Expanding on his article “What Gets Made Here Matters” Dallas Gislason explores the journey of scaling up from small beginnings.
Brewing Success
The story of B.C.’s craft beer industry provides useful lessons and parallels for what might be possible in other industries.
Over 50 years ago, a 22-year-old microbiologist fresh off the plane from England discovered something abysmal: the bland, light-coloured lager that defined the Canadian beer industry. The “big three” (Molson, Labatt and Carling O’Keefe) were constantly cutting costs. And quality suffered.
That young man, named Frank Appleton, took a job at O’Keefe and over several years, his dissatisfaction with not just the product, but the workplace culture led him to throw in the towel. He moved to the Kootenays where he made his own beers in his garage and earned his income as a freelance writer. Then, in 1978, he published an article in Harrowsmith magazine called “The Underground Brewmaster” that would change British Columbia forever.
John Mitchell, the owner of the Troller Bay Pub in Horseshoe Bay, was also frustrated with the lack of quality and diversity in the beer market. Reading Appleton’s article prompted him to travel 600 kilometres to convince the young microbiologist to help him start a brewery.
After some trial, error and machinery cobbled together from old dairy equipment, their experiment worked. They launched B.C.’s first commercial craft beer: Bay Ale.
This prompted interest from other places. In Victoria, Mitchell and Appleton partnered with Paul Hadfield on Spinnakers, Canada’s first brew pub. Then, with a new protegé named Sean Hoyne, Appleton created what is now Swan’s Brew Pub. Hoyne went on to become the brewmaster at Canoe Club (now CRAFT Beer Market) in Victoria’s Inner Harbour. A few years later he launched his flagship brewery, Hoyne Brewing.
A few years later and voilà!, British Columbia now has an estimated 230 brewpubs and microbreweries.
My conclusion is that one early mover who was willing to nurture others around him made the craft beer movement possible — and the people he nurtured, in turn, nurtured others.
Growing Businesses
Perhaps the hardest proposition within the maker movement is scaling up from one’s garage (or the maker space) into a viable manufacturing business.
Ray Brougham, president of Rainhouse Canada Ltd., has operated such a business for over 20 years. From its base in Vic West, Rainhouse can build pretty much anything, but has specialized in marine and aerospace sectors and, more recently, in circuit-board manufacturing as well as clean-energy products through repurposed batteries.
Rainhouse has long promoted the value of local manufacturing and bringing back Canada’s capacity for building things.
“We offer mentorship programs, where experienced team members guide and inspire younger professionals,” says Brougham. “We also prioritize community engagement by sponsoring local engineering teams and hosting educational events. These efforts not only strengthen our workforce, but also contribute to the vibrant culture of innovation and craftsmanship in our region.”
Brougham has many thoughts on how we can better nurture manufacturing in Canada:
- Encourage vocational training that involves apprenticeships. Getting people out of the classroom and onto the shop floor can accelerate learning.
- Develop world-class facilities that inspire people to get involved in manufacturing. These facilities could also attract businesses to locate in them to gain access to shared equipment, a trained workforce and a ripe R&D and testing environment.
- Streamline regulations while also introducing programs that help promote and incentivize made-in-Canada products, from early-stage R&D and innovation, through to commercialization and market growth.
Ray adds that doing this effectively requires collaboration between post-secondary institutions, industry associations, governments, regulators and businesses.
“During the pandemic, we accessed a program that helped us create a partnership with an academic institution and another manufacturer to develop a portable machine that could disinfect PPE equipment using ultraviolet light,” Brougham explains.
“This was something the market needed urgently due to the COVID 19 crisis, but it was only possible because multiple partners — including the government — came together quickly and worked through the whole process.”
