Nuanced. - Taste of Abby: The Art of Making Craft Beer with Paul Sweeting

Episode Date: September 21, 2023

Listen in as Paul Sweeting takes us from his early days in a liquor store to becoming the owner of Ravens Brewing Company, where he crafts award-winning beer using locally-sourced ingredients.Welcome to the Taste of Abby podcast mini-series! In this series, we'll explore Canada's largest farming community, connecting with farmers, creators, and restaurant owners. We'll dive into how they harvest from the land, strive towards sustainability, and strengthen our region. Join Aaron Pete as we deepen our connection to these lands and explore the tastes of Abby.Ravens Brewing Website: https://ravensbrewing.com/Send us a textThe "What's Going On?" PodcastThink casual, relatable discussions like you'd overhear in a barbershop....Listen on: Apple Podcasts   SpotifySupport the shownuancedmedia.ca

Welcome to Taste of Abbey. I'm Aaron Pete from Chihuahawthal First Nation, and I host the Bigger Than Me podcast. In this series, we'll explore Canada's largest farming community, connect you with local farmers, creators, and restaurant owners. We'll dive into how they harvest from the land, strive toward sustainability, and strengthen the social fabric of our region. Join me as we deepen our connection to these lands and explore the Taste of Abbey. Paul, it is such a pleasure to sit down with you today. Would you mind introducing yourself for people who might not be acquainted? Oh, yeah. I'm Paul Sweeting. I own Ravens Brewing Company with my wife, Jocelyn. We've been operating since 2015. We produce beers, about 20 different beers a year,

including our IPAs and loggers, and we do spirits as well. Can you tell us about the early journey? You've owned different businesses, you've operated different things with this idea. of the Raven. Can you talk about some of those early days? I started with a liquor store and we saw the craft beer industry growing. We thought that would be a great backup plan. So we started Ravens Brewing, started planning about 2011 and then open the doors in 2015. Since then the liquor store model has moved into grocery stores and stuff that. So we sold that and then this has become our only plan. What made you interested in alcohol? How did this come on to your radar?

and become an interest of you? We got the opportunity first with the liquor store. Back, the government was privatizing stores, and they were giving it to anyone who owned a hotel. At the time, our family owned a hotel, we were given an opportunity to have a license. And then originally it was all about having a wine store. Wine was the first interest and explore the Okanagan

and brought in as unique wines as we could. And it grew into different spirits. And then craft, started ballooning craft beer, craft spirits. And similar to that whole Farmgate wine, the craft beer industry kind of balloon that way, where we can go out and meet the breweries. And our first brewery, we worked with was Solitaire in Abbottesford. And I was surly brewing, and he brewed us, Solitaire.

And I actually spent a couple weeks with him, him teaching me the ropes and how everything worked. And then he helped start our brewery as well. He was there cleaning floors with us and helped me pick up a quick. and all that kind of stuff. Where does the entrepreneurial spirit come from? Is this something you were passed on from your family members, or is this something you've always had? It's definitely a family thing.

My dad has always done construction and hotels and restaurants. My brothers and sisters also are all independent business owners. So it's definitely within the family. Paul, the Raven is something that's a cornerstone of Ravens brewing. You have some tattoos of it. Could you give us a tattoo to her? Absolutely. The first raven is this raven here.

There's originally a beer label. We had a tattoo artist's design back in 2016. And I texted him and said, hey, I really think this should be a real tattoo. And he got me in within three days. And we did this one. This was done by an artist in Chilliwack. So he's great.

He does a lot of shading. And with the hops and the barley, is kind of the first brewery raven tattoo. The next one is the full raven. This was, I really wanted to explore the feathers and the style of the raven. So that's where this one came from. This one was done from a local artist here in Abisard. The third raven is the skull.

This one was, this one was more of a spur of the moment. My daughter and I were doing a university tour in Toronto. It was raining and we were cold and we thought, what should we do? So we walked into a tattoo to parlor. So we looked on the internet, found one we liked, which was the raven skull. Right. And we side by side got the raven skull together. Brilliant.

