Podcasts about meet for a beer

This week I am featuring a very special episode from my other podcast - Let's Meet For A Beer!  If you enjoy the following conversation please subscribe to the Let's Meet For A Beer Podcast here.For episodes 30-35 of the Let's Meet for a Beer Podcast my friend Cam Dobranski, owner of Medium Rare Chef Apparel, is joining me as co-host!  Cam made some calls to his friends across Canada (who also happen to be world-class chefs) to see if they would join us to share their stories - and luckily they said yes!Today we connected with Todd Perrin, Chef and Owner of Mallard Cottage in Quidi Vidi, Newfoundland which was ranked #22 in Canada's Top Restaurants in 2018.  Todd has appeared on The Food Network's Top Chef Canada twice and also is a featured judge on Wall of Chefs.Todd is a passionate chef and thinks the concept of work-life balance is overrated!  On the podcast, he is very open about his journey as a restaurant owner and the challenges that the current pandemic has meant for him, his family and his team.  I'm grateful that he took the time to connect with us and I hope you enjoy the conversation.“I don't think about what I do as a job - it's my life.”  - Chef Todd PerrinTodd Perrin: Twitter | InstagramMedium Rare Chef Apparel: Website | Twitter | InstagramLet's Meet For A Beer: Website | Twitter | InstagramAlberta Beer Festivals: Website | Twitter | Instagram

This week on the Kondrat Podcast: a “Let’s Meet For A Beer” edition with Partake Brewing’s Founder and CEO Ted Fleming, who shares how a Crohn’s disease diagnosis led to him discovering a non-alcoholic beer landscape that didn’t satisfy his tastebuds, and how he’s solving that problem.Like many Albertans, Ted was a growing craft beer enthusiast in the early 2000s as a number of craft brewers throughout the US and BC started shipping their brews into the province. However in 2005 he received a Crohn’s disease diagnosis which meant that he would need to avoid beer because of the alcohol content. Ted admits that at first he didn’t take this too seriously, a decision that caught up with him while on a trip to Greece after the birth of his daughter - playing fast and loose with his consumption habits landed him a week in the hospital.After this he got into non alcoholic beer as a consumer, but discovered that the category was very boring. Wanting to enjoy some more variety, particularly while the variety of craft beer in the market was exploding, Ted started an online store for non alcoholic beer, brining in products from Europe with a larger variety. Running this store have him some exposure to the world of consumer packaged goods… and a foot in the door of the beer industry. Before long his customers started asking if he could get non alcoholic craft beer, so he began approaching brewers to ask if that was something they’d like to make and was largely laughed at.With craft brewers not taking the idea seriously Ted rolled up his sleeves and got ready to find other solutions to this problem. A college in Ontario had recently started up a brewing program, and while he admits that Partake probably wasn’t the initial client that the college would have expected, it has worked out very well for both of them, allowing them to secure a government grant for R&D funds, and to bring in a microbiology PhD and a former head brewer from Labatt, which gave them a level of credibility they wouldn’t have had with a traditional contract brewer.Once Partake was up and running in 2017 one of the big hurdles to overcome was the consumer perception of non alcoholic beer, which was made brutally obvious to Ted when he was told at a trade show that his product was “the dumbest idea ever.” And with the state of the non alcoholic category at the time, this wasn’t surprising. After all, Ted says that early on he was kind of solving his own problem of wanting a tastier non alcoholic beer. Today Partake is available in a number of grocery and liquor stores across Canada including Sobey's, Safeway, Loblaw’s, and Superstore, has a small team in both Calgary and Toronto, and is preparing to expand into the US after having just raised $4,000,000USD in funding. It has become much more than just a non alcoholic beer that satisfies Ted’s tastebuds, and with a 2018 World Beer Awards win for best non alcoholic beer, Partake Brewing is changing the landscape of non alcoholic beer and bringing craft beer to a whole new group of people who can socialize the way they want to while still being true to the health and wellness goals.— The Kondrat Podcast: website | facebookAlberta Beer Festivals: website | twitter | instagramTed Fleming - Partake Brewing: website | twitter | instagram | facebook

Let’s Meet For A Beer is now The Kondrat Podcast, and the first guest for the new format is Shaneel Pathak, CEO of ZoeInsights, sharing how they’re empowering people around the world to take control of their health data.Shaneel’s inspiration in founding ZoeInsights is a profoundly personal one, born out of the experience he and his late wife went through during her battle with cancer. With the health system initially not taking her concerns seriously, massive challenges just understanding the information around her diagnosis, and trying to retain, remember, and make sense of all the information that was being provided to them verbally or on paper they found themselves entrenched in information chaos and in need of a digital solution to keep them in control. His wife’s prognosis was initially dire having been told the remainder of her life would be measured in just months, but she was able to not just live but thoroughly enjoy her life for another four years because the two had been determined to become “citizen scientists” by carefully tracking her health data, crowd sourcing the health data of others with the same diagnosis, making informed decisions about her care, and ultimately being able to tweak medications and treatments in order to improve the quality of her life. The goal of ZoeInsights is to make being a citizen scientist possible for everyone around the world, starting with taking control of medical files back from the current fragmented state of incomplete files spread across every doctor a person has ever seen, collecting all of this data in a central location that stays with the patient. From there, they’ll be using AI to help scale up analysis of health data, helping patients and their doctors make informed decisions, improving quality of life and quality of care for everyone. —The Kondrat Podcast: website Alberta Beer Festivals: website | twitter | instagramShaneel Pathak (ZoeInsights): website | twitter | instagram | facebook

This week’s guest, Jochen Fahr of Braureri Fahr, joins us this week to discuss his trans-continental history and his award winning beer.Jochen was “brewed and raised” in Germany, coming from a tiny town of just 300 people in the foothills of the Alps. Growing up (or brewing up?) Jochen had wanted to be chef, but in a radical departure he ended up going to university for bio chemical engineering. Through his schooling he spent a year long exchange at the University of Calgary doing neuroscience work, a decision he made based on the cheap cost of a flight to Calgary!Following his exchange at the U of C Jochen returned to Germany to complete his thesis before making his way back to Calgary once more in 2008 to start his Master’s in medical science followed by a PhD in bio medical engineering. However, Jochen claims that “PhD” stands for “permanent head damage”, a symptom of banging your head against the wall, which is something that only beer can cure.In a marriage between his love passion for cooking and his scientific background, Jochen incorporated Braureri Fahr in 2015 after quitting his job and figuring he could be a much better boss than the folks he had been working for. After 10 months of raising funds he started brewing his beer out of Toolshed, and by October 2017 he was brewing out of his own space in Turner Valley.Since the beginning consistency has been hugely important to him. Consistency in the quality of the beer (which nearly all follows the 1516 Purity Law) which has led to his many awards, and consistency in how he treats his employees and contributes to his community. Jochen is a huge advocate for being a good corporate citizen, with the brewery currently sponsoring a men’s and women’s curling team. He also is an advocate for responsible growth, not growth at any cost, and this is exemplified by his values of ensuring growth comes with rewards for his employees who helped make it possible.—Let’s Meet For A Beer: website | facebookAlberta Beer Festivals: website | twitter | instagramJochen Fahr - Fahr Brewery: website | twitter | instagram | facebook

If you’ve ever participated in “sober October” or had friends or family abstaining from drinking, whether that be for religious reasons, health reasons, or pregnancy, you’ve likely noticed there often aren’t many options for them and alcohol-centric venues beyond juice or pop. This week’s guest, Sexy AF Spirits founder and CEO Jo-Anne Reynolds, has just the thing.In recent years the availability of non-alcoholic brews has expanded in tandem with the explosion of craft beer. But for those who prefer a cocktail their sober options have been few and far between, and as Jo-Anne explains there are only so many shirley temples you can drink before you want something else. Handcrafted and made locally in Calgary, her line of alcohol free spirits are making a wide array of cocktails possible without an ounce of booze.In addition to learning about the many products already available of Sexy AF Spirits, such as their “Vir-gin” and “Triple Sexy”, Jo-Anne also helps us decode what some of the language in this sector means, with unexpected differences between “de-alcolized”, “non-alcoholic” and “alcohol free”. In the case of her alcohol free spirits, these products are produced without a single ounce of alcohol ever being part of the process, making them appropriate for just about anyone. And since you can follow most any traditional cocktail recipe without any modifications it is easier than ever for would-be sober bartenders.It’s hard to have any conversation about business these days without talking about the elephant in the room, COVID and how folks have adapted. In the case of Sexy AF Spirits, Jo-Anne was preparing to launch this brand just as COVID hit, and her plans for going B2B and primarily selling these through on-premise was uprooted overnight with bars and lounges closed. But in the Albertan tradition she quickly innovated and adapted, setting up an online store almost immediately along with a focus on how to videos and recipe books. With the world slowly re-opening she looks forward to distributing her products everywhere from bars to restaurants to grocery stores.—Let’s Meet For A Beer: website | facebookAlberta Beer Festivals: website | twitter | instagramJo-Anne Reynolds - Sexy AF Spirits: website | twitter | instagram | facebook

Medicine Hat Brewing Company’s Kaiden Vancuren joins the podcast this week to share the history of brewing in Medicine Hat, and a look at how this family run business came to be.The original Medicine Hat Brewing Company back in 1912, located on Medicine Hat’s Industrial Ave. Roughly a decade later as Alberta was beginning prohibition the brewery was shut down in 1923. Now nearly a century later the Vancuren family has dusted off the name and opened an all new Medicine Hat Brewing Company, regularly paying homage to the original through the theme of the brewery and even the names of their beers, in a tradition Kaiden refers to as “history in a can”The Vancuren clan have been passionate about craft beer for quite some time, regularly working brewery visits into their family vacations, and when Kaiden’s father sold a few businesses in the oil industry back in 2016 it presented a great opportunity for them to take the dive and get into craft beer. Since then they’ve had an incredible reception throughout southern Alberta, and have even successfully expanded their brand into Saskatchewan and Manitoba, and hope to soon to expand into the US as well. These days Kaiden’s father is stepping a bit further back from the business, leaving big shoes for Kaiden to fill, but he feels well equipped with the wealth of great advice and guidance that’s been passed down between generations. —Let’s Meet For A Beer: website | facebookAlberta Beer Festivals: website | twitter | instagramKaiden Vancuren - Medicine Hat Brewing Company: website | twitter | instagram | facebook

