Photo: Vice and Virtue

The owners of Red Bird Brewing have announced they have purchased Vice and Virtue Brewing Co. just days after it was revealed the brewery would change hands.

Vice and Virtue Brewing Co. announced Monday on their social media channels they had sold the brewery. Now we know the new owners are Perry Maxfield and his business partner Peter Glockner, who are part-owners of Red Bird Brewing located right across the street.

"We bought Vice and Virtue as Red Bird. We have a deal-in-principle. We'll be shutting it down at the end of the year to renovate, and then we'll be reopening in spring."

Maxfield says he and Glockner own the building that Vice and Virtue is located in and they wanted to make sure they had another good tenant so they bought the business, including all the brew pub equipment already in the building.

"It'll be a different concept, we'll rebrand it, and we'll renovate and come up with something cool."

Maxfield says they may keep some of the more popular beers and the brewing ability was a big reason for the purchase.

"They have a full 12 hectolitre brewhouse, that's what we purchased," says Maxfield.

There are also plans to add a coffee shop to go along with the Red Bird Roasting Lab which opened about a year ago on Richter Street.

"We just figured that's kind of the next horizon for us," says Maxfield who says whatever they decide to call the new restaurant bar, food will be a big part of the equation.

"The food program will be a big focus for us, but we'll do something different. I mean, Red Bird's concept is fun very family-oriented, and we want it to stay that way. So with our other restaurant, we're going to try something different. We'll have a food focus where we don't have it nailed down yet, we're working on it, and the beer will be just as important as well."

Maxfield is bullish on Kelowna's north end.

"We've been in the neighbourhood with Cellar-Tec since 2006, so we've seen a lot of changes in this area, and I like the direction it's going. We've got some really cool businesses opening across the street from us here. There's a wine bar going in. There's a new butcher shop there."

"The North End is really moving in the right direction."