Yeah. If I'm not mistaken in indigenous culture, the raven is a trickster. It's also innovative and it's willing to adapt. Can you talk a little bit about that? Yeah. The raven, I think, really embodies who we are. He is a trickster. So for us, not always thinking yourself seriously is important.

mistakes happen. So we have to be able to change and adapt and be flexible that way. As well as it's innovative. So we want to be innovative. He's solving his own problems through using tools and stuff. We want to be innovative in our business as well. So that's really important. And there's a piece to family, if I'm not mistaken as well.

And this is a family-owned business. Yeah, the Raven mates for life. So we feel that that's also important. Longevity and family and everything else, that's what the Raven embodied. Brilliant. And you have one more, I believe, right at the bottom here. Yeah, that was the original crow from our liquor store. That was the original design of the very, very first Raven. And that's my daughter's initial, so we're along with it.

Incredible. Craft brewing has become very common, but you were right at the beginning. From my understanding, there were only three other craft breweries in Abbotsford when you were starting out. What were those early days? Yeah, we were three in Abbasird and we were the 72nd in BC to open and there's now well over 240. So we're kind of in that second wave and it was good. It was emerging a lot of the policies and in government were still new to craft beer and so we're helped to help bring those forward and some of the issues involved in that. And it was a time where a lot of new beers are coming out. Sour beers weren't really a thing when we first opened. Never intended to

really do those types of beers. And now winning best in the world with a Lingenberry sour beer, we've become very well known as a sour beer, fruit sour beer, fruit sour beer. How did you think about starting the business? What were some of the main issues that you needed to address to get this off the ground? It's a very capital forward business. There's a lot of stainless steel in brewing. So yeah, we had to do a lot of fundraising, a lot of family support that helped bring it forward. And then learning. I'm not a craft brewer. I'm an accountant by trade. So bringing on a brewer that could develop our systems, develop our recipes so we can learn from him as well. What was the vision for the flavors, the tastes? What were you

thinking? We started very traditional. We had a logger, a West Coast pale ale, and we had a dark beer, an English dark mild. So we really focus on doing those traditional styles. People would recognize. And then as craft beer became more popular and people started looking for unique experiences and anything else, that evolved into doing fruit beers, sour beers. We now do beer with jalapenos and having arrows. So yeah, it's being really creative and having a lot of fun. What's that journey with the master brewer and developing these flavors and thinking about what you want to bring out next and what you want to highlight. It's very collaborative here.

So we all sit down as a team and talk about the beers that we like and or ones we want to try and do. We come out with some pretty crazy ideas and the brewer will even say, no, or he'll take that inspiration and develop a recipe out of that. So we have some really good bases that we can work from and then add in fruits, spices, herbs, different yeast, different hops, try and focus on different elements to create a unique experience. Can you tell us about that, choosing where you get some of your products from to develop this? Yeah, our focus is trying to be as local as possible to decrease that footprint. So a lot of our

hops come out of Abbottesford. The malt is either BC malt, prairie malt. So we try and minimize as much we can. And then when we go to get fruits, we try and source local. We've bought from local farms. We do a chocolate beer. So chocolate's not grown here, but we work with a local chocolatier. I don't know anything about cocoa nibs. I don't know if they're good quality. So having him go, hey, this is the best cocoa nibs you can get. I can trust that and be able to put that in my beer. We are 10 minutes away from your brewery at the hop farms. Can you talk about where we are right now. Yeah, we're at Braydenhoff Hot Farms, a local grower. He's been one of the leaders in bringing back hops to the Fraser Valley. Hops used to be grown here decades ago,

