5 Years Old!!!

I’m somewhat dumbfounded to say we’re about to hit a pretty significant milestone, 5 years in business as of July. In some ways it seems like its been five weeks and in others it seems I’ve been doing this my whole life. In past years I’ve done blog posts on where we’ve gone, so I’m reluctant to repeat the same stories, but wow, five years feels really special.

What makes this anniversary so very special is that from almost every angle, the next five years are shaping up to be even more amazing. The whole team has put in so many hours and made so many sacrifices that it seems most appropriate at this time to say thanks to all them, instead of another “We’ve Come A Long Way Baby” kind of post. So here goes...

Dad, I couldn’t have chosen a better partner, you’re my mentor, my idol and my rock

Mom, I know this has been hard on you, you’ve sacrificed so much and the stress on you has been immense. Thanks for standing by me and Dad and believing in us. I love the fact that its my mom on the phone every week calling up the LCBO stores.

Nicola, thanks for letting me follow my dreams and being there for our kids when I didn’t have the time. Packing up and moving away from Toronto was hard on you and I appreciate it.

Matt, what can I say, Matt? If everyone else at the brewery worked twice as hard as they already do, it would mean a thing if our beer wasn’t so gosh darn tasty. Over the years, I’ve come to think of you as a brother, a friend and both a willing co-conspirator and a voice of reason.

Johanne R, your positive attitude and hard work have been invaluable. You are a pleasure to be around and you are calm under pressure. It has been a lot of learning to grow into our office manager, but I think you are doing great.

Alex, one day you are going to make a great accountant! Thanks for all the hard work you’ve put in.

Jen James, if it were possible to be too passionate about what we do, I think you might be guilty. Your smarts, your willingness to learn new skills and your investment into our brewery is wicked cool, sis. It’ll be cool having you in the comptroller position soon.

Anick, I’m always happy to see you, both because I think you are a great person and it always means we’re really busy here.

Anne, thanks for all your help in getting us certified organic and for dealing with our bottling line for as long as you did.

Alex, Anne, Alice, Megan, Robert, Ryan M, Nik, I’m glad you have come on board to help us out for this busy summer on the bottling line, i look forward to getting to know all of you.

Korina, I dig your sense of humour, your grace under fire and your eye to detail. I was pretty reluctant to hire a retail manager, but you’ve proven both that we needed the position and that you are the best person for it.

Audrey, you are quickly making yourself a great part of the team whether its been on the bottling line or in the office.

Laura, when the brewery was young, you put in a lot of hours, doing all sorts of crazy things and I’m very glad we can still count on you to come out and wave the flag for events and still give it all you’ve got.

Jerry, ever since we went to see Gwar in ’93, I’ve counted you as one of my closest, bestest friends. Bringing you on board last year was such a happy moment for me, and through the year and a bit you’ve been with us, as much as I love how amazing you are doing selling in Toronto and to the West of the city, I love that I get to hang out with you even more.

Jamie, it has been so fulfilling to have you by my side these 5 years. You built up Ottawa, by caring about your customers and about the brewery and about me. I couldn’t ask for a better friend, I know you are there for me personally, and professionally and that means so much.

Nikki, we’ve shared so many laughs and tears, its hard to put into words how much I care for you. I’m so glad you’ve been with us these last few years, you are awesome. You’ve been a great brand ambassador, tour guide and the retail store will miss you.

Frank, from our first meeting at a Maximum RnR show, you’ve shown yourself to be incredibly passionate about all things beer. Our customers love you and your tours, and so do I.

Cuggy, you are destined for greatness. Your passion, your thirst for knowledge and your awesome personality are going to take you to amazing places. I’m looking forward to the day I’ll be able to brag to my friends about how I knew you before you were famous.

Karen C, you’ve kept the team together, you’ve given us the HR structure and policies we’ve needed and you’ve always pitched in, on everything. When you walk in the brewery, everyone’s mood lifts so MUch. I’m your biggest fan!

Amanda, I’ve enjoyed getting to know you, bit by bit as I walk behind you to pour myself a beer. You’ve got a great sense of humour, mixed with a no-nonsense work ethic; its pretty cool.

Jordan Bamforth, when we first started out, you took my ideas and made them better than I had imagined. Now you are coming to me with ideas I couldn’t have come up with. You are the look and feel of Beau’s, and there isn’t anyone else in the World that could do it better.

