Steel & Oak Brewing Co. may be tapped out of space at its New West home – but has no plans to leave the Royal City.
Craft beer enthusiasts Jorden Foss and James Garbutt started Steel & Oak in 2013, opening their brewery and tasting room at 1319 Third Ave. in 2014. Since that time, the brewery has expanded both the tasting room and the brewery.
“It’s funny – when we first opened we never thought this building, beside an overpass and next to train tracks, would have as many people come to it as it has,” Foss said. “We love it here. We’d never want to leave this spot.”
While Steel & Oak has no plans to leave its current location, it is looking for space to meet its future needs.
“We are starting to try and get a little bit more aggressive with it, just because we are tapped out of space right now,” Foss said. “In all fairness, I did a pretty big expansion earlier this year and it will probably take us a year, maybe two years, to grow into that expansion.”
The hunt for a new space would allow Steel & Oak to increase future capacity.
“We really love where we are at, and we have put a lot of money into it, so at this point in time it wouldn’t make much sense to pack everything up and start fresh,” Foss said. “It would be more of a secondary facility to allow us just to expand production a little bit.”
Steel & Oak’s recent expansion allows it to produce about 300,000 more litres of beer annually, which is about double its current production. In the past, the company increased its capacity one tank at a time because that’s what it could afford, resulting in a beer shortage come summertime.
“This was the first year that we were able to go back to the well and our bank was willing to say, ‘Things look great guys, you’re doing great, we will definitely lend you some more money so you can more accurately plan.’ So we were able to get three new tanks,” Foss said. “Last summer was the first summer that we have ever really been able to make enough beer and to create some cool new brews that we haven’t been able to try before.”
Steel & Oak is currently seeking approval from the city and the Liquor Control and Licensing Branch to increase the seating capacity of its tasting room from 30 to 50 people. The premises is zoned light industrial districts, which allows a maximum occupancy of 30 people.
“Hopefully that will go through,” Foss said. “That’s really the limit of that expansion.”
When Foss and Garbutt started Steel & Oak four years ago, it was a challenge to write a business plan and to develop a growth plan as there was little data about craft breweries.
“We were one of the first breweries to open up on this new craft beer wave that was happening,” Foss said. “There wasn’t a lot of data before. We just closed our eyes and threw a dart at a dart board and started there. It all happened so fast that I can honestly say for the first couple of years we were just flying by the seat of our pants trying to keep up.”
Steel & Oak is at a stage where the owners are now able to step back to do some strategic planning and contemplate future growth. And just how big does Steel & Oak hope to get?
“Not that big, to be honest,” Foss said. “I am a big believer, and so is my business partner, that the reason why Steel & Oak is successful and has been is that we are local guys that live here and we are a local brewery. There is more and more evidence, especially in the U.S. of that being so important. When breweries expand too fast and they get too big and start becoming regional or national breweries, they kind of start to lose what’s really important and that’s being small enough that you can be flexible, you can change styles on the fly, your craft beer enthusiasts and beer drinkers still get a personal connection with what actually happens rather than just being a large corporation, which we don’t really want to do.”
Steel & Oak wins big at B.C. Beer Awards
\Steel & Oak Brewing Company continues to rack up the awards.
The New West-based craft brewery took home six awards from the 2017 B.C. Beer Awards, which featured a record 879 entries from 97 B.C. breweries in a variety of categories.
* International lager: Steel & Oak’s Red Pilsner – second (34 entries)
* Amber & Dark European Beer: Steel & Oak’s dark lager – second (19 entries)
* Strong Beer: Steel & Oak’s Baltic – second (15 entries)
* Spice, Herb and Vegetable Beer: Steel & Oak’s Towers and Trains – second; and Roselle – third (39 entries)
* Historical Beer: Steel & Oak’s Roggen Weizen – third (14 entries)
Jordan Foss, co-owner of Steel & Oak, said this year’s showing at the B.C. Beer awards was the local craft brewery’s best showing.
“There’s always a few you have a good feeling about. That being said, there’s plenty of great breweries that come out empty-handed,” he said. “You just have to count your blessings with what you get and consider yourself fortunate. We were really fortunate.”
In 2016, the brewery took first place in the European Dark Beer category with its Dark Lager, first in the Specialty Beer category with its Roggen Weizen and third place in the German Wheat Beer category with its Weizenbock, and a year earlier it placed first in the Amber/Dark Lager category.