and Ray and his team have been growing hops for BC breweries for about five, six years now and bring him really good quality hops. Can you tell us what a hop is? So a hop is the flower, is grown on a vine, not a vine that starts with a bee. So it's growing. It's growing. on a vine. It is the flower of the plant, and inside is the lupolin, which is the yellow part here. And that's the real treasure for us. That's what helps the beer with the flavors and the aromas and the bitterness. And it can be dry or not dry? Yeah. Traditionally, it's used dried. They'll harvest it, dry these, and then pelletize it. It's a longer short. off life for them. But what you'll get is every year at harvest, breweries will come and get

right off the bind and produce what's called a fresh hot beer. So basically from maybe a day to maximum two gets off the vine and goes right into the beer to flavor the beer. These are incredibly tall. From my understanding, it takes up to three years for them to start to mature. Yeah, the root base takes about three years, but they grow 20 to 24 feet every year. Oh my gosh. You can almost sit out here and watch them grow. So every year they're cut right down to the ground. They're harvested and then next year they'll grow the full height again. And what flavors do they come in or is it just one standard plant?

There's lots of different. In the West Coast here, Centennial and Cascade are really popular. But new styles, bringing stuff from Europe, things like Fuggles and Saz, those are all types of hops. They're now being grown in this area. What's your preference or do you notice a taste difference? It really depends on the style of beer you're using. So if you want to do a West Coast style IPA, you're going to use those centennials, the big Cs they call them.

If you're doing something more European style, then you're going to go after the fuggles. In our English dark mild, it's traditional, a UK fuggle. We'll use the fuggles grown here in the valley. What does it mean to you to be able to go 10 minutes and you're at the farm that you're working with and you're making that? Oh, it makes a huge difference. knowing the farmer and knowing, be able to come out and see your product before you're able to buy it is incredible. You can see the quality. You know the experience the farmer brings and the expertise. So when we ask him a question, he can give us those answers right away.

And sometimes we start a brew and you're scrambling because you forgot to order our hops. He's only 10 minutes away. You can run down and pick them up. What's the collaboration? Like, do you work collaboratively to try and develop new things? or what's that process like to work with local farmers? There is a little bit of collaboration. There's always new styles or hybrids that they're trying to develop. It's definitely on the agricultural side. But if we have the opportunity to get our hands on,

some of these experimental hops, we can then brew with them and then showcase them and show the farmers and how they're showing up in the beer. As a farmer, I think the fear is that whether or not people are going to buy your product. So it seems like it's important to have relationships with local people who are working to utilize your product and have those relationships. Relationships is key. So when mistakes happen or when businesses having problems, again, having something local

and having that support is all the difference. If you're buying across the world and shipping accidents happen or strikes or anything else, having the local supply mitigates all those problems. How much would you say you're ordering? How much is going back into your brewery? What is that process like? We try to order as much as we can. We try to use local, not just in hops, but in other ingredients.

But in our, some of our styles, we try to be traditional. So we are sourcing some from around the world as well. One other question. I don't know if you know who Sean Evans is, but he has this explain that Graham on his Hot Ones episodes. You have a post about inclusivity and some of the core values of your business. Can you talk about them? Yeah.

So our core values is we talk about innovation. So we always want to be trying new things and being unique and different. Another one is family, which also encompasses community. We're a family-owned business. I think it's important that family comes first. So whether we're in the community helping out or, you know, we want to go watch our kids go play soccer. I think that's important part of it. Pride and celebration are another value.

So we've got to celebrate our successes and other people's successes. That's what brings up the community together. So all those things combined, I think really encompasses who we are and what we're trying to achieve in our own business and in this community as a whole. Farmers have been through a lot.

Heat domes, cold waves, all of these different challenges. What is it like to work with them during some of the biggest challenges they've faced? faced. Yeah, they're a resilient bunch, especially right here. This was flooded, you know, just a few years ago. So, yeah, trying to help again, being part of the community and help where we can, whether it's, you know, making sure we're supporting and buying their products or, you know, coming out and helping in any way. That's, that's important to us. What is your favorite type of beer? My favorite type of beer is a Pilsner. It's crisp, it's clean, and it's difficult to make.

