West Vancouver), Commercial Street Cafe, Panaderia Latina Bakery, Jackson’s General Store, Sazón Mexican Cuisine

Hop to It
The fact that Steve Forsyth, founder of Off the Rail Brewing, is brewing another beverage with hops just makes sense. “I love hops. I have a brewery. I used to grow hops,” he says.

The name Off the Rail is a nod to Vancouver’s famed Railway Club, which Forsyth’s family owned between 1982 and 2008. In 2009, Forsyth set himself up on an acreage near Mission and began growing hops. Later, in 2014, Forsyth founded Off The Rail.

More recently, a friend in the U.S. told Forsyth about a new product that was appearing on shelves there — hop water — non-alcoholic, carbonated water, flavoured with hops. “I got some samples from my friend and after tasting it, I thought I could do better,” says Forsyth, confident that his experience in brewing and growing would assist him.

Forsyth did the first test for his hop water using his SodaStream and some hops he grew in his front yard. He launched the first product in January 2021. Bine Sparkling Hop Water is flavoured with Centennial and Simcoe hops, which, according to the brewery’s website, gives the beverage a hop flavour “without the bitterness associated with hops.” A second, herbal version draws on a bouquet of coriander and juniper mixed with Cascade and Comet hops. Forsyth says it’s a natural for a mixer with your favourite local gin. A third version, containing mango, plays off the fruit-forward hops that Forsyth imports from Yakima in Washington state.

And if you are wondering about the name, Forsyth says, “it’s called Bine because hops grow on bines not vines.”

Off the Rail Brewing Co.
1351 Adanac St., Vancouver, B.C.
offtherailbrewing.com | @offtherailbeer

Find it: online, at the brewery and at Famous Foods (Vancouver)

Make mine a sandwich
“Growing up, it was more normal for me to have ice cream sandwiches for a birthday than to have cake,” says Asacia Biln, the owner of Main Street’s Innocent Ice Cream Sandwiches. The name Innocent harkens back to what Biln calls “a time of carefree innocence” when she was growing up in the Slocan Valley. She and her mother often made their own ice cream from the cream obtained from local farmers. Their method, perhaps familiar to some, involved filling a small coffee can with a cream mixture and packing it, along with ice into the centre of a larger coffee can, which could be sealed and rolled on the ground.

Later, living in Vancouver, Biln started making ice cream sandwiches for friends and family. “I started getting requests from friends, then from friends of friends and then from people I didn’t even know,” she explains. The demand led to a tricycle with cooler compartment, from which she began selling her wares at the beach, and later to a food truck in English Bay. In 2017, her third year, with some help from her mother, Biln purchased an existing business on Main Street and set up her brick and mortar location where she has been ever since.

Innocent Ice Cream sandwiches feature gluten-free cookies and either dairy or vegan ice cream in multiple flavours. Boxes of three mini-sandwiches in delightful pink packaging can be customized like a jewel box of colours and flavours. Larger boxes of six or 20 are available for pre-order online.

In addition, Biln offers delivery of coolers of seven different sizes, packed with ice cream sandwiches, for everything from beach picnics and corporate lunch events to birthday parties. The tricycle, with a capacity of 500 sandwiches, can also be rented for weddings or larger events.

Innocent Ice Cream
4895 Main St., Vancouver, B.C.
innocenticecream.com | @innocenticecream