E-Malt.com News article: Canada, ONT: All-Natural Brewing Company plans new expansion for next year

For most people, green beer means the stuff knocked back at faux-Irish pubs on St. Paddy’s day. For Steve Beauchesne, it means making sure his craft-brewed suds have as little environmental impact as possible, Thestar.com reports.

He is the driving force behind Beau’s All-Natural Brewing Company, a small brewery in the Ottawa-area hamlet of Vankleek Hill.

Since its founding in 2006, Beau’s has tried to make its beer, and its entire operation, as environmentally responsible as possible. It hasn’t always been easy (or cheap), admits Beauchesne.

“We lost some potential investors that way,” he says of his plan to brew with all-natural ingredients and keep a small environmental impact.

As he and his father Tim tried to raise money to get the brewery up and running, potential investors were concerned that the green focus would be costly, and that there wasn’t enough of a market appetite.

Eventually, they got money from friends and family, and loans from the Business Development Bank of Canada and the federally funded Community Futures Group. It was enough to get off the ground.

Still, Beauchesne acknowledges that the sceptical non-investors were half right. “If you’re making the decision to go all-natural or organic based just on the bottom line, you probably shouldn’t be doing it,” he says. “But, to us, that was such an important part of what we wanted to be about.”

As for the market demand, Beauchesne and his father have had the last laugh. The company has grown to 45 employees from its initial five.

In 2010, Beau’s had about C$4 million in revenue, and is earning a profit. There have already been a few expansions, and another one is planned next year, since the current facility has reached its full capacity of 1 million litres per year.

There have been some struggles along the way, Beauchesne admits. One of the biggest was going all-organic, which the brewery finally managed in 2008. At first, it was hard just to source the ingredients.

“We began brewing in 2006 with certified organic malt, but finding a reliable source of organic hops was very tough. The quality just wasn’t there.”

In 2007, they found a good organic hop supplier. A year later, they got their full organic certification from Pro-Cert Organic Systems.

The ingredients, which were pricier than non-organic malt and hops, were the least troublesome part of the process.

Beau’s had to undergo a rigorous audit of the brewery, including their employee training, operating procedures, and even the shipping and receiving process.

“If a bag of malt had a little tear in it, we had to send it back. If the truck that it came in smelled like paint thinner, we had to send it back,” says Beauchesne.

They also couldn’t use the standard methods of pest control. While most breweries use rodenticide to keep intruders away from the tasty grains, Beau’s turned to a distinctly old-fashioned method.

“We’ve got a cat we call Orkin,” Beauchesne says with a laugh.

They also must to be able to trace all of their ingredients, in case of a surprise inspection.

“We have to be able to tell the organic inspectors exactly which bag from which shipment went into every single batch of beer.”

Although some of the requirements were a logistical pain, they’ve come in handy, he notes. Take, for example, the requirement that the brewery have recall procedures in place in case inspectors find a batch of grain was non-organic.

“We haven’t had any recalls because of bad beer, thank god, but one time we sent out a shipment that hadn’t been carbonated properly. We were able to find every single keg that had been sent out within two hours,” says Beauchesne.

The brewery has also undergone an energy-use audit to cut down on electricity use. And it has been careful about shipping the beer too far, and only entered Toronto-area LCBOs last year.

“The further you ship your beer, the more of a carbon imprint you have,” explains Beauchesne, adding that the brewery only sends trucks out if they’re carrying a full load.

He insists all the trouble has been more than worth it, for one simple reason:

“Beer tastes better when you feel good about drinking it.”


20 April, 2011