That's kind of a measure of a good brewery is how good your Pilsner is because it has to be a good balance beer between sweetness and the hops and I think ours is great. Can you tell us about what goes on here? What is the process? Sure. We start with barley.

This one's here from B.C. It goes into our mill where we crack the barley or wheat or rye, whatever we're using. It gets transferred into our match ton where it soaks like tea. steep it for about an hour, pulled all the sugar ward out, and then it goes into our kettle on the far one, where we then boil it between 60 to 90 minutes. We can add our hops. If we're

doing coriander, salt, we can add it in there as well. From there, we then transfer it and cool it rapidly and put it into one of our fermenters, where then we add our yeast. And near the end of the fermentation if we're going to add additional yeast or hops, we can add that for our flavors and aroma and stuff of that. And then we'll also add our fruit at that time as well. So we use fruit puree. So we'll get a big drum of mango or pineapple and put that right in there and then let the yeast ferment up the sugar of that as well. So we're just left the flavor. From there, after it's done fermenting, we transfer it to our conditioning tanks where we then carbonate the beer and then we choice then of putting it into cans or into kegs.

How long does it need to sit for? Depending on the style of beer. So a logger is roughly between three to five weeks. An ale can be anywhere between 10 days to two weeks, depending on the yeast we're using. What's the toughest part of the process? What's the most risky? A lot of the stuff can happen here. If you don't hit your target gravities, which is your sugar levels,

you have to make some quick adjustments. If there's things not working in the fermentation, you have a lot longer time to adjust and work with it. But on Brew Day, which for us, we're producing about 2,000 liters of beer in about eight hours. So if there's any mistakes, we don't have a lot of time to make adjustments. Do you feel like you're at capacity right now or that you guys are capable of making more? We're getting close, but we have room to grow. our last place, when 2015, that was supposed to be a 10-year plan. We were out of there in seven.

So we moved here a year and a half ago. We have a lot of space. So this is more of a 20-year plan, because I never want to move a brewery again. Right. We dropped our tanks in the old location, and we were ready to move. And the next day, the valley flooded. So we had to wait about three weeks before we could move all our equipment. as we were an island at the time, but we had to wait.

How did you navigate that? What was the stress like during that period? We were hoped for a six-week turnaround from tear-down to set up, end up being three months. About two months in, we ran out of beer to sell. So we had a month where we had nothing. So we did eventually end up working with two other breweries who were able to produce beer for us and keep us going while we waited for everything to get. Where else can people buy the beer?

What other location? We're located in government and private liquor stores throughout BC. We're also in many restaurants. And we distribute through Yukon, Alberta, Saskatchewan, and Manitoba. How does that feel? And where do you want to take it next? How far do you want to reach? We want to get right across Canada.

We've been in Nova Scotia once so we can say we're coast to coast. But moving farther east, Ontario is definitely a huge market, which is played very differently than BC. And so as we look across, as how do we do that expansion? Do we work with other breweries to brew out there? Do we develop our own brand out there? So that's some of the options we're looking at. And so when this is going through and you're developing this, how complicated is the process? And was it what you expected when you started?

It can be complicated. There's a lot of elements that go into it to make it right. Beer consumers want consistency. If they have my logger today, and they have it a year from now, it should taste the same. So it's all about good systems and processes to make sure that we're consistent all the way through. Interesting. And so this leads into my question, just about developing some of these flavors and the challenges that you face in terms of consistency. What do you face? It's ingredients is one, making sure it's consistent in ingredients.

The weather, we get very hot in here. So making sure we can manage temperature controls consistently throughout the whole brewing process. So we're not stressing out the yeast, which then creates off flavors. So if we can be consistent in what we do, that produces the best quality of beer. It's so easy to look at somebody's success, to see this amazing facility, to see all of the different flavors and styles, and say, like, oh, it was clear from the beginning. But in those early days, you're going through things, you're facing challenges, barriers are coming. up to your success. And now you are winning awards. How does that feel and how does that journey feel? It's been a lot of fun. It's been challenging.