Jen Brock, I miss your great sense of humour, your motormouth, and your insane, non-stop work. I still hope we’ll get you back at the brewery one day.

Jordan aka Jo Po, the lady killer. Man, I wish I had your mojo when I was your age. For that matter, I wish I had it now! The fact you actually have some smarts and make a difference at the brewery is cool, too.

Keith, it’s only been a few weeks, but I’ve already come to think of you as our production Messiah! I believe very much in serendipity, and you are proof that some things were meant to happen; you are exactly the person we needed. I’m enjoying getting to know you, too.

Kevin, you have been such a good friend for such a long time. From the days before the brewery when we’d skip class to drink beer and play Sega Hockey ‘95 (or was it ‘94?) to the late nights when you’d come in and help me bottle through the night, to delivering beer to brewing, you’ve been such a supporter and amazing part of my life.

Rob, Wild Rose’s loss is our gain. I’m glad you decided to move out this way and hope you’ll stay a few more years before starting your own brewery. That said, I can’t wait to try your beer.

Brad, you are my favourite crasshole! I’m glad you made the decision to move out to Vankleek Hill, you are a great brewer and a loyal, stand-up guy.

Chris, nobody can MacGyver broken stuff better than you. Just stop breaking yourself, ok? We need you in piece! Your Happy Pils last year was amazing, you make good beer, and you add a lot of character to the brewing team.

Mark Smith, you came through for us in such a big way, when we needed you most. When Matt was out for several weeks due to a car accident, you stepped up, and totally came through. You were our Obi Won Kenobi. I wish you had been able to stay with us, but have so much respect for the decisions you made and the way you got us through a really scary time.

Michaela, you are so cool. Its great having you with us, and our Eastern Ontario restaurants have such a great vibe, because of how you look after them.

David B, I looked up to you so much when I was a kid. Whether it was teaching me how to play Risk or D&D or just hanging out, you were the older cousin I admired. Nothing has changed in that respect (and I’d totally go for a game of D&D sometime soon). Keep kickin’ ass selling beer in central Ontario, dude.

Rob P, I’m really glad things have worked out with you, you really seem to have hit your stride and I’m thrilled to have you with us, drivin’ and deliverin’ with the best of ‘em.

Rob Morra, you have proven yourself so thoroughly to be a great friend, a great salesman, a great eater, a questionable driver, and one of the hardest working men I know. You care so much about our customers and our brewery, it is truly inspiring. I work harder, because of how hard you work and how much you believe in me. Toronto restaurants are so lucky to have you as their salerep.

Phil, although I believe you are missing your true calling in life as a stand-up comedian, I’m very glad I get to work with you day in and day out and hear your material. You have come in early, you have stayed late, you have put a lot of yourself into making our brewery a success. Thanks, little brother! Getting the beer out the door hasn’t been an easy task and you’ve stuck with it.

Todd, you are such a great guy. You are great with our customers, you work hard, you are a great driver and you are one of the funniest guys to share a beer with.

Thaila, uhhhhhh, what can I say? You’re a great guy, a great delivery person and a very thoughtful human...wow, that was really hard not to repeat the word guy in that sentence!

Darren, I know things didn’t end well between us and I’m sorry it didn’t work out. We did have some good times together though, and I still hope that someday we’ll be able to have some Barbeque and a beer again.

Judd, You’ve been a solid addition to the delivery team, and I can’t wait to see your zombie death metal band.

Keith Carmen, you are seriously the nicest man on the planet! It’s been so cool bringing you on to deliver in Toronto after witness you deliver rock and roll so hard for so long.

Davey D, from the first time I met you in the Heatskores to today, you’ve impressed me with your larger-than-life personality, your fun attitude and your take on life. You are doing great and I think its so cool we get to work together.

Matt M, you’ve been there when we needed you on weekends, overnight, whenever. Thanks for sticking with us and I’m excited to have you start as assistant brewer very soon.

Bruce, best hire story ever...I walk by Bruce’s place on my home every day and I’d usually stop and say hi for a bit. Over a couple years, I got to know Bruce pretty well. One day, as I stop by, Bruce says “I just got laid off, are you guys hiring?” I say “Well, no, but stop by the brewery on Monday, we’ll find something for you”. Since then Bruce has been such a great employee, its been amazing. Always sporting a smile and a kind word, too.