This week’s episode features XhAle Brew Co’s Christina Owczarek sharing her plans to expand this contract brewing brand into a destination brewery that gives people the space to breathe easy.Christina’s story begins across the globe in Melbourne Australia where she was born and raised. She learned just 3 years ago about her self described super-power of ADD, which as she explains provides a lot of context for her educational background - jumping from performing arts to dance to education to music business, and finally physical education. Like her varied educational background she held a wide variety of jobs on the journey from Australia to Canada, nearly all of which somehow related to kinesthetics and teaching.Her interest in brewing began just over a decade ago seeing an ex’s home brewing setup in Santa Rosa and thinking “there’s a lot of science-y things going on in here, and I bet I could do this better.” Since then she spent an enormous amount of time travelling throughout Canada and the US visiting craft breweries, and even had the privilege of making friends with the folks who helped get craft beer legends Lagunitas up and running.Back here in Alberta she’s got huge plans for XhAle, which is starting out doing contract brewing with a potentially controversial, politically charged beer launching this October just in time for the US election. Christina’s penchant for social and political commentary will be a common theme for XhAle, which is hugely evident in her plans for the future physical brewery, which if it ends up in Alberta will be the province’s first cooperative employee owned brewery, making it possible for her to give people more than just a job.—Let’s Meet For A Beer: website | facebookAlberta Beer Festivals: website | twitter | instagramChristina Owczarek - XhAle Brew Co: twitter | instagram | facebook

Mike Patriquin of Hell’s Basement joins the show along with brewer Ty Pyette to discuss their brewery, Medicine Hat’s first since prohibition, named for Rudyard Kipling's comments after seeing coal workers burn off pockets of natural gas that the area had “all hell for a basement"Mike had first moved to Medicine Hat in 2014 and had thoughts about starting a brewery, and after meeting a few other guys with the same plan at Beerfest in 2015 they decided to join forces and in just 6 months they were up and running, a much different timeline than most brewers. At the time they were Medicine Hat’s only craft brewery but since then two more and a distillery have popped up, and true to the Alberta craft culture they’ve been big collaborators.Ty was born and raised from Montana, getting into craft beer young after stealing a home brewing kit from his dad at 14 years old. He fell in love with the process and wanted to get into the craft beer industry, but with the legal drinking age being 21 in the states he didn’t want to wait. This brought him up to Alberta to the renowned Olds College brewing program, and fresh out of school he found his way to Hell’s Basement. Ty has now decided that he wants to make Canada his permanent home and applied for permanent residency just days before this interview was recorded!Toward the end of our interview we’re also joined by Chris Istace, an outdoors and travel writer working closely with Zen Seekers and Tourism Medicine Hat on a spotlight of Alberta’s Highway 3, including what he calls a “brewery corridor,” brining local tourists from across Alberta into the doors of great breweries such as Hell’s Basement.— Let’s Meet For A Beer: website | facebookAlberta Beer Festivals: website | twitter | instagramMike Patriquin & Ty Pyette - Hell’s Basement: website | twitter | instagram | facebookChris Istace: website | twitter | instagram | facebook

Lifelong friends turned business partners Cael Tucker and Mike MacLeod join the podcast this week to talk about their journey in launching Tailgunner Brewing, named for Mike’s grandfather and in memory of the greatest generation.Mike’s grandfather was a tailgunner in a Lancaster bomber during the second world war, flying 4 successful missions before being shot down by the nazis, being captured, and then held as a POW for nearly three years before the war ended. But this was not a story that Mike’s grandfather told openly, and Mike really only learned the details of this story when reading his grandfather’s informal memoirs. Knowing the importance of remembering not just his grandfather’s story but the stories of all those in the greatest generation who made sacrifices, Remember is at the core of Tailgunner’s brand.Not just lifelong friends and brewery business partners, Mike and Cael have a long history of working together as well in the construction industry. Having a lot history of managing teams, the guys have a lot to share about the importance of creating the company culture you want to see, and how this starts right at the hiring process by making sure the people who want to join the team will be stewards of your culture.—Let’s Meet For A Beer: website | facebookAlberta Beer Festivals: website | twitter | instagramMike MacLeod & Cael Tucker - Tailgunner Brewing: website | instagram | facebook

This week Lucas McCarthy, Founder and CEO of Showpass, calls into the podcast to talk about how this event ticketing service is innovating at a time when events are all but illegal. The ticketing industry is dominated by big, long-term players that typically either don’t take a very involved approach to their clients’ event organizing needs, or collect massive fees and are slow to pay out, or use outdated technology, or potentially all three. The lower ticket side of this industry is also heavily saturated, but those providers often suffer from the same problems as the big players.Lucas saw this and recognized an opportunity to fulfill the long awaited needs of event organizers, and Showpass arrived to make that happen. Showpass takes a much more active role in helping organizers build their business and plan their events, almost like an extension of the organizers themselves. Alberta Beer Festivals is a great example of this, with Josh from the Showpass team being, for all intents and purposes, a member of the ABF team when the festivals happen.But it isn’t just a high level of involvement with their clients that sets Showpass apart. It’s also their highly effective technology, and their commitment to innovation. With COVID-19 making it hard to plan events at all, Lucas and the Showpass team knew that entertainment would still need to play a big part in keeping people happy. This led to revolutionary new ideas like their hotel balcony concerts, a brand new format called Sessions that allow musicians to keep performing without doing it in person, and they’re even looking at ways to incorporate augmented reality and motion capture to make virtual and live concerts at the same time a possibility. We also take some time to discuss how winning motivates Lucas in all parts of his life, some of his previous surprising forays into entrepreneurship, and why he hates the term “disruptor"— Let’s Meet For A Beer: website | facebookAlberta Beer Festivals: website | twitter | instagramLucas McCarthy - Showpass: website | twitter | instagram | facebook

On the final stop of our road trip through central Alberta we drop in to Red Deer institution Bo’s Bar and Stage to talk with owner Brennen Wowk about changing Red Deer from a city bands drive through between Edmonton and Calgary to a tour stop they can’t miss.“If you went to RDC, you know Bo’s”Bo’s first opened in 1996 and has long been a staple in Red Deer, especially for the local college kids. When Brennen took over in 2010 he had big ambitions for the venue ranging from supporting the local community, being an early adopter of Alberta craft beer, and of course putting Red Deer on the map as a place for live music.Brennen has been a part of the liquor industry for two decades, before Bo’s operating a number of liquor stores. One day in 2010 he got a hot tip from a beer rep that the iconic bar would be going up for sale. He originally didn’t think he’d want to take on another business, but popped by a for a Wednesday night wing night (one of the few around at the time), and 4 days later he owned a bar.Bo’s in 2010 vs Bo’s in 2020 are very different places, and Brennen is massively proud of what he’s been able to accomplish. — Let’s Meet For A Beer: website | facebookAlberta Beer Festivals: website | twitter | instagramBrennen Wowk - Bo’s Bar and Stage website | twitter | instagram | facebookBud Kelly - Troubled Monk: website | twitter | instagram | facebook

The next stop on our central Alberta road trip is Bud’s old stomping grounds of Innisfail to chat with Nick Bell of Dark Woods Brewing & Coffee Roasting about this unique business that keeps their customers going through late nights and early mornings.Dark Woods is made up of a twin-brother duo, with Nick in the role of Master Roaster and his brother Scott in the Brewmaster seat. Entrepreneurship runs in their family, with their dad running Innisfail’s local Napa store for 3 entire decades. But Nick’s dad and his business prowess isn’t just an inspiration for Nick, it was also a key stepping stone in the growth of Dark Woods, as Nick and Scott began by selling off-sale beer out of the back of the Napa store.This off sale arrangement lasted a full year before building the space they occupy now, and when building out the taproom they recognized a big opportunity in what many would see as a restriction. With taprooms in Alberta not being able to operate before 10am they added coffee roasting to their operation so they could start serving customers and generating revenue first thing in the morning. Selling coffee in the mornings would prove to be a very important decision, as it allowed them to keep the doors open for take-out coffee when COVID hit and caused most other breweries to shut their taproom doors. In addition to coffee keeping them going they began offering home delivery like many brewers, but with a twist Nick calls the pay it forward beer program where customers would buy beer for a friend. This turned out to be unbelievably popular with many choosing to do it anonymously, and as you can imagine a lot of people enjoyed having free beer show up at their house. Dark Woods started getting calls and emails who’d never heard of them before, and Nick says that the program wasn’t just a huge marketing success, but that it saved their business.— Let’s Meet For A Beer: website | facebookAlberta Beer Festivals: website | twitter | instagramNick Bell - Dark Woods Brewing & Coffee Roasting: website | twitter | instagram | facebookBud Kelly - Troubled Monk: website | twitter | instagram | facebook

Tory Manywounds of Original 403 joins the podcast this week to discuss his recent transition from liquor inspector with the AGLC to liquor agency owner, and his excitement about switching teams.During his time with the AGLC Tory broke the mould of what many licensees expected out of their inspector. Looking to flip the script from being heavily enforcement focused and following the mantra of “read the handbook” like many before him, Tory recognized the huge level of integrity throughout the Alberta brewing and distilling industry and understood that these producers were trying to run small businesses and create opportunities for people in their communities, and a helping hand to avoid misinterpreting policy went a long way.Tory hopes to take this to the next level with the consulting arm of Original 403, and hopefully bridge the gap between producers and the AGLC. Not unlike being able to download workout routines on YouTube but still hiring a personal trainer to get your best workout, Tory will be acting like an AGLC policy personal trainer for producers who want more than just reading the handbook for guidance.In addition to consulting, Original 403 will be looking to bring new products to shelves in Alberta liquor stores that will compliment rather than directly compete with the many craft producers. The first product he’s working on will be something a little different, not quite a non-alcoholic beer, not quite a ready-to-drink: hopped water. While this product has been around in the US for a little bit it’s brand new to Alberta and great of people who want to enjoy the hoppy flavour of beer in a non-beer vessel.We also get the opportunity to discuss Tory’s true passion: art. He’s been an artist for many years, dabbling in abstract art, resin art, as well as jewelry, and he feels that this artistry flows perfectly into what he’s doing now in the beverage world“I want the future to be bright, and if I can be part of that future, that’d be cool"—Let’s Meet For A Beer: website | facebookAlberta Beer Festivals: website | twitter | instagramTory Manywounds - Original 403: instagram | facebook

