Building a green and socially responsible brewery with Wild Winds

by Andrew Bardsley

Jen Rogers and Tim Prince

Wild Winds Brewery is a brewery founded by husband and wife Jen Rogers and Tim Prince. While they’re working on building their physical location in Pincher Creek, they’ve been brewing award winning beers for folks across Alberta to enjoy. We interviewed Jen to learn about their journey to becoming brewers and their plans for the future of Wild Winds. 

What led you to choose this field as a career?

My husband, Tim and I were sitting on our patio on a beautiful summer day in 2016, drinking craft beer. We were chatting about how we were tired of "the corporate grind" and investing so much time working for someone else and not 100% enjoying what we were doing. At that moment, we decided we wanted to start our own business. But what type of business? A gym? Although we both have fitness backgrounds, it didn't have the right appeal. Then I suggested a brewery! YES!! Where do we start? 

How long have you been brewing? 

We love drinking craft beer, but neither knew how to brew it! We started looking into opportunities to learn formally. At the time, only two schools in Canada offered technical brewing education and training. One in Niagara, Ontario and one in Olds, Alberta. Olds is only a one-hour drive from Calgary, and the Olds College Brewmaster and Brewery Operations Management Program has an excellent reputation, so we started looking into the application process. 

We set our alarms for 8:00 a.m. on Saturday, October 1, 2016, to send in our applications. By November, we had both been accepted to start in September 2017. When it came time to choose who would take the plunge to return to school, we decided it would be best for me to pursue the program. The Olds College Brewmaster and Brewery Operations Management Program is a 2-year program that provided me with valuable technical knowledge, practical experience, industry relationships and lasting friendships. I have been formally brewing since my enrollment in the Olds College Program in the Fall of 2017 (5 years). 

What is your favourite type of beer to brew?

Anything true to style. While I sometimes enjoy stepping outside BJCP guidelines, I feel the real challenge as a brewer is to brew a beer true to BJCP style guidelines.

How has starting your own brewery been? 

I’d love to say it has been super smooth and easy, but that would be far from the truth. It's been a rollercoaster! Obtaining financing took us about eight months from start to finish and was approved in June 2021. 

COVID didn't help on this front. Once we had our financing in place, we felt the crunch to get started on design/engineering to meet the banks' deadlines and be open during peak season. We outlined our budget to all of the engineers, architect and GC, and everyone worked together to meet those goals, or so we thought. The project went to tender and came in 300% over our budget.

To add to the costs, the Town of Pincher Creek wanted us to build a road which would add $250k to our expenses. We halted the project and sought other opinions on reducing our costs. The Town allowed us to remove the road, but this had costs associated with engineering that we didn't approve of. We have reached out to numerous contractors for opinions on how to reduce our costs, and a number of them have indicated that design, specific materials, and engineering could have been simplified.

We were trying to install geothermal out of the gates to help reduce our environmental impact, but we quickly realized it wasn't affordable. We have found a company that can get the building enclosed and installed for us as currently designed (but simplified), limiting the amount of re-engineering we would have to do and pay for. The item that we are trying to work through now is the utilities. The Town will not be bringing the utilities to our property line and is placing the cost on us, which is high and something we didn't anticipate. Once we work through this hurdle, hopefully, we will be breaking ground in the New Year. 

We've already invested a significant amount of money in this project and are not ready to give up! Although, like many others who decide to start their own business, I have moments of doubt and fear about whether to keep going. Tim and I are passionate about starting our own business and being an influential part of a local inclusive community, which drives us to keep moving forward. We have been contract brewing until we are up and running out of our own facility and the support has been overwhelming! We are incredibly grateful for the retailers, restaurants, customers, and our local community of Pincher Creek! Thank you all for your continued love and support! 

How did you get involved in the Hop Forward Society? 

I saw it pop up on my social media feed through a friend. I checked out their website to learn what they were about and wanted to support and participate in any way possible because I firmly believe in what they are trying to achieve. 

How do you plan on incorporating DEIA best practices into Wild Winds Brewery? 

We fully plan to hire staff and do business with organizations that align with our values and inclusive brewery culture. Core values include diversity, equity, inclusion, and a safe, healthy, and welcoming environment. We will not discriminate and will do everything in our power to take action and effectively advocate for positive change. We will not tolerate abuse of any kind to our staff or customers.

We have ZERO tolerance for emotional, psychological, and physical abuse. We will have strict policies, processes and training in place before we open our doors to the public. This would include a code of conduct, employee handbook and recruiting practices, harassment and violence prevention plans, an open door policy to safely report problems and a just and fair accountability model.

We genuinely care about people, and with my background in Human Resources and Tim's experience in Occupational Health & Safety, we will always put people first.

What do you hope to learn from Hop Forward as a brewery owner? How can Hop Forward help brewery owners and workers?

I hope to be kept up to date on best practices. Providing resources would be essential to helping workers and owners in the brewing industry, which I know the Hop Forward Society is already doing. Present opportunities for like-minded industry peers to connect to discuss DEI and how we can improve and bring forward issues or concerns.