The impressive and bright mural of our “La Pola” girl that now adorns the big yellow building on Powell Street will likely become a colourful landmark of the mostly industrial neighbourhood of “Yeast” Vancouver!

“Look who got some new ink!” – Eastvillagevan
“Gotta be the best exterior of a brewery in the province” – mikescraftbeer
“Looks so sweet! Can’t wait to have a cold one with that beauty.” – Parallel 49 Beer
“Your building looks amazing! Can’t wait for you to open!” – boomboxbrewing,
“It looks amazing! Nice work to everyone involved.” – the growlerbc
“Like a ray of sunshine” – bccraftbreweries

While Vancouver was being blanketed in white snow, La Pola’s emerging image brought a ray of sunshine to the the city’s landscape! Who is she? She is the poster girl of Andina Brewing Co. the new kid on the block and possibly the most anticipated new Vancouver brewery opening in 2017. The 60’ by 30’ image, created by an award winning Colombian illustrator and executed by a local company, took 16 days to complete, 30 4×8 routed panels and about 600 #6 x .5″ stainless machine screws.

The 60’ by 30’ image took 16 days to complete, 30 4×8 routed panels and about 600 #6 x .5″ stainless machine screws.

Although we brought in a South American artist to create our brand, the mural is very much a locally relevant and reflected piece of this neighbourhood. Because of the growing number of breweries that are emerging, the mostly industrial Yeast Vancouver is vibrating with cultural activity. We saw the building as a canvas, an opportunity to establish a connection with our urban space and to interact with the community creating an impressive conversation piece that brings some of the warmth and sunshine of our South American heritage.

Installation of La Pola at Andina Brewery

Leo Espinosa, the creator of the logo, and whose diverse work has been featured in animated series, children’s books, magazines and exhibitions around the world, comment, “to get the best out of the horizontal facade, we needed to deconstruct the verticality of the original logo. Creating that pose and avoiding the windows sure was a challenge, but I am really happy with the results. It’s a mix between a mural and a billboard. It evokes a classic advertising building sign and I hope that with time it becomes a landmark.”

This is the biggest sign that we have ever made.

“This is the biggest sign that we have ever made,” affirms Rob Shantz, owner of True North Signs, the local company in charge of manufacturing and installing the mural. “The building was laser measured and laid out in the computer to scale. Then we had to break up the image into 30 4×8 panels for vinyl/routing production, cut and apply 9 different colour self-adhesive vinyl and finally installed it over the existing corrugated sheet metal wall, while braving the snow and cold of the last few days”.

About Our Name

Both Andina (which means “woman from the Andes”), and beer (“cerveza”) are feminine nouns in the Spanish language. This beautiful smiling woman embodies some of the most representative attributes of the brewery; the spirit of celebration with friends and family, but also of hard work – two strong characteristics of the people from the Andes. She wears a traditional outfit used in fiestas and carnivals and is always ready to dance. Read more about our name…

Why Our Andina Girl Is Called “La Pola”

Pola is a Colombian slang word that means beer, and most significantly, is the nickname of Policarpa Salavarrieta, a heroine who sacrificed her life to help Colombia gain independence from the royal regime during the uprising against the Spanish rule, at the beginning of the 1800s.

About the Neighbourhood

Yeast Van, is not an official name. A Parallel 49 employee coined the nickname for this area of East Vancouver with the highest concentration of craft breweries. There are twelve in total, nine of which have opened in the last three years. At least two more are in the works. That’s more than 10 per cent of B.C.’s breweries clustered within short cycling distance.