Our central Alberta road trip continues, and this week takes us to the town of Rimby, Alberta for a chat with Hawk Tail Brewery’s Derek Nordstrom about supporting all things local and the importance of a diverse ownership group.Hawks are wild, they’re free, and they’re a symbol of Alberta. They’re also found in regions all around the world, so a name like Hawk Tail resonates in almost any market where Derek and his co-owners would want to take the brand. For now that means locally in their taproom in the small town of Rimby, Alberta. Their taproom has become wildly known not just for their great beer but also for their fantastic food, with folks traveling from as far as Lethbridge just to try their charcuterie board. The atmosphere of the taproom and the tasty food didn’t happen by accident, and had their ownership group been less diverse it may not have happened at all. Derek explains that the men in the group had a very simple vision: Beer. Would they have a taproom? Probably. What would it look like? Perhaps some 2x4’s for a bar and a few lawn chairs. Thankfully they weren’t in this alone and the women in their ownership group had a much clearer vision: a space and an experience that people would be willing to drive across the province for, and that’s exactly what they ended up with.The experience that their loyal supporters come for is driven by Hawk Tail’s support for their own community. This starts with the food in the taproom, pretzels sourced from a local coffee shop, and ribs from a local butcher. It continues with how they’re giving back to their community, like donating 15% of their sales to the Rimby food bank during the COVID quarantine, or their Community Takes Flight initiative where they support a different community group every month using the proceeds from every flight of beers sold in the taproom. “I'm just shocked that we built something that people want to drive for"— Let’s Meet For A Beer: website | facebookAlberta Beer Festivals: website | twitter | instagramDerek Nordstrom - Hawk Tail Brewery: website | instagram | facebookBud Kelly - Troubled Monk: website | twitter | instagram | facebook

For this and the next few episodes Troubled Monk’s Bud Kelly joins the podcast as an (un?)official co-host during a Central Alberta road trip, and our first stop was to see Jarod Griesbach of Red Hart Brewing for a chat about brewing craft beer that isn’t just for “big city types."The inspiration for Red Hart brewing started on a canoeing trip with a group of friends. He and his future business partners were having a discussion about creating a business you could be proud of, and with the help of at least a few beers they had a fantastic idea to start a brewery. When it still seemed like a pretty good idea the next morning they knew they were onto something.While living in Edinburgh for a year Jarod fell in love with their pub culture. He discovered that folks there weren’t hanging out in their houses, they were hanging out in the community living room — the local pub. Jarod has been thrilled to see the same “community living room” culture happen in the taproom at Red Hart, but is quick to point out that this culture isn’t something you can create, it just happens organically.We also discuss Central Alberta’s unique beer culture which Jarod mostly jokingly says is way better than the beer culture in Calgary or Edmonton, which he at least partially attributes to the closer connection that they have to their farms. This connection to their farms plays a big part in how supportive the community is of their brewery, and Jarod is thrilled about how excited people get when they find out that all the ingredients in their beer are local, the hops, the malt, everything. When they brewed their 2019 Wet Hop Pale Ale every single ingredient was sourced within 7km of the brewery, and they were lined up for 3 straight days with folks wanting a pint of their own.“I did not expect people to be that passionate about supporting local"—Let’s Meet For A Beer: website | facebookAlberta Beer Festivals: website | twitter | instagramJarod Griesbach - Red Hart Brewing: website | twitter | instagram | facebookBud Kelly - Troubled Monk: website | twitter | instagram | facebook

Distilling is an exercise in patience, barrelling a spirit and then waiting for fermentation to work its magic. For this week’s guest, Tomas Romero of Romero Distilling, this wait is about to pay off, with more than 170 barrels of rum nearly ready to be bottled in this distillery that is the first of its kind in western Canada.Romero Distilling is the only rum focused distillery in western Canada, and in addition to a history of the business Tomas treats us to a history of rum in western Canada during prohibition, a story that goes back more than a century. In 1916 Alberta enacted prohibition, making it illegal to sell alcoholic beverages within the province, which would last for nearly a decade until prohibition was repealed in 1924. At first this led to Albertans looking to BC to quench their thirst, but only a year later BC would enact prohibition as well, turning thirsty Albertan’s sights to the US. At this time the majority of spirits smuggled into Alberta was primarily vodka and whisky, but this would change when the US also enacted prohibition in 1920. Earning their name, rum runners would then begin to import rum by ship through ports in BC, causing an influx of this sweeter spirit.95 years after prohibition in Alberta ended Tomas and his father Diego founded Romero Distilling together right here in Calgary, barrelled their first batch of rum on July 12th 2019, and opened their tasting room to the public last October. This distillery takes being a family business seriously, with Tomas’ wife working in their tasting room, and a second father-son duo works at the distillery with the Romeros. During the year they’ve been waiting for their rum to be ready to bottle they’ve collaborated with Village Brewing on a beer, aptly named Rum Runner, and during the COVID-19 pandemic they’ve helped serve the community by manufacturing hand sanitizer during a period of panic buying.What’s next once their delicious rum gets bottled? Eventually they hope to ship their spirits across Alberta, into BC, and potentially the pacific northwest in the US, but they’ll be looking at Calgary first: “People want to support their local brand."— Let’s Meet For A Beer: website | facebookAlberta Beer Festivals: website | twitter | instagramTomas Romer - Romero Distilling website | twitter | instagram | facebook

Serial entrepreneurs are a regular fixture on the podcast, but this week’s guest got started early at just 12 years old. Lifelong entrepreneur Avi Butalia drops by to talk about the many businesses he’s contributed to, especially his current role as Owner, Baus, and Janitor at BLKWTR Creative.Proudly called the “un-agency”, BLKWTR sheds the trappings of a traditional creative agency. Unlike other agencies that operate for themselves first, full of experts who believe they know more about your business than you do, BLKWTR doesn’t chase agency awards, they chase success for their clients. They recognize the pain points many businesses experience with creative agencies and provide value by acting as the marketing department of their clients’ businesses, making it possible for their clients to access a huge variety of marketing and creative services when and as they need them.This client-first approach is made possible by Avi’s vast experience on the other side of the table. At just 12 years old he started his own business delivering flyers for Safeway and London Drugs in Northwest Calgary, giving him early experience in managing a team and learning accountability. In his early 20s he identified a gap in the women’s sporting goods market and started retail operation Helia Sports, which won best new concept store from Nike, Adidas, and Puma in their first year of business. After Helia Avi started ticketing company Zoobis, breaking the local monopoly of ticketing giant Ticketmaster, and later partnering with with a competitor in the sector to form Showpass, a marriage of amazing technology and amazing experience for their customers.Avi also shares some insight into his philosophy around workplace culture. While it is not uncommon for companies to use the term “family” to refer to their team members Avi takes this to heart. When COVID19 hit Alberta many employees in other companies were laid off, but Avi understood that families have to weather the storm together. This meant not only that nobody in the BLKWTR family would lose their jobs, but that as the head of their workplace family Avi would need to step up and make sure that his team wasn’t just financially taken care of but that their mental health cared for too. To help with this, especially for employees who were living alone, Avi made sure they were in touch with each other every day over video calls, and even dropped off care packages for them which often included some beers for the team to enjoy together virtually.“You spend a third of your life at work. You should enjoy that environment, and that environment should be supportive, and it should allow you to grow as an individual"— Let’s Meet For A Beer: website | facebookAlberta Beer Festivals: website | twitter | instagramAvi Butalia - BLKWTR Creative: website | twitter | instagram | facebook

John Moss, Senior Vice-President with CBRE Canada, joins the podcast this week to discuss his enormous passion for retail, and how the work he does with tenants and landlords helps to build great experiences for communities across Calgary as well as how he’s always striving for a win-win.John’s passion for the retail and service industry begins with the start of his own career, having spent 14 years in the restaurant & hospitality industry. After a job at a movie theatre John started a job as a bus boy at Tony Roma’s at 14 years old, where he worked for the next 7 years and continued in the restaurant industry after moving to Calgary. He’s worked at a number of Calgary fixtures such as Cowboys, The Whiskey, and The Palace, and during his time worked basically every role possible in a restaurant from serving to bartending to dishwashing to managing.His break into commercial real estate came after completing his Commerce degree at MRU, and a regular client of his working in real estate saw potential in him and encouraged him to change industries. He’d take his passion for the retail and service industry with him to CBRE, where he specializes in helping tenants find locations, negotiate deals, and enter the market with great brand awareness. “As i learned about the industry it was apparent that I needed to stay in retail"With the Alberta economy opening back up we also discussed the types of innovations he has seen in the industry both during the quarantine and now during re-opening, and how important it is for us to support local so not everybody has to be a victim of Amazon. John believes that these innovations coming from businesses in retail, hospitality, and personal services are exemplary of Calgarians and Albertans, and that it is in our nature to never give up.—Let’s Meet For A Beer: website | facebookAlberta Beer Festivals: website | twitter | instagramJohn Moss - CBRE: website | twitter | instagramRecorded at 722 World Bier Haus: website | facebook | twitter | instagram

President and Roaster at Wildcat Coffee Company and former Head Meadmaker for Fallentimber Meadery, Colin Ryan, joins the podcast this week to share his history as an innovator across the beverage industry.During Colin’s time at family run Fallentimber he and his brothers, all beer drinkers, recognized that the delicious meads they were producing weren’t necessarily an easy drinking beverage for a hot summer day, with the alcohol content often pushing 14%. This led to Colin creating a carbonated mead, basically changing the entire format of what a mead could be. This was a massive innovation for meadmakers across Canada and was the precursor to their now famous Meadjito.After leaving Fallentimber in 2016 Colin spent a stint working in the framing industry until early 2019 when things slowed down and he had an opportunity to reflect on his next endeavour. His love of coffee and a timely opportunity to take over a commercial space in Cremona, AB from an existing coffee roaster relocating to Ontario would set the stage Colin to found Wildcat Coffee Company. Colin shares some inside knowledge about how the coffee industry is like the beer industry, from the same collaborative and welcoming community, to a balance between science and art in roasting a great coffee. We also discuss how blending his beans allows him to ensure there’s always great coffee available to his consumers.—Let’s Meet For A Beer: website | facebookAlberta Beer Festivals: website | twitter | instagramColin Ryan - Wildcat Coffee Company website | instagram | facebook

This week’s guest on the podcast is Bryce Parsons, the Director of Distilling for Last Best. We talk about Bryce’s unexpected career transition from Nursing to Distilling, the long road to making a great whisky, as well as Last Best’s ambitious project of releasing 52 craft gins in a single year.Bryce’s previous career in nursing was a result of what he refers to as his equivalent of the “family farm.” His entire childhood his mother was a nurse and after moving to Vancouver Island his mother opened a nursing home. Bryce followed in these footsteps and obtained his nursing degree in Edmonton before moving back to the Island to work at the nursing home. However he would later feel the need for a change, which started with a google search - “how to become a distiller”At the time the options ahead of him were a school in Michigan and another in Scotland, the Heriot-Watt University. One weekend Bryce and a friend headed down to Portland to see the Director of Heriot-Watt’s brewing & distilling program give a talk, who he had the opportunity to meet and speak with, and he was encouraged to submit his application for the Brewing & Distilling Master’s program. Bryce would complete their 1 year Masters program plus an additional 6 months of research projects before returning briefly to Vancouver Island and then heading out to Alberta with his wife.Since coming to Alberta Bryce has joined the team at Bear Hill, and is now the Director of Distilling for Last Best. We learn a bit about their in-development whisky program and the enormous amount of time that goes into creating these spirits. Despite the 3 year minimum age for whisky in Canada he explains that a high quality whisky often takes much longer, and Last Best’s Distilling division is still in the process of creating the whiskys they’ll be proud to release. In the meantime they’ve created an incredibly well received gin program, which culminated in the release of 52 unique craft gins in just one year.— Let’s Meet For A Beer: website | facebookAlberta Beer Festivals: website | twitter | instagramBryce Parsons - Last Best Distilling: website | twitter | instagram | facebook

