A few years can be a pretty good indicator if a business will flop or soar.
In Steel & Oak’s case, owners Jorden Foss and Jamie Garbutt have been on the receiving end of tremendous growth since opening their brewery in 2014. One needs to look no further than their Instagram page and the #sobeer hashtag.
Whether it’s the recent launch of their Royal City Ale in cherry red tall boy cans, a photo of a new porter on tap or a soon-to-be-released spring tank, business seems to be booming.
“This time last year, we didn’t even have a bottling line,” Foss told the Record during a one-on-one interview. “We were only selling beer in the tasting room and to local restaurants and pubs.”
Today, Steel & Oak brew can be found in 130 liquor stores in B.C. and in another 60 in Alberta.
Meanwhile, a staff of six employees has grown to 19, and from four fermentation tanks, another six have been added to the lineup.
But Foss carries mixed feelings about the rapid growth.
“I love that things are getting busier for us, but it’s still a new, pretty small business,” he said. “It’s kind of this difficult area where we want to make sure we grow slowly enough so we can still keep that quality up."
Foss added the brewery (located at 1319 Third Ave.) has had to “pull back” a few beers in order to keep up with the canned production of Royal City Ale, which takes up three of seven fermentation tanks. The first batch of cans to hit shelves sold out in two weeks.
“We’re running so skinny right now that we don’t have a choice but to eliminate limited releases, or cool beers that people don’t know about yet because we have to do our flagship beers,” Foss explained.
Regardless, there are worse problems to have, he chuckled.
Asked if relocating the business may have to happen at some point, Foss said it’s a possibility.
“It’s terribly frightening because it’s expensive and we really like this location. The problem with New West is that there’s not a lot of industrial space available. For us to relocate in the city would be difficult.
“We don’t know what the next step is. We’ll deal with it as it comes.”