Johanne C, from the old Spectrum days, I’ve always admired your work ethic and enjoyed your company. I’m so glad we’ve had you with us.

Karen A, I know how important a job well done is for you and I appreciate the amount of care you put into the work you do.

Shane, you’ve been a great addition to our team. Everyone can learn a few lessons about focus and steady hard work from you.

Colin, you’ve been a great co-op student and I’m glad you have been able to help us get through the summer, too.

Andrew, good luck in brewing school next year and thanks for choosing to work with us over the summer

Dave Wade, I hope you are able to find work in your field one day, and I’m happy that we’ve had you while you are looking.

Little Jeff, thanks for pitching in over Christmases and busy times for us. You are a good friend and a hard worker

Lyndell, you’ve very quickly made yourself such an important part of our brewery. You’ve grown so well into the role of special events coordinator and I can see you learning more every day.

Stephane, Jason, Nina, Sylvie, Veronic, Yalitsa, Stacy, Jen P, Amy S, Brett, Beasley, Shari, Alex N, Marc B, Mike S and Neil E, I’m sorry you couldn’t stick around, but I appreciate your time here and hope you remember us with fondness.

To everyone else who has helped out, pitched in, gone the extra mile and supported us throughout these last 5 years, thanks to you, too. I could spend a month listing off all the people that have done so much for us. Your belief in Beau’s gives all of us the energy to keep pushing the boundaries, striving to do better and feeling good about our accomplishments.

Here's to another 5 years of fun and beer and more fun!

Last week of summer, next week our production increases (hopefully)

This weekend that just passed proved to be a rather busy one, Dad was pouring at the Muskoka beer festival with Darren and Rob; Jason was keeping the taps flowing at the Capital Pride Festival (our 5th year of involvement) and Nikki and I were rammed at a brand new inter-provincial, local food festival in Lefaivre and Montebello.

With our new brewer Rob in place, we are hopefull that by next week we can start shipping a bit more beer out. My sister (and our sales manager) giggled and pointed out that we're just in time to miss summer completely. Oh well - just think of how ready we'll be for next year!

Speaking of expanding, in finance news, we're meeting with our new BDC rep to sign papers for a pre-approved loan. It is part of a government program designed to spur the economy except that its not a grant and the interest rate is the same as any other loan. That said, it is still very welcome and will go immediately into more equipment to help us keep growing.

Stronger Box Handles Coming Soon

Our new boxes are selling quite well, and we're very happy for that. What we're much, much less happy about is the strength of the box handle. When we were prototyping the box, which took about 8 months, we raised concerns several times with our supplier that the handle seemed week. "Don't worry" kept coming the response, "our engineers are sure this will be strong enough; remember this is just the prototype, the final boxes will be much stronger".

I wish we had insisted on a stronger box design, because sure enough, within a few days of the boxes hitting the shelf, we started getting calls and emails from customers who had had a close call or worse after the handle snapped off the box.

We immediately got on the phone to our supplier, and we've come up with a short term way to make the boxes that we have a bit stronger while we redesign the top of the box to eliminate the problem. We have a reinforced handle design we like, and will be switching suppliers, too.

In the meantime, please try to hold the box from the bottom for the next couple of weeks. If you do have an unfortunate handle incident, please let us know about it and give us a chance to make it better for you.

Gold, Canada, Gold!

Phil and I are still having a great tie in Vncouver (except buying counterfeit tickets to last night's bronze medal hockey game - that sucked). At the athletes reception at Ontario House, Premier Dalton McGuinty suggested we adopt a chant of "Gold, Canada, Gold" - so I figure, why not.

Ontario House is seeing more than 10,000 visitors per day. It seems that once the word got out that they had great food and beer and weren't gouging people, that it has become probably The place to be.

I'll be one of the 10,000 there today again, hoping for a fairy tale hockey gold to give us the Olympic record for most Gold's ever.

Olympics!

We haven't really been announcing it very much, but the Ontario Gov't asked us if we'd like to have our beer featured at the Olympics. We shipped down about 3,000 litres for them to have at the Ontario House Paviliion. Ontario is going for a real wow-'em on the food and drink offerings of Ontario, so they've got Jamie Kennedy doing demo's, crazy good food (according to the Vancouver Sun) and Ontario made wind and beer.