Like many craft brewers this week’s guest, Mike Foniok, started out homebrewing. But as we discuss, Mike’s approach to homebrewing was on a whole other level, including microscopes and a yeast lab, making him incredibly well prepared as a Founder and Brewer at Establishment Brewing."Ever since I touched homebrew equipment I was like ‘Man it'd be sweet to have a brewery right?' Little did I know how much it actually is!"Mike’s foray into homebrewing began more than a decade ago with his now-business-partner Brandon. They had gotten involved with local homebrew club The Cowtown Yeast Wranglers in pursuit of likeminded people to exchange ideas with, and Mike later became a certified beer judge. Under Establishment Brewing one of their core values has been preserving the passion and the fun around brewing, which is a challenge for many entrepreneurs turning their hobby into a business both in and outside of the craft beer industry. Mike and his partners achieve this in large part by basically brewing whatever they want, which he says is hugely rewarding. Brewing whatever they want is a big driver behind their barrel program, which includes more than 70 barrels for barrel aged beers such as sour beers. We talk a bit about how barrel aging beer can be scary and how there is a lot of risk involved. Mike shares a common analogy from one of his business partners, that barrel aged beer is a lot like a shopping cart with a broken wheel - you sort of know where it is going, and you know where you want it to go, but it still has a mind of its own.“I’m not the boss, the yeast is the boss!"—Let’s Meet For A Beer: website | facebookAlberta Beer Festivals: website | twitter | instagramMike Foniok - Establishment Brewing: website | twitter | instagram | facebook

As the province of Alberta begins to re-open, Let’s Meet For A Beer Isolation Edition comes to a close and we return to a full interview each week, now releasing every Friday! The first episode back is with brothers Andrew & Spencer Oswald of family operated Omen Brewing in Edmonton.Omen is a completely family owned brewery, operated by Andrew, Spencer, their brother, and their dad. The four of them have worked together in a number of other businesses before, but this is the first time they’ve gone into business together as equal partners, and say that this comes with a massive advantage since they can trust each other 100%.They've all independently spent time in Europe and fell in love with many of the dark beer styles available overseas, which has hugely influenced the beers that they offer with Spencer as their brewmaster. Of their 10 taps as many as 7 are typically dark beer styles, along with a gluten free beer available since one of their sisters-in-law is celiac. If you’re a fan of lighter styles of beers don’t worry, they’ve always got a couple available and they always say “don’t be afraid of the dark, we’ll keep a couple lights on for you."When the province of Alberta put social distancing guidelines into place in response to COVID-19 Omen’s taproom had to be closed, and the Oswalds were sure this would be the end of their 100% taproom focused brewery. However when they started offering delivery their business exploded! They’ve gone from brewing once a week prior to brewing two or three times each week as demand grows for their brews to be delivered.— Let’s Meet For A Beer: website | facebookAlberta Beer Festivals: website | twitter | instagramAndrew & Spencer Oswald - Omen Brewing: website | twitter | instagram | facebook

This episode Let’s Meet For A Beer becomes Let’s Meet For A Cider when Sunny Cider cofounders Tim Kitchen and Dennis Scanland join the show. We discuss how an urban farming company and a home cidery project evolved into a community centred Cidery making traditional 100% fruit cider using apples grown in communities across Calgary. Tim and Dennis first got to know each other as neighbours, living just down the block from each other in Calgary’s community of Sunnyside. Dennis had an urban farming company called Dirty Boys, which later morphed into YYC growers. For those who aren’t familiar, urban farming is the practice of growing vegetables in other people’s “donated land,” which in this case meant a quarter acre of land spread across many front and back yards in Calgary. These vegetables would then be sold to restaurants or farmer’s markets, with the owners of the land being compensated with a share of the harvest, or “the rent was mostly vegetables” as Dennis put it. As part of the urban farming business Dennis got his hands on literal tonnes of apples and he and Tim would start out making cider in Tim’s garage as a hobby, and they tell us that their first couple batches of cider didn’t turn out all that great, but with after friendly advice they learned the trick to making that cider better, patience. By 2017 they’d be collectively harvesting 20,000kg of apples around the city and thought if there was this much fruit available they might as well make a go of it and turn this into a proper cidery. After two years and a surprise visit from the AGLC, they’d open the doors of Sunny Cider in May of 2019. Regular listeners of the show and supporters of Calgary’s brewing industry will already be familiar with community being a common focus in the space, but Sunny Cider is unique in that their community project came first, and they built the cidery from there. While Sunny Cider may not be located in it’s namesake community of Sunnyside, they continue to source a huge portion of their fruit from communities across Calgary, working with community centres to create fruit drop offs so they can get their hands on the amazing apples, pears, and other local fruits that make for great cider. Tim sums up their approach perfectly: “I didn’t set out to make great cider, it came as a result of working to make a strong community" — Let’s Meet For A Beer! Alberta Beer Festivals: website | twitter | instagram Tim Kitchen & Dennis Scanland - Sunny Cider: website | twitter | instagram

This week we’re joined by [Prairie Dog Brewing] co-founder Laura Coles. We talk about their gigantic BBQ and smoker at the taproom (the largest in Canada!) and how she and her four co-founders have created a business that they’d want to work in as employees, not just owners. Being community-focused and taking care of each other is a staple of the Calgary craft brewing industry, but Prairie Dog Brewing has taken the unique step of building this right into their business plan with what Laura calls the “triple bottom line” approach: People, Planet, and Profit. On the People side, Prairie Dog Brewing proudly pays all their staff a living wage and offers benefits for every single full-time employee. However unlike many businesses where “full-time” means spending 40 hours of your week at work, Prairie Dog considers every employee who works more than 20 hours each work to be a full-time member of their team. They’ve worked hard to provide a space that is highly inclusive not just to their staff but also their patrons, creating an environment where everyone can feel welcome. Looking at Planet, Laura and the team have taken a hyper local approach to their brewery. They’ve taken strong measures to ensure the sustainability of their brewery & taproom, with considerations throughout their supply chain all the way down to the water they use to brew. The hyper local approach means that you’ll basically only find their beer at the taproom as they believe in serving great beer and BBQ to their immediate community rather than competing with other craft brewers for shelf space at retail. Of course all businesses have to focus on Profit, and this brewery’s roadmap to profitability is inspired by the types of craft breweries Laura and her husband and co-founder Jared witnessed while living in California, where they met two of their other co-founders, Tyler and Sarah. What they saw in this market was a clear trend - the most successful breweries were the ones that offered great beer and great food. When they started building Prairie Dog they knew they wanted to have great food, but surprisingly BBQ wasn’t originally part of the plan. Originally they had intended to offer pizza and bar snacks but ran into a mix-up with the design of their kitchen, so Tyler’s brother Jay stepped in and said he had just the thing: the massive BBQ and smoke they affectionally call Clifford. — Get your own copy of the books and music discussed in this episode: Barbara Kingsolver | The Poisonwood Bible Daniel Quinn | Ishmael — Let’s Meet For A Beer! Alberta Beer Festivals: website | twitter | instagram Laura Coles - Prairie Dog Brewing: website | twitter | instagram

A lot can happen in 30 years of broadcasting, and in this episode Bob Sumner, AKA News Bob, walks us through his lengthy career in broadcast media, from his first TV job at the Calgary ’88 Olympics through the golden age of broadcasting and up to today when Twitter drives the news cycle. We talk about about witnessing history 5 feet in front of your nose, the importance of objective journalism, how to stop fearing change, and the bizarre Calgary icon known as Crack Macs. When Calgary’s craft beer scene began to develop Bob would have the opportunity to meet Mark and other key players in the local beer scene, and would find himself gravitating towards doing news stories about the amazing things going on in this community. It would prove to be a welcome reprise from the doom and gloom that normally dominates the news cycle that put Bob at the epicentre of every fire, car crash, and murder in the city. Even with the inspiration of Calgary’s brewers Bob would find himself feeling burned out on being a bad news dude and as he approached 60 felt it was time for a change. Today Bob is the Director of Media Relations and Business Development at Parker PR, a boutique Public Relations firm based in Kensington. Now News Bob gets to be only a good news dude, helping local businesses and brands to build up their following through news appearances, community building, and giving back to the community around them. What’s next for Bob? Who knows! In five years he thinks perhaps he’ll retire, but doesn’t think he’ll ever truly be out of the game. One thing is for certain though, Bob will be heeding the call of the open road atop his motorbike. — Get your own copy of the books and music discussed in this episode: Mark Manson | The Subtle Art of Not Giving a F*ck — Let’s Meet For A Beer! Alberta Beer Festivals: website | twitter | instagram Bob Sumner: website | twitter | instagram

If you’ve ever been to Willow Park Wine & Spirits looking for advice on a great beer to try, there’s a very good chance you’ve already met Dave Gingrich, AKA Dave The Beer Guy. We have a great chat about how he acquired his highly coveted title, why he loves cheesy horror films, and how a heart attack in his 30s helped him grow up. As we’ve discussed on some previous episodes of the podcast, retail is a hard business to do well and an even harder one to stick with. Dave has broken the mould on this with his 19 year history with Willow Park, which started out when he was just 21 years old and trying to get out of working as a janitor, a job he’d long grown bored of. As he puts it “I’m a little too bright and bubbly to be trapped in a boiler room.” His time at Willow Park started with him picking orders for licenses, and even though he wasn’t crazy about packing pallets full of beer before long he was in charge of running the entire licensee department on weekends. Dave knew this wouldn’t be his final stop at Willow Park as on his very first day he told their previous “The Beer Guy” that he’d be coming for his job. Sooner or later he would achieve this goal and today he is a fixture in Calgary’s craft beer industry, bottling up the passion of brewers for his customers to enjoy. We talk a bit about Dave’s heroes and inspirations including his dad, known affectionately as Positive Pete, the legendary Owen Hart, and former guest on the podcast and fellow Calgary beer veteran Alastair Smart. Dave shares how Alastair helps him stay focused in his career and always see the positives in his work, and how the ever positive outlook of his father has helped him overcome the physical and mental stresses of an early heart attack. We also discuss his love for cheesy horror films and he leaves us with a couple of his own picks, which you can watch yourself with the links below! — Get your own copy of the books and music discussed in this episode: Redneck Zombies Tucker & Dale Vs. Evil — Let’s Meet For A Beer! Alberta Beer Festivals: website | twitter | instagram Dave The Beer Guy: website | twitter | instagram