Learning the processes, not knowing it from the get-go. There's been a lot of changes in personnel as well through over the years. So learning to adapt to those changes as well. When we have a new brewer, we say we have a direction, but the port-a-calls on our journey are his to make. So if he wants to produce a new sour or anything else, it has to be consistent to what the Ravens brand is in quality and everything else. But the uniqueness of who he is is just as important as what the beer is. Your facility is on 7th First Nation.

Can you tell us about this facility? This facility was built two years ago. We moved in a year and a half ago. We worked directly with the developer to build out our facility. It's been a great opportunity to get in early. and have it built to the way we want. Everyone here has been very welcoming and supportive in what we are trying to accomplish here.

So we enjoyed the process. 12,000 square feet, and it seems like you also support other people in their endeavors, other businesses. Can you talk a bit about... Yeah, craft brewing is very collaborative. The ultimate goal is we want to steal from the big guys, not from each other.

So we work together a lot. So we contract brew for five, six brands. We help distribute brands. So it's all about small business. So some of these guys, some of the smaller breweries that can't take advantage of some of the larger services, we want to be there to support them and in their growth as well. Interesting. And you also are very responsible about trying to utilize everything from the malt. Can you talk a bit about that? All the leftover malt after we produce the beer is collected and we give it to local farmers, cattle and big farmers.

It's used for feed for them. So, yeah, we also worked with a mushroom farmer who takes the leftover grain and uses that as the base to grow new mushrooms for restaurants. You never do this alone. When you're an entrepreneur, you're working with other people, you're being collaborative. Can you tell us about the team you've built here?

Yeah, well, it has to start with my wife. It's the two of us who are working together on this, and she works hard on the back end. And then we have about four other people that are full-time, from deliveries to sales to brewing to assistant brewing. Everyone supports each other, and we all wear many hats. So it works really well. Interesting.

Can you tell us about somebody walks in, what is the beer you'd like them to try to get that full experience? I think our lingonberry sour is the one that we've won the best in the world with. So I'd like to put that one forward as a good accomplishment. But our IPA, I think, stands above as well. Brilliant. Should we try some? Absolutely.

Okay. Which one would you like to start with? We should start with the logger. Okay. Yeah. So this logger, as we call a smash. So single malt and single hop. So the malt is grown in Peace River.

So it's BC malt. And the hops are grown 10 minutes from this brewery. Really? Yeah. Wow. So, cheers. Cheers. It's so smooth.

Can you talk about how that process comes about? Yeah, well, loggers are done cold and slow. And that's just to create minimal flavor from the yeast. So we want to taste the malt. So that's the readiness that's coming out of there. Minimal hops, it's just there to create a bit of bitterness, not too much sweetness. So it's just a real easy, clean drinking beer.

That's good for every day. And can you contrast that with one that is that it's got more flavor, that's got more a dynamic taste? Yeah, well, like an IPA may use similar mults, but it's going to add way more hops to it. So that's going to give you more aroma, more bitterness to the beer. The yeast that we use in ale or in the pale ale will also add flavor notes to the beer. So that will also flavor the beer.

So while this one's supposed to be crisp and clean, the IPA is supposed to be full flavor. You said something before, the husbandry of yeast. Can you elaborate on that? What does that mean? Well, the yeast are the hard workers of making beer. So they're taking that sugar and converting it to alcohol and CO2. And we want to, especially in a lager, we want to keep them really happy. So we control the temperature.

We control the ingredients. going in there to make sure they're producing the best flavor. If you stress them out, they will produce off flavors. Sometimes there's like buttery popcorn flavors or green apple flavors. So those kind of things we try to avoid. So yeah, we're breeding and growing these cultures of yeast to help us ferment the beer to best bottle. Where are you drinking your beer? Where would you ideal place, picture in your mind, is it golfing, is it laying on the beach? Where are you drinking? I love the ocean.