I can't really comment on the wine, but alongside Beau's is Great Lakes, and Mill St., which is a pretty great lineup, if you ask me.

After hemming and hawing for a few weeks on how much it costs to go out to Vancouver, my brother Philip and I decided that we absolutely had to go. I hate shipping beer and crossing my fingers and the opportunity to show so many people from so many places who we are and what our beer is all about was just too much to bear.

So we booked flights and landed in Vancouver last night. We're just about to head down to Ontario House to go see what LugTread tastes like in Vancouver.

the coolest stuff I got

Ok, so here's the top ten cool things I got...not necessarily in order of coolness.

I've received an email from someone in England saying they were sending something in and could I please wait, but I gotta get this out before Christmas and I can't wait any longer. If its really cool though, I'll still send you something Darryl!

So here we go...

1. Totem pole! This gets the book plus the jersey
2. Grenade! Greg from Ottawa took my "blow my mind" phrasing a little too literally
3. Oktoberfest mask! Phil and Astli-Lisa made a cool lizard mask using one of our Oktoberfest hats
4. Tweet! Pat set me up with a twitter account - which was cool till I dropped my iphone in the toilet and now I can't text anymore. That's not Pat's fault though, so he still gets a book.
5. 70's beer! - Walter sent me a cool pic of him in the 70's at the cottage with a beeramid and an old radio on the picnic table. Way too nostalgic not to win a prize.
6. Giving is the new black! Dave helped raise over $62,000 for the Champions For Children World Trivia Night fundraising event
7. Apple booze! Christian sent a youtube video of him making apple cider. Its not beer, but it'll still earn him a book
8. Electrified! Darren sent in one of the 1,400 shots he took of a lightning storm in Ottawa. Out of the 1,400 pictures a total of 14 actually captured lightning creating instant chaos on film
9. Sumo! Steven's sumo suit shenanigans earn him a book, too.
10. Ironic photography! Jonathan's picture outside of the VKH LCBO was too good to turn down.

Thanks to everyone for sending in so much cool stuff. I'm sorry you couldn't all win, but I ran out of books.

Free George Wendt! (books, that is)

Hey There,

George Wendt's publisher was kind enough to give us 10 copies of his new book to give away through our blog!

So you will have until November 30 to send in your entry to win a free book, just in time to avoid buying a Christmas gift for somebody.

Here are the rules:

1. Send in something cool.

-This can be a picture, drawing, joke, live performance, a bottle of homebrew, or a receipt for a donation to a charity, or something completely different. It has to be cool, original and awesome. Depending on what it is you can email it to steve@beaus.ca or mail it to

Free George Wendt attn. Steve Beauchesne
Beau's All Natural Brewing Co.
10 Terry Fox Dr., box 279
Vankleek Hill ON
K0B 1R0


2. I will completely arbitrarily and with no official point system award 10 books for the coolest stuff I receive. If I get anything that totally blows my mind, I'll throw in a Beau's hockey jersey (retail price $99) to the coolest, coolest thing I get.


3. You can't work at the brewery or be a relative of someone at the brewery, cause you guys are already pretty cool.

4. Make sure you leave me contact info to send your winnings to you.

Hangin' with the Harpers

We were lucky enough to be invited to 24 Sussex this summer to pour beer for the Prime Minister’s annual garden party.

I’m a very proud Canadian and being able to serve Beau’s at the Prime Minister’s house was quite a thrill. It also started bringing up all sorts of Hollywood movie memories. Its quite the Forest Gump feeling having your picture taken with the Prime Minister…where he’s good at ping pong, we’re good at beer.

And when photographers took a shot of us while Mrs Harper poured a pint of beer, the Big Lebowski quotes kept jumping through the old noggin…”yes, this picture was taken was Mrs. Reagan was first lady of the country; yes, yes, not of the state”. Although we were a bit luckier than the Big Lebowski in that Mr. Harper also found time for a picture with us.

I also found out that Mr. and Mrs. Harper have very similar senses of humour…
Me: Would you like to try pouring another pint, Mrs. Harper?
Mrs. Harper: No; I don’t really see that as a skill I need to master.
Me: Yeah, I guess you’ve got a pretty good gig already, eh?
Mrs. Harper: Yes, yes I do. I spent a couple hours on the motorcycle today.