This episode’s guest is a man of many hats, Jay Lawrance, the owner, director, producer, and cinematographer for Two Words Productions. We talk about how a project for Toyota ended up changing his life, reminisce about Speaker’s Corner, and chat about music videos and how they’ve changed over time. While attending university Jay got asked to host a campus TV show, which sparked a desire to get behind the camera. After a short two years in his university’s Media, Information, and Technology program he would start working with Speaker’s Corner. For those who may not remember, Speaker’s Corner was how Canadians got their voices heard before the age of Twitter. You’d head on down to the box, press the button, say your piece, and with some luck it just might end up on TV, and this was famously how Canadian band The Barenaked Ladies got their start. After moving from Ontario to Alberta Jay would spend a period working with a video production company that specialized in promoting brands like Willow Park Wine and Spirits, but as the digital age dawned and businesses would evolve how they did their marketing and promotion Jay saw an opportunity to go out on his own and Two Words Productions was born. Most recently Two Words has had the privilege of working on a video series for Toyota, which originally would be a series of 37 videos in 37 cities across Canada, but the scope expanded and gave him the opportunity to travel to Ethiopia to film with Canadian Humanitarian, an organization based out of Medicine Hat that does incredible work helping to cure poverty through education, which Jay tells us has been a life changing experience. Two Words also plays a part in Calgary’s BIG Winter Classic music festival, and since Jay had a desire to be a musician while growing up this allows him to continue to be part of that scene, but with a camera in his hands instead of a bass guitar. We also chat about his approach to music videos and they way this staple in the music industry has changed, particularly now that most people are watching music videos online instead of through traditional channels like MTV or Much Music. — Get your own copy of the books and music discussed in this episode: Melinda Gates | The Moment of Lift Kurt Vonnegut Jr. | Slaughterhouse-Five Dave Bidini | On a Cold Road Tom Robbins | Still Life with Woodpecker Tom Robbins | Half Asleep in Frog Pajamas — Let’s Meet For A Beer! Alberta Beer Festivals: website | twitter | instagram Jay Lawrance - Two Words Productions: website | twitter | instagram

Our guest this episode is American craft beer legend Steve Dressler. Recorded at last month’s Jasper Beer & Spirits Festival we talk to the now retired brewmaster for Sierra Nevada about what it was like being a part of the birth of North America’s craft beer boom. Steve’s 35 history with Sierra Nevada began right at the ground floor, putting bottles into boxes on their packaging line for $4 an hour. At the time the brewery and much of the equipment looked incredibly primitive compared to today but their processes were anything but. Built in an old transmission shop and using equipment repurposed from old carwash heating systems and a packing line allegedly used by Al Capone, the early craft brewery already had an enormous focus on quality control and were one of the first to use an on-site lab. They started out just self distributing within Chico, California and after being featured in the San Fransisco Chronicle as “the best beer that’s being brewed now” the popularity of their beer exploded. The next decade would include an unbelievable pace of growth, at one point growing by as much as 35% year over year, and upgrading to a 100 barrel system and again to a 200 barrel system in less than 10 years. As the brewery grew so did Steve’s role, and by the time he retired in 2017 he’d long since prepared his successors though what he calls “managing by getting the f**k outta there!” Since then he’s attended lots of beer festivals just like this one, and has been asked for advice and guidance by many growing craft brewers. He leaves us with three pieces of advice for new brewers anywhere in the world: You need to get into making beer for the right reason: that you have a passion for making really good beer Always go for the quality standard. Set your quality standards as high as you possibly can and prioritize it more than you think you need to ENJOY THE HELL OUT OF IT! — Let’s Meet For A Beer! Alberta Beer Festivals: website | twitter | instagram Steve Dresler: instagram Sierra Nevada: website | twitter | instagram

For the podcast’s 50th episode we’re doing something special: flipping the table with the help of CJAY’s JD Lewis and Village’s Tom Stuart. With JD and Tom in the interviewer seat we talk about lessons learned in the last 49 episodes and what’s to come in the next 50. Of course the big question is “why did you do it?” You might be surprised to find out that I started Let’s Meet For A Beer as an experiment. Not having grown up as someone who was naturally comfortable asking questions of people, I'd later learn putting a microphone in front of someone’s face is a great way to get them to answer questions that might raise eyebrows if I had asked them in a different setting. I hit the ground running with the podcast, explaining that early on there was no specific strategy to who I interviewed, simply sitting down for a beer with people I found interesting and inspiring. Getting those interesting and inspiring people to open up isn’t too hard as most everyone loves to share their stories, but crafting an engaging interview that keeps people listening takes hard work and some inspiration. I am inspired by the legendary David Letterman, and I also share some tips for other would-be podcast hosts like the importance of sending your guest a list of questions in advance. Long time listeners of the show will know already that we tend to get great insights and advice from the guests on Let’s Meet For A Beer, so naturally the guys get me to do the same. Any advice I'd give is based on severe trial and error, but after little prodding I talk about living without a “plan b” and being all-in as an entrepreneur, and about the importance of finding the John Candys in your life. — Get your own copy of the books and music discussed in this episode: Dolly Parton & Kenny Rogers | Islands In The Stream — Let’s Meet For A Beer! Alberta Beer Festivals: website | twitter | instagram Mark Kondrat: twitter | instagram JD Lewis: website | twitter | instagram Tom Stuart: twitter

“How bad do you guys want to get out of your day job?” Derek Bostock joins us this week to share the story of how asking this question led to he and his business partners opening Red Deer’s newest craft brewery, Sawback Brewing. When Derek asked his now business partners to quit their day jobs he had already long since established himself as a successful entrepreneur and risk taker with his other business, the Red Deer Shooting Centre. The entrepreneurial spirit runs in Derek’s blood, and he recalls the story of how his family first came to Red Deer when he was only a year old. His father and grandfather ran a frame shop for heavy trucks and trailers, a super specialized business that like many in Saskatchewan at the time was being ravaged by the recession at the time, and so they packed up the entire family and hit the road heading to Red Deer to start fresh. This penchant for risk taking hit Derek early too, moving to Calgary at just 18 when he was still a self-described “typical Red Deer shit head” and new he needed to get out of Red Deer to get some clarity and reinvent himself. With only 20 bucks in his pocket he arrived in the city and took a job at a car dealership on commission, a huge risk that paid off. 8 years later after working his way up the ladder he was asked to come back to Red Deer to help his family open a parts division in the business. Shortly after coming back to Red Deer Derek started getting into shooting and realized there was nowhere to shoot indoors in town, so he opened the Red Deer Shooting Centre. Having not yet had his fill of challenges in running businesses in highly regulated industries he decided to expand into brewing next. He started home brewing roughly 5 years ago when only Drummond and Troubled Monk were on the scene, and while at the time they thought they’d be able to take their time but once they saw the craft beer industry in Alberta start to ramp up they knew they had to do it now, and Sawback brewing was born. Let’s Meet For A Beer! Alberta Beer Festivals: website | twitter | instagram Sawback Brewing: website | twitter | instagram Red Deer Shooting Centre: website | twitter | instagram

On this extra-heavy edition of the podcast we talk with Philosopher, Metalhead, and cofounder of Calgary’s New Level Brewing, Drew Ross. We learn how he and his brother came to open this heavy metal brewery, and which metal legend inspired the name. As you might expect from somebody who opens a metal themed brewery, music has played a huge part in Drew’s life ever since he was a child. From a young age his he was heavily involved in choir and also played the flute! After this phase where he laughingly self describes himself as “a f***ing nerd” Drew started collected tapes as a preteen and then acquired a taste for punk rock and metal at 14. In University Drew completed his PhD in Philosophy and found that the job offers weren’t exactly piling up. He had applied for a number of numbers, and while he took on a few small jobs teaching online courses or tutoring he found himself feeling burnt out. Not wanting to just aimlessly apply for more jobs Drew started making a list of things he could do to try to find a new direction and was given some advice from his dad to check out the brewing program at Niagra College. While looking into Alberta’s own brewing program at Olds College popped up and he figured “even if I don’t get a job it’ll be really fun. Let’s do it!” As we know now it turned into much more than a job, and today Drew and his brother run an incredibly unique brewery that has given Drew opportunities to meet people he never thought possible, including heroes of his from the metal world. And there’s lots more on the horizon for New Level too, and Drew runs us through his ambitious goals to convert the brewery to an entirely employee owned operation, as well as create a heavy metal beer festival. — Get your own copy of the books and music discussed in this episode: Viktor E. Frankl | Man’s Search for Meaning Karl Ove Knausgaard | My Struggle Pantera | Vulgar Display of Power — Let’s Meet For A Beer! Alberta Beer Festivals: website | twitter | instagram New Level Brewing: website | twitter | instagram

Two pubs, 48 hours, burst pipes, and 52 staff members. Returning guest Stephen Lowden breaks the news about the crazy happenings and the two Pig and Duke locations that have left their doors temporarily closed and their many employees in limbo. In steps Gerry Forbes to help Stephen find a way to keep his staff afloat, and today they’re both on the podcast to explain how you can help. They say bad news comes in threes, and Stephen has been on the receiving end of a lot of flooding related bad news. Less than a month after being forced out of his home by burst pipes both Pig and Duke locations ended up nearly underwater after Calgary's cold snap in early January. Stephen views his staff as family and doesn’t want to leave them without a way to pay their bills until the pubs reopen, and after the immense amount of work Stephen has done in the past to support the community Gerry knew he had to help assemble the community to help Stephen’s staff. After all, good staff are hard to find and even harder to keep. Of course we wanted to take advantage of this rare opportunity to have a Calgary media legend on the show, so we take a bit of time to dig into Gerry’s 43 year long career in radio and what he’s been up to since retiring from CJAY92 in 2018. We find out about his early passion for radio, creating his own tapes as an 11 year old would be DJ, followed by the start to his career at CHNL in Kamloops and the many stations in between before he finally made a home for himself at CJAY. Gerry recalls the changes from records to minidiscs to cds to computers, and how working in radio changed during that time. “We made sure everything we do is real. There was nothing fake” - Gerry Forbes Let’s Meet For A Beer! Buy Tickets to the Pig & Duke Staff Fundraiser Alberta Beer Festivals: website | twitter | instagram Gerry Forbes: twitter | instagram Stephen Lowden: twitter | instagram Pig and Duke: website | twitter | instagram - 12th | instagram - downtown

