BREWING UP BUSINESS
Nyanza brewery has received accolades, awards and appreciation of beer lovers
Big Spruce Brewing has seen rapid growth since the Nyanza craft brewery was launched in 2013.
Jeremy White is brewing up a big success at Big Spruce Brewing.
“We were the little brewery that started as a little DIY, build yourself a two-storey complex, run out of money along the way and just barely get open,” White said of the evolution of his business, when he spoke this week at the Cape Breton Partnership’s investor summit in Ingonish.
Now only four years after opening, the Nyanza craft brewery has racked up accolades, awards and the appreciation of beer lovers across the province, becoming a destination in itself for visitors to Cape Breton Island.
It has grown from an initial space of 800 square feet to a new location just across the street of 5,400 square feet.
It is the first certified organic on-farm craft brewery in the Maritimes and only the second in Canada.
“This is how we wanted to be perceived — a brewery whose doors were always open, a place you could come and buy your beer, a place you could come and probably trip over a hose on your way in,” White said.
“We wanted people to be in touch with their beer.”
Being able to see the inner workings of the brewery as customers stop in to purchase their beer and talk about the process that goes into making it has proven to be part of the appeal of Big Spruce, White said.
The initial plan was to produce 50,000 litres of beer in its first year of operation, and grow to 80,000 litres by the third year, and hopefully sell 50 growlers each week.
“We’re rural, even if we become a destination, it’s still one heck of a drive to come out to the thriving metropolis of Nyanza for your beer,” White said.
Now, their new operation has a 30-can per minute canning line, they focus on four key brands while also producing distinct seasonal brews, and they are on pace to surpass 500,000 litres produced this year.
In 2013, they expanded production by 50 per cent, by 100 per cent in 2014, by 26 per cent through efficiencies in 2016 and by 350 per cent in 2017, White said.
The initial smaller brewery is now producing mostly the seasonal beers.
There are days when they sell as many as 150 growlers. Its sales at Nova Scotia Liquor Corp. outlets from the start were four times greater than projected.
The brewery also hosts food truck events and other special events and has become a destination, particularly on weekends, with live music.
“It’s become a hot little corner, down at the bottom of the Yankee line,” White said. “Quite a change from what existed
there before, but a real illustration that if you build something experiential, if you put a lot of time into quality, into dedication to what you’re doing and passion, people will come and seek you out.”
Big Spruce now has 11 fulltime employees as well as two seasonal employees.
The company has produced what it has billed as the first craft beer made with 100 per cent Nova Scotia ingredients and is about to embark on a onetime canning of 10,000 cans.
They went as far as to spend
two years searching for and developing a wild yeast strain growing on an eastern Canadian pincherry on their farm.
The result is One Hundred, which White said is similar to a Belgian beer. It is an example, he said, of how Big Spruce differentiates itself from the growing number of craft breweries.
“Cape Breton’s different, put it in a glass, put it on your menu, put it in your product, put it in your head, be passionate about it, talk about it,” White said.