And later…

Me: Would you like to try that again, Prime Minister
Mr. Harper: No. I don’t see that I need to master that skill
Me: That’s probably true…but if you don’t mind, I’m going to drink this beer that was poured for me by the Prime Minister of Canada
Mr. Harper: Cheers.

All in all we were there for three days, Rob and I did the first two nights and my Dad and Jamie did the third. Quite a cool experience.

The Good, The Bad, and the Jerky (mmm… jerky)

Funny thing about writing a blog — whenever really cool or important stuff happens, I’m too busy to write about it: so guess what… we’ve been brewing in Vankleek Hill now for more than a month! We’ve kegged off two different batches and we’re really, really happy with the results. I kinda miss brewing at Churchkey, ‘cause (owner) John Graham is such a dude and it’s a cool place to be at, but like moving out and ordering your first very own pizza, having your own digs is AWESOME.There are a hundred things I could write about in starting up in our VKH facility, and hopefully I’ll get to them, but here’s a real gem of a story that I think has some business lessons too. ...SJB

Like everything else we’ve done since we started, we left ourselves absolutely no buffer room for error when it came to production. We started brewing the very second that the brewhouse, the heat exchanger and one unitank fermenter were operational. We also stopped production at Churchkey, so if the first batch went wrong we’d be royally screwed. Why? Well, it costs a lot to brew in one place while paying rent at another, but more importantly if we tried to have production going in two places, there wasn’t going to be someone able to give all the love the beer needed at both locations.
So anyway, the actual brew day went fantastic. Great yields, smooth operation, textbook good stuff. Our consultant Charles Maclean said he’d never seen such a good commissioning. One huge sigh of relief later and we started focusing again. The brew went well sure, but if we couldn’t get our chiller working (it wasn’t) by the time the beer stopped fermenting, or the brite tanks ready to go (they weren’t) by the time we needed to filter, we were in trouble.
It turned out the beer took a long time to ferment, which was lucky as it also took a long time to get the chiller going. But there we were, ready to filter our first batch on schedule. We put in an order with Bob Latimer for filter parts, who we use whenever we can. [Note to other brewers, Bob’s # is (416) 576-5674, I recommend him fully].
Filtering was not so smooth. The dosing pump needed new seals and O rings, so Matt (our brewmaster) and Charles needed to develop a workaround. The beer needed to get filtered that day come hell or high wort, ‘cause we had orders to fill and absolutely no beer left in the walk-in cooler. They got through it in the end, but we would definitely need to get some new parts in before we filtered again.
We couldn’t use Bob for the parts we needed, so Matt found the most local supplier he could in Pickering. He put the order in on Thursday, the supplier promised to send it out on Friday, delivered Monday, so that we could filter Tuesday in time for our Wed/Thurs. usual deliver runs. Our Friday phone call to check up bumped us to Monday. Our Monday call wasn’t any better … still waiting.
Matt had a stroke of brilliance though and asked what parts they were waiting on. Turns out it was one O ring that was not super-crucial, so we asked them to ship it out immediately. Somehow this particular supplier interpreted immediately as tomorrow, so now we were looking at delivery end of day Wednesday.
We decided to work through the night Wednesday so we could ship first thing Thursday, but when Marshall the delivery guy usually makes his delivery stop at our place, he wasn’t there. Turns out that there was a mistake in the shipping info and they weren’t “entirely sure” where our package was.
I was on the road back from a joyous meeting (tongue inserted firmly in cheek) with my accountants and lawyer, when Matt called to give me the news. I asked Matt to explain just how critical this part was, and see if we could we come to the Ottawa package depot and pick it up ourselves. Well, not one person was around a major city who could physically go look for our package to find out if it was in Ottawa or not. So I drove through the night to Pickering to pick up the parts at 9 am the next day.
As it turned out, the shipper found the package at 8:30 am the next day and arranged for a quicker delivery than normal. The filter was reassembled and worked like magic. Jamie and Phil were able to get the critical “we’re almost out of beer” calls delivered Thursday, and by Friday all deliveries were made.Talking about it all later with Matt, we came to the conclusion that we are destined to have insanely bad luck with anything being shipped to us, and anytime we find someone like Bob Latimer, who deals with that wild end of things, we have to keep them around. ut once again, we got it done in the end and the results were once again, fantastic.