Cabin Brewing co-founder and New Zealand transplant Haydon Dewes is this week’s guest on the podcast. We chat about how the connections he made through the Cowtown Yeast Wranglers led to Cabin’s super-group founding team and the 32 unique beers that followed. Haydon got accustomed to moving around long before making Calgary home. Born in Opotiki, growing up in Hastings, attending university in Wellington, and spending a short time living in Ireland before coming all the way back to Wellington left more miles behind him than most ever experience. He and his wife would find themselves looking at a move across the globe to Canada, and after his wife got accepted for a job in Calgary they would make the journey here without having ever visited the city. Like many who come to Calgary they’d planned to be here for a short time, just a single year, but a decade later they’ve cemented themselves in the city. Haydon had been an avid home brewer for more than 25 years and joined Calgary’s home-brew club The Calgary Yeast Wranglers where he met his business partners Jonas and Darren. The three of them had all landed in the top 12 in Canada’s national home-brew competition, and along with Jonas’ history working with Wild Rose Brewery the trio began formulating a plan to create their own brewery. They originally envisioned a massive 20 barrel system but couldn’t quite raise all the capital they needed, so the determined brewers locked themselves in a room for 6 hours to figure out what to do and came back out with a scaled-down brewery plan that they thought just might work, and Cabin’s doors opened in December of 2018. Now over a year and dozens of unique beers later their scaled down plan is a clear success as Haydon sums up perfectly: “At the time it was heartbreaking and we thought we were going to fail … but now we’re better for it." Let’s Meet For A Beer! Alberta Beer Festivals: website | twitter | instagram Cabin Brewing: website | twitter | instagram Haydon Dewes: twitter | instagram

This week’s guests are Calgary Top 40 Under 40 Recipients and Annex Ale Project owners Erica O’Gorman & Andrew Bullied. We discuss how this power couple’s complimentary skillsets and values have led to their success in Calgary’s craft beer scene and contributed to the growth of the now famous barley belt. Andrew and Erica’s history together goes all the way back to university in Nova Scotia. Both transplants from Calgary they would spend a short time back in their hometown after university before Andrew would attend Canada’s first brewing school at Niagra College and Erica would head to Vancouver to attend culinary school. After completing 3 of the 4 years in Niagra College’s brewing program Andrew would become Canada’s first brewing school drop-out, packing his life into his car and heading back to Calgary to work with Village Brewing in what would later end up being the same neighbourhood inn which Annex would open up years later. Following culinary school Erica would spend a short time working as a nanny prior to the River Cafe and then Village Ice Cream to assist with recipe development and business management. In 2015 when Alberta’s laws around minimum production craft breweries changed the two would recognize the same opportunity that has led to more than 100 breweries in the province. 18 months later they would be pouring their first pints at what was then only the third brewery in the barley belt, with what was the city’s largest taproom. Just a few short years later they’ve expanded their operations into craft sodas, their taproom is now one of the smallest in Calgary, and they’ve got new neighbours in the barley belt all the time. As they look forward to this next decade Annex will be focusing heavily on sustainability, already proudly powering their business with Bullfrog power, and looking at opportunities to reduce their brewery’s carbon footprint with innovative new technologies. Let’s Meet For A Beer! Alberta Beer Festivals: website | twitter | instagram Annex Ale Project: website | twitter | instagram | annex ale playlist

Chad Hason with Stigma Grow is back again to talk cannabis! This time around we discuss cannabis stigmas - what they are, where they come from, and why they’re usually wrong… “I don’t consider myself an expert, I consider myself a storyteller of other people’s expertise.” Despite Chad’s modesty he carries a wealth of knowledge on cannabis, both the plant and the industry. We start this week’s episode out by discussing how a common name for the cannabis plant, “marijauna,” came about because of fear, misconception, and stigma. At the time the plant was commonly referred to as “hemp” and was used in a variety of industries from textiles to printing to medicine, so the plant underwent a massive rebranding to “marijauna” in order to play off of the ignorance-fueled fears of the time. As a cannabis marketing expert Chad knows a thing or two about rebranding the plant, but these days the marketing work around the plant is in many ways about answering people’s lingering questions about cannabis and correcting misconceptions. We tackle some of the big questions on people’s minds such as “is cannabis bad for you?”, “is it addictive?”, and “is it a gateway drug?” As we learn many of these questions are driven by fear and Chad’s advice is simple: “Don’t let fear drive anything in your life" Let’s Meet For A Beer! Alberta Beer Festivals: website | twitter | instagram StigmaGrow: website | twitter | instagram

We’re joined this week by self-proclaimed grinder Greg Long, the owner of Pro-Active Health known by many as the Zen Cowboy. We talk about his 23 year history as a chiropractor, how he utilizes yoga within his practice, and how a yoga teaching course in Bali resulted in his unique nickname. Like many kids growing up in Alberta Greg was certain he’d grow up to play for the Edmonton Oilers. When time came to apply for college and he was without an offer from the Oilers he attended a career fair and watched a lecture about chiropractic medicine. The lecture was put on by a chiropractor who still operates his own practice and Greg says that something in the lecture just spoke to him and he was super intrigued to pursue the opportunity. When Greg first came home after that that lecture and told his mother was … “not stoked.” She had heard some of the popular myths at the time about chiropractors she was worried about her son’s career choice, but has since come around. And while the general public consciousness and acceptance of chiropractic medicine has changed immensely in the past two decades Greg recalls chiropractors like himself being viewed as the black sheep of the medical world early in his career. In 2002 Greg had the opportunity to open his own practice in Cochrane which has since grown to include massage therapists, osteopaths, other chiropractors, a traditional Chinese medicine practitioner, and the use of yoga as movement therapy. Greg absolutely gushes about the team at his practice and how without a single weak link in the group they’re able to achieve their goal of making sure all of their patients Leave Better. Let’s Meet For A Beer! Alberta Beer Festivals: website | twitter | instagram Greg Long - Zen Cowboy: instagram Pro Active Health: website | facebook | instagram

Alberta Beer Festivals President Bill Robinson is our guest this week. We reminisce about history as business partners and learn about the book Bill hopes to publish. Having been born in Niagra Falls and briefly living in England with this father, Bill would return to Canada and grow up in Dryden, which he proudly tells us was the 1976 snowmobile capital of the world! Bill is hugely passionate about travel and having visited 84 countries he is already halfway to his goal of visiting every country in the world. “Travel first” is the advice he leaves for young people, pointing out how easy it can be to fall into a career early without without first traveling and discovering the core of who you are. We also discuss the long list of odd jobs Bill has held in his life, including bus boy, furniture delivery, and the small town staple: a video store/sports store/fishing store/gas station. Let’s Meet For A Beer! Alberta Beer Festivals: website | twitter | instagram

This week returning guest Jim Button and his wife Tracey join us to discuss how their family has faced Jim’s journey with cancer, and the legacy they hope to leave for the benefit of those suffering with and survivors of paediatric cancer. Jim was our very first episode on Let’s Meet For a Beer, and 40 episodes later the legend returns. This time around Jim is joined by his wife Tracey and in addition to learning about Tracey’s early life and how the two of them came together, we also learn some unexpected things from Jim’s past including the surprising story of spending a year as a welder, a job he had to lie about his qualifications to get. Tracey and Jim share the struggles their family faces along their journey with cancer. Jim tells us about “prescribed beast before date” originally given by his doctors that they’ve long since passed, and that after three and a half years he still never really knows what’s around the corner for him. Being diagnosed with a terminal illness is difficult for those you care about, so Jim and Tracey open up about their coping mechanisms like what they call “gallows humour,” and how important it has been to have the right supports in place for their kids who are facing this together at a very formative age. We also hear about the legacy that Jim and Tracey are hoping to leave as they tell us about a lofty goal - to raise 5 million dollars for a research chair in paediatric psychosocial oncology and survivorship. Huge strides have been made in paediatric oncology and today roughly 80% of kids who are diagnosed with cancer overcome it. However, without the resources available to many adult survivors of cancer these kids can often be left struggling to continue their lives their same way as kids who haven’t been impacted by the disease. Jim and Tracey recognized how lucky they were to have that support, and when they learned the same opportunities weren’t available to children it was clear to them that there was a need for them to help fulfill. Let’s Meet For A Beer! Alberta Beer Festivals: website | twitter | instagram Jim Button: blog | twitter | instagram | TEDx Talk Contribute to The Chair In Paediatric Psychosocial Oncology and Survivorship

Cluck N Cleaver’s Co-Founder and Chief Poultry Officer Francine Gomes joins us on this week on Let’s Meet For A Beer for a chat about career ADD and leading from below. In 2016, Francine Gomes’ career ADD finally led her to going into business with her partner Nicole, who has spent 20 years developing the secret blend of spices that makes Cluck N Cleaver’s crispy fried chicken so unique. The two of them had previously worked together in fine dining, with Nicole as a chef and Francine in front of house. Francine would later move to BC and begin raising chickens on her hobby farm. The two had joked about starting a fast food chain previously and one day Francine got a phonecall from her sister: “Remember that idea? Let’s do it” Two years after the two opened their first location in Calgary, funding the business out of their own pockets without a single outside investor to date, they have ambitious goals. In the next decade they hope to open 100 locations across Canada and eventually expand into the US market too. Not only that, but Francine hopes to revolutionize the way we raise chickens. Let’s Meet For A Beer! Alberta Beer Festivals: website | twitter | instagram Cluck N Cleaver: website | twitter | instagram

Today we speak to Vince Schaeffer, Owner, CEO, and top dog at Four Dogs Sales & Marketing. We chat about his tenured career in Alberta’s liquor industry, which has spanned from brewpubs to working for agencies and now running his own agency, and how he’s using that agency to give Albertans a chance to try great craft beer from regions they might never visit on their own. Vince’s career in Alberta liquor began at Brewsters, participating in the opening of the 11th avenue location in Calgary after having been a regular at their Regina location. Over the decade he spent with the Brewsters team Vince held a variety of roles from front of house all the way up to Regional Director, and even trained prior guest on the podcast Don McDonald as a GM. After Brewsters Vince moved to Marc Anthony Brands where he would represent some of Canada’s most recognized brands like Mike’s Hard Lemonade and Corona. Following his time with Marc Anthony he would join Horizon where Vince would start many of the relationships that have led to the brands he now represents with his own agency, Four Dogs Sales & Marketing. Having been named for his four elderly dogs he used to take with him on all his sales calls Vince wanted his company to represent his incredible passion for dogs. We also discuss Vince’s personal philosophy and dive deep into why he doesn’t believe in luck. “I think what you put out you get back." Let’s Meet For A Beer! Alberta Beer Festivals: website | twitter | instagram Four Dogs Sales & Marketing: website | instagram

