BKonthescene

The Beloved Canadian Rock Institution Brews a Hometown Tribute With Four Winds and Barnside, Uncovers a Previously Unavailable Recording, and Hits the Road From Delta to Toronto

Photo Credit: Trevor Cornish

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Legendary Canadian rock band 54-40 are raising a glass to the place that made them. The Vancouver area mainstays have teamed with Four Winds Brewing and Barnside Brewing to create Ocean Pearl, a West Coast lager named for one of their best loved songs, and they are pairing the launch with a previously unavailable track called “Travel With Jack” along with packed summer tour that carries them clear across the country.

The collaboration is a true homecoming, brewed from shared South Delta roots. The three partners each carry a piece of that community in their DNA, and the founders of Four Winds were once neighbours to the Osborne family home. “Our formative years in the band originated in South Delta, the Tsawwassen area,” says 54-40 bassist Brad Merritt. The result is Ocean Pearl, an easy drinking West Coast lager made with Delta grown Cascade and Vista hops cultivated just down the road in Barnside’s fields, pouring pale straw with bright notes of citrus, soft pine and a clean, dry finish. It is, fittingly, a toast to the music, the coast and the places that shape us.

The beer pours for the first time on June 20, when 54-40 headline the Barns to Beaches Festival at the Tsawwassen Southlands. The festival doubles as the launch of the City of Delta’s new 16-kilometre Barns to Beaches bike route connecting north Ladner and Tsawwassen, with a community ride beginning and ending at Southlands. Ocean Pearl is available now on tap at both Four Winds locations and at select BC liquor stores.

To mark the occasion, the band is sharing something special for longtime listeners. A new digital compilation gathers fan favourites alongside “Travel With Jack,” a previously unavailable recording making its debut as part of the celebration.

For 54-40, this moment sits naturally within one of the great enduring stories in Canadian music. Founders Neil Osborne and Brad Merritt met as high school friends in Tsawwassen and have stood side by side ever since, building the band out of the early eighties Vancouver underground and playing their first show in December 1980. With drummer Matt Johnson anchoring the group for roughly four decades and guitarist Dave Genn rounding out the lineup, they have spent a career crafting the melodic, introspective rock that became a defining strand of the Canadian sound.

Across that run, 54-40 helped shape a national identity in rock alongside peers like The Tragically Hip and Blue Rodeo, and inspired the generations who followed, from Our Lady Peace to Arkells. Their deep catalogue of touchstones, from “Ocean Pearl” and “I Go Blind” to “Since When,” “One Day in Your Life” and “She La,” has kept them a fixture on Canadian radio and stages for more than forty years. Their most recent album ‘PORTO’, recorded in Portugal with longtime producer Warne Livesey and released in January 2026, reaffirmed a creative vitality that shows no signs of slowing.

Now the band brings that energy to a summer and fall of touring that spans the country, with the Ocean Pearl launch at Barns to Beaches just the beginning. From festival stages in British Columbia and the prairies to their annual stop at the Danforth Music Hall in Toronto, 54-40 continue to do what they have always done best, connecting with crowds night after night. As the band carries its catalogue and its newest offerings from coast to coast, Ocean Pearl gives fans one more way to share in the celebration.

54-40 Tour Dates:
June 20, Tsawwassen, BC, Barns to Beaches Festival
June 26, Bala, ON, The Kee to Bala
June 27, Oshawa, ON, BOND ST Event Centre
June 30, Gloucester, ON, Hard Rock Cafe Ottawa
July 1, Aurora, ON, Aurora Canada Day
July 3, Niagara on the Lake, ON, Jackson Triggs Amphitheatre
July 4, Kincardine, ON, Kincardine Scottish Festival
July 17, Red Deer, AB, Westerner Days
July 18, Surrey, BC, Fusion Festival
July 24, Taber, AB, Cornstock
July 25, Edmonton, AB, Taste of Edmonton
July 27, Invermere, BC, with Melissa Etheridge
August 2, Minto, MB, Rockin’ The Fields Festival
August 7, Drumheller, AB, Badlands Amphitheatre
August 14, Buffalo, NY, Outer Harbor Festival
August 16, Winnipeg, MB, Burt Block Party
August 22, Regina, SK, Shake the Lake Festival
September 12, Qualicum Beach, BC, Rock the Range
September 18, Oliver, BC, District Wine Village
October 2, Waterloo, ON, Maxwell’s
October 3, Sarnia, ON, Suncor Agora
October 9 and 10, Vancouver, BC, Commodore Ballroom
November 28, Toronto, ON, Danforth Music Hall