B R E W E RY P R O F I L E
ready-to-drink beverage business with a new line of hard vodka
seltzers that come in four different flavours.
When it comes to producing new beers, Brennan says Great
Western gets its inspiration from its customers.
“We spend a lot of time talking with those that enjoy beer and
trying to understand where we should be adding,” he said.
Brennan says that Great Western has a proud tradition of
using Saskatchewan-grown barley to brew its beer.
“One hundred per cent of our barley comes from the province,”
he said. “Saskatchewan is known as a great fertile ground for
growing barley, and we get that benefit. It’s right in our backyard.”
Brennan says that Great Western gets most of its hops from
Washington and Europe, but does buy from one Saskatchewan
producer who entered the business a few years ago.
“They don’t have the capacity to give us enough hops for our
operations, but we do source some hops from them whenever it’s
possible,” said Brennan. “We like to do a specialty beer once a year
with those.”
Great Western Brewing Company has won multiple awards
at beer competitions and events over the years, which Brennan
says is a testament to the quality of the brews coming out
of the plant.
“I can’t count all the awards that we’ve won. We’ve got rooms
and rooms full of trophies from all sorts of award events that
we’ve entered,” he said.
“I would attribute the success to the determination going
right back to the 16 guys that bought this brewery 30 years ago.
There is a drive to succeed and to seek perfection while never
actually reaching perfection, so as happy as we are with our pro-duction
today, we want to get better each day and we want to pro-duce
a better beer each day.
“We have pretty exacting standards around producing our
beer and making sure that every beer that leaves this building
is something we’re all proud of. I think that type of attitude from
every employee drives our success.”
Craft breweries good for beer business
There is of course a lot of competition these days in the beer space,
and Brennan acknowledges that the big national breweries have
an edge when it comes to economies of scale.
“This is still an issue that we face today, that our biggest
competitors have a real price advantage on the cost side of the
equation,” he said.
Craft breweries are also vying for market share these days,
but Brennan considers that to be a good thing.
“They are certainly competition for us. But to me, I think it’s a
benefit to have craft breweries in and around the market, and we
actually do what we can to help craft breweries,” he said.
“My view is that craft breweries offer another way that people
get introduced back to beer. I think they just bring another added
interest element to the entire category of beer, which is great for
all of us.”
Brennan says Great Western Brewing Company has also
benefitted from its membership in Beer Canada.
“I think being part of an organization like that gives us a
greater voice when there are issues within the industry,” he said.
“It also gives us an opportunity to speak to other brewers across
The Original 16
Great Western Brewing Company recently launched a line of hard seltzers
Photo courtesy of Great Western Brewing Company
Photo courtesy of Great Western Brewing Company
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