Returning guest and resident cannabis expert Chad Hason joins us for another beer this week to discuss legalization 2.0, StigmaGrow, what he thinks will come next, and to offer Mark a reminder not to call him “your weed guy." Last time Chad was on the show we discussed some of the unfair stigmas attached to cannabis and the history of the plant leading up to its legalization in Canada in October of 2017. While this first round of legalization two years ago opened up a market for Canadians to light up across the country it excluded a number of other cannabis based products for the first two years. Dubbed “legalization 2.0,” a new batch of legislation came into effect in October of 2019 allowing for the sales of concentrates, beverages, edibles and topical lotions in addition to the dried cannabis and oils already available. However Chad breaks the bad news to us that all producers have to submit their products for a 60 day approval process, so while these products became legal last month we won’t see the first of them available in retail stores until December 2019. We take a bit of time to discuss why legalization 2.0 isn’t just for seasoned cannabis consumers who want to reach higher potencies, but also great for those who may have been standoffish about getting into cannabis post-legalization such as folks like Mark’s own parents. Mark speculates that much of the apprehension of older generations around cannabis as a medicine may boil down to pills vs plants and the health concerns they grew up with. Chad also explains what he thinks is next: decriminalized or legalized psychedelics, and in particular the developments in Colorado with psilocybin mushrooms. Next time when Chad joins us for a beer we’ll be taking a deeper dive into extracts to discuss what they are, how they’re made, and the differences between them. Let’s Meet For A Beer! Alberta Beer Festivals: website | twitter | instagram StigmaGrow: website | twitter | instagram

Our guest this week on Let’s Meet For A Beer is the CEO of Alberta’s Fallentimber Meadery, Dan Molyneux. Dan fills us in on the story of how a hobby apiary grew over two generations to become one of Alberta’s most innovative beverage producers. The story of Fallentimber Meadery begins two generations ago with Dan’s grandfather starting a small hobby farm for beekeeping. The farm would later be passed on to Dan’s uncle who would expand honey production that of a small scale commercial apiary, which was able to support a single person. When the time came for succession planning the family was faced with the same challenge as with many family farms, how to get the next generation on board with taking it on. The problem of only producing enough honey to support the income of a single person made this especially challenging, which was compounded by Dan’s cousin and business partner Nathan’s ironic allergy to bees and made expanding honey production an unlikely road forward. At the time Nathan was going to Mount Royal for tourism and submitted a business plan for a meadery as part of one of his business classes. The model was simple let unique, they would add value to the honey he already had in an approach similar to an estate winery: when you are growing the best grapes you can make the best wine, and they already had this great honey just waiting to be fermented into mead. Today Fallentimber supports many members of their family including Dan’s brother managing sales, his uncle as head beekeeper, his Aunt in HR and another cousin in admin. Around the province they’ve garnered massive praise for innovative products like their Hopped Mead, Honeybuck, Mr Pink, and the legendary Meadjito. Mark and Dan recall the story of 40 year Sierra Nevada brewer Steve Dressler sampling the Meadjito at an prior Jasper Beer Festival and having his mind blown. Steve told Mark that in 40 years in the industry he’d thought he’d tried everything, and made sure Dan and Nathan knew they had the most innovative product at that festival by a landslide. Let’s Meet For A Beer! Alberta Beer Festivals: website | twitter | instagram Fallentimber Meadery: website | twitter | instagram

This week we meet for a beer with Keith Robinson, cofounder of Wild Life Distillery. We talk about Keith’s passion for living a wild life, what makes whiskey a mythical creature, and about he and his business partner’s famous “friendship contract." Keith’s love for solo sports and the outdoors began early after moving from Winnipeg to Canmore. As he tells it he packed his bags and hit the road at the tender age of four, but his parents who he made the move with might tell that differently. He snowboarded competitively and cross-country skied religiously until he was 17, spent the years immediately after high school and through college surfing every chance he got, and continues to regularly mountain bike. Wild Life Distillery began as a hobby distilling project and by 2015 he and his business partner had shaken hands and said “okay, let’s do this!” Two and a half years later they would open a distilling facility at a time when the beer industry was booming, but unlike many others in the province they weren’t brewing to make beer, they were brewing to distill. Keith gives us some insight to the differing business opportunities available to distillers than brewers that come with the increased stability and shelf life of their products, and of course how things are coming along with their mythical distilling creature - whiskey. “That’s what has made it work for us, knowing who you are going into business with, and really enjoying their company." Let’s Meet For A Beer! Alberta Beer Festivals: website | twitter | instagram Wild Life Distillery: website | twitter | instagram

With Josh Clarke behind the mic this week we’re talking about personal journeys, making good, and rebranding failures as experiments. Josh is the founder of Clarke Studio and Make Good, but his story goes back many experiments before that. Josh grew up knowing he wanted to be some combination of Mr Dressup, Bob Ross, and Marty McFly. Once getting over the news that Mr Dressup was just tracing all that time we talk about Josh’s early desire to go into architecture, which later evolved into an experiment with structural engineering. We’re deliberately shedding the “favourite failure” analogy this time and instead reframing them as experiments. As Josh explains an experiment is an object - it can fail, it can succeed, but the goal is to learn. After learning that structural engineering wasn’t Josh’s calling he entered a career in the non-profit world, working with the homeless and helping people in need, which he says completely changed his life. “I was running on fumes for many years and then those fumes ran out.” He recalls the struggle of taking on the stress of his clients and the toll it took on him, and going on a journey with PTSD as a result. Having grown wary of the concept of a self-made man and the all or nothing approach it would be time for Josh to take on his next experiment. Josh heavily engaged with Calgary’s craft beer community, planning to start a brewery of his own and completing an enormous amount of planning before realizing it wasn’t that he wasn’t to have a brewery, but to be a part of that community. Next Clarke Studio would be born, a freelance design brand specializing in brand identity design. There’s a good chance you’ve drank a Calgary craft beer out of a can that Josh designed. In addition to Clarke Studio Josh would form Make Good, a combination of all the learnings form his previous experiments. Make Good’s mission is to empower young people to positively shape the world around them. So far Make Good has engaged in a project with the youth of Cochrane to improve mobility accessibility in the town and worked with Mitford School on Project Mental Wellness. Let’s Meet For A Beer! Alberta Beer Festivals: website | twitter | instagram Clarke Studio: website | twitter | instagram Make Good: website | twitter | instagram

Nick and Jonathan are joined today by returning guest Mark Kondrat! We chat with Mark about his podcast, Let’s Meet For A Beer, and dive into the history of the Alberta Beer Festivals team and how many of their current festivals came about. Mark claims to be a on trick pony with everything he does revolving around beer and his podcast is no exception. Meeting for a beer is the best way to take time out of your day and get to know someone, and Mark uses the Let’s Meet For A Beer podcast to interview people who’ve inspired him personally. His first interview took place in June of 2018 with Jim Button of Village Brewing who surprised him at the last minute with an extra guest - the President of Beer Canada! Since then Mark has released more than 30 episodes, pumping out a new release every single week, and many of his episodes have focused on destigmatizing mental health by talking with men and women willing to open up about their own struggles and sharing how they tackle those issues. We also take some time to talk about Mark’s approach to work, despite being the founder of a company focused on massive festivals with thousand of people, Mark tells us he’s not much of a team player and most days simply prefers to work on his own. In addition we discuss the four very unique personalities that make up the ABF team and how together they’ve come together to create six amazing yearly festivals including the upcoming Banff festival from November 21 to 23 which he calls “the most beautiful beer festival in the world.” After Mark’s appearance on the show we sit down with Mama T to get her input on a red hot market, one that frequently flares up and some might even describe as inflamed: the hemorrhoid cream market. Through a little bit of digging we discover Nick has some experience of his own with industry frontrunner Preparation H. “If it’s good enough for your ass, it’s good enough for your tattoos!" Join us at the Wild Rose Taproom for 20oz of your own Have a question for Mama T? A story from the bottom of a beer can? Send it in to canfessionals@wildrosebrewery.com Mark Kondrat - Let’s Meet For A Beer: website | instagram | twitter Alberta Beer Festivals: website | instagram | twitter

This episode of Let’s Meet For A Beer is a double feature with Kevin Crowe of Give A Mile and Stephen Lowden of the Pig & Duke pub. In addition to our usual dive into their histories we also talk about how Pig & Duke is partnering with Give a Mile to help give families the gift of a final visit with their loved ones. Kevin was first introduced to Stephen when he was looking for a venue to hold an early fundraiser for Give A Mile. Stephen and his wife Jo have been operating the Pig & Duke since 2012 and while they’ve always been a fixture of the community Stephen had long wanted to attach themselves to a charitable cause that they could support in ways beyond just writing a cheque each month. Kevin had approached a friend at Red Bison Brewing about putting together a craft beer focused fundraiser and they needed a venue. As it turned out he knew just the guy…. Stephen’s pub opened in early 2012 after only 62 days of construction after Stephen had fallen in love with the province of Alberta. Having always wanted to own a pub and spent most of his life working in pubs and bars across Western Canada he would put down roots in what once might have been considered a cursed location, having notoriously been a site of businesses that just couldn’t seem to make a go of and stay open for more than three years. However the Pig & Duke has proudly long since broken the curse and now has two locations in Calgary and constantly fields questions about expanding outside of Calgary in a franchise model. However this hasn’t happened just yet as Stephen explains his worries about diluting their brand by no longer being able to have a personal presence in each location. Kevin first came to Alberta in 1997 on a work term while attending the University of Victoria. He came out expecting to only be here for six weeks, met the woman who is now his wife while he was out here, and 22 years later that temporary six week trip to Alberta still hasn’t come to an end. His inspiration for starting Give A Mile came about after losing a close friend, Ryan, to brain cancer at 36. Kevin describes the amazing year and a half he spent with a man who knew he was dying and how through that experience he learned the power of visit. While his friend was in hospice care he would see other families saying their final goodbyes over the phone because they couldn’t make the flight to Calgary, and shortly after heard about a statistic that 16 billion travel miles go unredeemed each year in Canada. Kevin would then found Give A Mile and 11 years later Ryan’s legacy lives on through this 100% volunteer run organization. In those 11 years Give A Mile has donated more than 620 flights with the help of community leaders like Stephen, and this year they’re taking it to a whole new level with The Gift Gala on November 14th. Their goal is to raise enough funds and travel miles to donate an additional 60 flights before Christmas. You can help support this cause by buying a ticket to The Gift Gala on GIve A Mile’s Website, participating in their Flight Hero program, donating through their website to a specific flight for a family in need, or even just sharing their message on social media. Let’s Meet For A Beer! Alberta Beer Festivals: website | twitter | instagram Give a Mile: website | twitter | instagram Pig & Duke: website | twitter | instagram