My parents recently moved to Sunshine Coast, so sitting on the beach, watching the whales, drinking some beer is the best place to be. Incredible. Which one do you want to try next? You were excited about the chocolate porter, so I think we should try the chocolate porter. That sounds so interesting. How does a chocolate beer come about? So this one, we use some darker malts, one being a chocolate malt. So it's rosed darker to try and get some of those flavors. But in this case, we add, we get cocoa nibs and we soak the coco nibs in the beer for three days. So rather than becoming overly sweet, it grabs the bitter chocolate notes.

And then we added just a hint of vanilla just to kind of sweetening it up. Interesting. Is this something you came up with and you were like, we've got to do something like that? This was from our head brewer. We wanted to kind of stand out from just a standard porter. So we knew that we had this chocolatier in atmosphere so we thought we could partner with him. and get the cocoanibs and throw it in there and really create a good chocolate flavor. Brilliant. Cheers. Cheers. Cheers again. How many times do you have to go back and try making one again and trying something different?

We're pretty fortunate. We do it in two tries. We're doing small batches. We're trying new fruits. We'll do the same base and add different fruits in to see which fruit works best or which fruit, you know, doesn't ferment out very well. So yeah, it takes a few trial runs, but we can get a beer out pretty quick. This is really good. It does taste like a delicious mocha, like it has all of those different flavors. Yeah. Do you sit down and go like, this is something I'm so proud of that you're able to share with people and feel connected with? Yeah, it always amazes me that people buy something I make. So, yeah, when people buy it and we get a lot of emails going, hey, this is really good or our Belgian triple, we get a lot of comments saying it tastes very traditional to the Belgian style. It's great to hear that because that's what we're trying

to do is traditional beer, traditional ways using innovative ingredients. So when we get feedback that we're hitting those, it's great here. Could you ever imagine that you'd be here today that you'd reach these goals and you'd end up with best beer in the world? No, that was never on the day. I was never on the day. for best beer in the world. It was kind of fun that we were when we did win because we didn't actually go down to the awards. We submitted it just for fun.

It's called a World Beer Cup. And at the time, I was coaching baseball when I was standing on third base and my phone lit up but as people were texting us, congratulating us for winning best goes in the world. So, yeah, I completely forgot about it and we're really excited to win.

What advice do you have for other creators, other entrepreneurs who are taking these first steps and getting started on their journey? The ultimate goal for us is always to create strong partnerships. Things are always going to go bad. Things are not going to work. But developing partnerships in business helps you navigate those waters. Port strikes, COVID, all those things. If you have strong local partnerships, you can get by.

You can talk to a vendor and go, hey, I need 60 days. do you know of an alternative source or those kind of things, that will get you by because it's never rosy running a business. It's always difficult. You did a lot of pivoting through the pandemic. Can you talk a little bit about that? Yeah, we, beer was an essential service, but restaurants weren't at the beginning. So we started doing home deliveries. So that worked quite well for a while. We also had just received a still right before COVID. Hadn't really used it yet. So we started by making hand sanitizer, which we then sold and donated to the local hospitals

and stuff like that. So we were able to not lay off any staff during COVID. All of our front of house staff became mixologist in making hand sanitizer. So we were fortunate that we were able to keep running, still able to sell. And actually, even though we weren't able to open to serve, our staff were still able to continue working. That seems like the story of you, right? You're willing to pivot and adapt to new circumstances, and I think that that's important that other people

are able to take that away. Yeah, diversity is the key. The more kind of opportunities you have and not just focus on one thing allows you to survive things like COVID. So being able to pivot and do hand sanitizer or pivot rather than delivering to restaurants, delivering to homes, just makes you more flexible and able to adapt.

Can you tell people how they can connect with you, how they can follow this journey and how they can get some beer? We're on social media, so Instagram and Facebook primarily, our website, ravensbrewing.com. And we, on site here at the brewery, you can come down, you can buy some beer, enjoy beer at the communal table here. Brilliant. Paul, it's been a pleasure chatting with you today. Thank you so much for the work you do and for supplying this with some fresh, delicious beer.

My pleasure. It's great having you.