Scott Stokes was on track to become a medical student at Thompson Rivers University when another line of work began brewing in his mind. The biology major had a summer co-op job at Columbia Brewery and began thinking that a career in brewing might not be a bad idea.
“I began to wonder if I really wanted to go to school for another four years after I got my degree,” he says.
He earned his science degree in 2002 and went to work for a microbrewery in Kamloops, only an hour’s drive from his hometown of Sorrento.
“I learned a lot about brewing in that job,” Stokes says. “And also that making beer by hand is a lot of hard work. Shoveling hot mash on a hot summer day isn’t fun.”
When a position to work under then-brewmaster Graham Kendall at Columbia Brewing came up in 2004 he jumped at the opportunity and began working his way up the ranks.
Three years later, he accepted a transfer to work as Kendall’s assistant in Halifax’s Alexander Keith’s brewery, one of six Labatt breweries in Canada.
“We (he and his wife, Leanne) had sold our house and were 36 hours from flying to Halifax to look for a house when I was asked to become the brewmaster here,” he recalls.
He and Leanne scrambled to find accommodation in what was then a hot housing market and were lucky to get a house on Scott Street that wasn’t listed.
“Becoming a brewmaster was my goal, anyway, so I was happy to stay here,” he says.
During his years in Creston, Stokes has earned a brewmaster’s diploma by taking courses, many by correspondence, and on the job training.
“It’s worked out pretty well,” he smiles. “Nobody ever told me when I was young that you could earn a good living making beer. But now, with craft breweries popping up all over, there are more and more people doing just that.”
Stokes is part of a small community of brewmasters in large Canadian breweries, so it still isn’t seen as a viable career by many.
“There aren’t a lot of technically skilled people available,” he reflects, “so there aren’t a lot of aspiring brewmasters in line for my job.”
In a job that he describes as “50 per cent science and 50 per cent taste,” Stokes shoulders large responsibilities and is on call 24/7 if anything goes wrong in the brewing process. And, with Columbia Brewery producing 15 different kinds of beer (Kokanee, Kokanee Gold, Kokanee Light, Keith’s IPA, Keith’s Red Amber Ale, Bud Light, Busch, Lucky, Wildcat Strong, Winchester Draught, Labatt Blue, Labatt Lite, Labatt Genuine, Kootenay True Ale and Brava), there is plenty that can go wrong.
Each of the beers has its own distinct recipe and each recipe has to be adjusted according to the size of batch that is being made.
“There are about seventeen different batches going in the brewhouse, nine in fermenting tanks and as many as seventeen more in the filter room — there’s always something to tweak.”
While the recipe is key, it’s the manual tweaks — minor adjustments to ingredient measurements or a host of other variables — that keep each beer’s flavour consistent.
Two years ago, Stokes took on a huge challenge when Creston was designated to be the first ever brewery outside of Halifax to brew Alexander Keith’s beer. Logistics — transporting ingredients and packaging, and shipping the finished product to market — are incredibly expensive in the brewing business and it’s much more cost-effective to have beer made in two or more breweries than to make it in a single location.
“That was a really good learning experience for me,” he says. “It was challenging and we were under very high pressure to meet the standards — it has to taste exactly the same as the ones made in Halifax. And we had orders coming in before we were actually ready to go.”
“I learned to question assumptions.” Malt and other ingredients can be slightly different than the ones used in Halifax and the difference in water and even elevation — “boiling at 600 metres compared to sea level makes a difference” — mean that the recipe can vary significantly in each location and matching the taste is largely a matter of trial and error for the first while.
While Stokes and other managers and lab workers constantly monitor each brew for taste, the ultimate arbiter is a tasting panel in the Anheuser-Busch brewery in St. Louis, which gets samples weekly.
“I hate when we don’t get a good report,” he smiles.
Stokes and the Columbia Brewery management team have been working recently to add yet another label to the mix. They are hoping to get approval from corporate headquarters to begin making the necessary capital improvements to produce Budweiser, one of the most popular beers in the U.S. Its recipe includes up to 30 per cent rice in addition to hops and barley malt and its brewing time is about four times longer than other Columbia Brewery products, so Stokes could soon have another steep learning curve ahead of him.
Somehow, that planning has continued through the brewery’s busiest months.
“We are stressed to the max from April through July,” he says. “We’re running full bore 24/7, trying to get every last can of beer out that we can. It’s always tough in the summertime; it feels like it’s never going to end. But that’s just the way it is.”
With Labatt breweries being part of the giant Anheuser-Busch InBev global conglomerate, Creston’s operation is something of an anomaly, a small-town brewery in a big city business. But Columbia Brewery has a strong reputation for efficiency and good labour relations.
It’s also extremely productive. At peak production, the brewery rolls out up to 1.5 million cans of beer a day, in addition to 225,000 bottles a shift, plus kegs. And it doesn’t happen by magic.
“People at this brewery always find a way to make something happen. We always come together to find a way. This might not be a logical place to have a brewery, but it does what it does extremely well, so in that way it makes sense. And the water here is really good.”
Stokes seems surprised when he realizes that with only eight-and-a-half years in Creston, he is one of the longest serving managers.
“Now that I think about,” he says, shaking his head, “the time has gone by in a flash. I could count the days that have dragged by on one hand. Usually when I look at the clock and see it’s 5 p.m. I wonder where the time went.
“There’s always something to keep you busy. With all this equipment there is trouble-shooting or maintenance or full-blown rebuilds. And we have a lot of equipment. …
“We have a great team here, and that includes all of our 140 or so employees. It’s fun to come to work. And part of my job involves drinking beer. What more could you want?”