This week’s guest is Dillon Stecyk, Director of Marketing for Alberta Beer Festivals. Dillon is one of the longest members of the ABF family, and we discuss how he came to be part of the company, and the other member of the ABF family who he has known since the fourth grade! Dillon describes himself as having entrepreneurial DNA and tells us that joining ABF at just 18 years old felt like he was participating in building something that had a future, and wanted to be part of it at the ground level. We discuss how the ABF family is just that - a family - where everyone feels welcome, no separate work face and social face needed here! We also discuss Dillon’s rebranding of meditation: “systematic contemplation analysis,” a way of describing the practice that might be a bit influenced by his engineer father. He explains that its all about thinking about how you think, and auditing it. He also shares some great advice to help manage your energy levels and stay balanced: Breathe more Stretch more - just take 5 minutes and make sure your joints are loose Just chill! Take a minute! Let’s Meet For A Beer! Alberta Beer Festivals: website | twitter | instagram

Today we sit down with Blake Belding, the Co-Owner and Head Brewer of Calgary’s Cold Garden Beverage Company, which is much more than just a brewery, it is an experience. Blake spent the first few years of his life in a small Alberta town called Rainbow Lake before moving to Okotoks at the age of 3. Like most guys growing up in small town Alberta he played a lot of hockey, but after starting football in the 8th grade he would quit hockey soon after, saying he’d finally found the sport he was good at. His love for football would take him to the University of Calgary where he would enter the Haskayne School of Business and meet his future business partner Dan. Blake interred into the entrepreneurship program which in retrospect he admits is a little silly - entrepreneurship isn’t something that you can teach, like Cold Garden it is something you have to experience for yourself. He would often get asked “what business are you going to open? Having been recently inspired by the success of Minhas in 2004 Blake figured “I love beer, I like money, this sound like so much fun!” Blake started home brewing soon after and the plans for the brewery would truly start in 2013. Cold Garden’s iconic space would be rented in September of 2015, followed by a rush to create their first beers in March of 2016 for the Calgary International Beer Festival, followed by the doors finally opening in January 2017. Since then the space and the brand has taken on a life of its own and as Blake describes it: “As a garden, it grows!" Let’s Meet For A Beer! Alberta Beer Festivals: website | twitter | instagram Cold Garden Beverage Company: website | twitter | instagram

“You have to be the entertainment and relief for the guy who's already stuck on deerfoot, he knows it sucks, he drives it every day, 'make me laugh rodeo clown!'” - JD Lewis, Morning Host on CJAY92 is this week’s guest on Let’s Meet For A Beer. We talk about his history in radio, his advice for people struggling with mental health, and Calgary radio legend Gerry Forbes. JD’s love for radio started early. Growing up in a traditional household in Rocky Mountain House he spent evenings listening to hockey games on the radio and staying up late after the post-game to hear the old 1940s and 1950s radio shows on 630CHED or QR77. From a young age he knew he wanted to work in radio despite his guidance counsellor’s best wishes, but admits that at the time he didn’t realize it would mean waking up at 3:15 am! His career in radio began in Drumheller but his time there would be shortlived, JD was dealt a major blow when he was fired from his first radio job. Realizing he had lost sight of his priorities JD would move to Red Deer and take a shot at delivering pizza while he decided what to do next. He realized after a single day he wasn’t cut out for it and headed down to the local rock station, Zed 99, to beg for a job. His pleading would eventually pay off and net him a job at the station, working his way through a number of roles and eventually moving on to a Top 40 station in Edmonton. From there he would join the crew at CJAY and later getting to co-host the morning show with local radio icon Gerry Forbes, a man JD describes as “a lunatic in all the best ways”, and finally taking over the show after Gerry’s retirement last year. Later JD opens up with us about his struggles with mental health, what he thinks people who also struggle can do to help cope, and what he does to work past it. We talk about how his journey with mental health has impacted him throughout his life and coming back from feeling like he was “beyond repair”, as well as how a frank conversation with his dad helped turn things around for him. Let’s Meet For A Beer! Alberta Beer Festivals: website | twitter | instagram JD Lewis: website | twitter | instagram

This week we meet for a beer with Kyle Geeraert of Origin Malting & Brewing, one of the few breweries in the world that are truly farm to table. We discuss the century long history of the family business including their enormous contribution to soil conservation in Alberta and how they continue to innovate today. Origin Malting & Brewing’s operations might be seen as the estate winery of the beer world. They grow their own barley on their fifth generation family farm which was settled in 1910, and have been malting their barley in a state of the art facility since November of 2017. The majority of their 12,500 acres stretching from the south-east of Calgary to nearly Drumheller is seeded primarily with canola, wheat, and of course barley. The wheat goes to Roger’s Milling in BC every single stalk of barley is grown for malting and eventually beer. While some of the barley will end up in the Origin Malthouse much of it is also sold to Rahr and Red Shed who also provide world class Alberta malt barley for breweries here and around the world. Kyle’s family has been growing barley on their farm since 1960, but only just recently begun malting their own barley and brewing their own beer. The malting operation was originally conceptualized as a form of vertical integration on the farm once they were no longer required to sell all their barley to the Canadian Wheat Board, and the brewery would allow them to showcase for brewers and consumers alike the great beer that comes from Alberta Barley. We also discuss his family’s contribution to farming practices in Alberta, how science plays a role in the sustainability of their farm, and get a brief lesson clearing up the misconceptions of GMOs. Let’s Meet For A Beer! Alberta Beer Festivals: website | twitter | instagram Origin Malting & Brewing: website | twitter | instagram

This week's guest on Let’s Meet For A Beer is the inspiring Krystal Kitchen. Krysytal and Mark first met in 2017 when she registered to participate in the Ride To Conquer Cancer as part of Mark’s Wednesday Beer Night Cycling team. Just one day after being fitted for her team cycling kit and sending out emails to her friends and family asking them to sponsor her ride she would receive her own cancer diagnosis. We discuss her courageous journey through recovery and getting back on her bike, and her commitment to raising kind, respectful, and caring humans. Krystal first picked up cycling in 2014 when she bought her first road bike so she could participate in the Ride To Conquer Cancer. She rode on a team with two of Mark’s brothers, but seeing the Wednesday Beer Night team’s kits she felt jealous of how great they looked and would later join Mark’s team in 2017. However, Krystal would find herself unable to participate in the ride after receiving her own cancer diagnosis. Having just been to the doctor to remove a cyst and being told there was less than a 2% chance she had cancer she knew in her heart something was wrong, and tells us her doctor had cared while giving her the news. By the time the 2017 Ride To Conquer Cancer rolled around Krystal still hadn’t been cleared to get back on the bike, being only two weeks out of surgery. However, the Wednesday Beer Night Cycling team didn’t feel right crossing the finish line without her, so the entire team gathered at the top of the hill at Winsport and walked across the finish line together with Krystal leading them. It’s now two years since Krystal walked the finish line with the team, and we discuss her experience finally being able to cross the finish line on her bike. With another three years before she can be declared cancer-free and in remission she still visits the cancer centre every six months, and describes how the visits have become comforting and reassuring. We also discuss Krystal’s passion for caring for others, including the plans she once had to go into nursing, and the admiration Mark has for the emotionally challenging jobs that nurses and other medical staff do every day. While Krystal didn’t end up going into nursing, she still gets to help people all the time in her job as a teacher and in her goal to raise her three children to be kind, caring, and respectful humans. She tells us that “as a measure of a parent, as long as you’re raising nice people, you’re doing a decent job." letsmeetforabeer.comalbertabeerfestivals.com Wednesday Beer Night Cycling Team

This week on Let’s Meet For A Beer are Hans Does and Matt Willerton of Lacombe’s Blindman Brewing. Join us for a conversation about their history, their families, and their passions, which just like Blindman Brewing’s beer, we are confident you will find reliably exciting. Blindman Brewing in Lacombe, Alberta was founded with a simple mission: bringing Alberta to another level in craft beer, and getting the best beer to the people. Hans was home brewing early test batches for Blindman all the way back in 2012, after having earned his Masters in Theology, spent time time picking cucumbers and living in a Monastery. Meanwhile Matt was discovering his place in the beer industry. Matt had previously spent some time working in an electrical business founded by his brother, and after realizing it wasn’t right for him he began working at Alley Kat brewing in Edmonton. After just a few weeks on the job Matt knew that this was it. Hans has four children under the age of five, and continually praises the amazing team at Blindman that allows him to spend time with his family when it matters most. Matt on the other hand is a cat lover and says that Hans has had enough kids for the both of them. While Hans grew up just 1km away from where he lives now, Matt spent most of his life living in Edmonton but has fully embraced the small town life. letsmeetforabeer.comalbertabeerfestivals.com Blindman Brewing

“Hops without malt just makes tea.” This week’s guest is Bob Sutton, better known as Barley Bob: The Brewer’s Friend, Bob is VP of Sales for RAHR Malting Co, the source of much of the barley malt for Alberta’s growing graft beer industry. Bob grew up in a military household, and while he had intended to follow in his father’s footsteps he and the military had to part ways just after basic training, which Bob describes as his favourite failure. As Bob tells us, this failure may have ultimately been responsible for his path into Alberta’s craft beer industry. At the time Bob was living in Thunder, where as he tells it you basically had two choices: the grain industry or the paper industry, so he applied to work with both. As it so happened he got offered a job in the grain industry and his journey began. After later moving to Alberta Bob was first exposed to craft beer when he drank his first Big Rock Traditional Ale. It was unlike anything else he’d tried and before and his palate for craft beer began to evolve, first from the traditional English browns Big Rock’s Trad emulated to ultra hoppy beers, more complex hoppy beers, and more recently an appreciation for sours. We’ve discussed before on Let’s Meet For A Beer that Alberta barley is world renowned for brewing, and is famously used by Lagunitas in the US. Bob helps us understand why Alberta’s typical weather patterns help mitigate the risk of losing a year’s crop, and how he works with farmers to make sure they’re growing barley deserving of Alberta’s top notch reputation. letsmeetforabeer.com albertabeerfestivals.com RAHR Malting Co