We were in the papers...
 | Owner of Amber's Brewery, Jim Gibbon, and brewmaster Joe Parrell cap off a successful year. (Jordan Verlage, Sun Media) |
|
The local beer industry is about to get a whole lot sudsier in 2009 as a burgeoning Edmonton-based company prepares to double its production.
Amber's Brewing Co., which launched its signature Bub's Lunch Pail Ale a year ago, is toasting a heady 2008 that has ushered in a bubbly future.
"It's amazing. We're growing so fast, we can't really keep up right now," owner Jim Gibbon told Sun Media from the microbrewery's southside facility at 9926 78 Ave.
"We've gone from the problem of not having enough sales to cover our production capabilities to not having enough production capabilities to cover our sales."
The growth spurt comes amid the ongoing economic slowdown, perhaps proving that beer sales really are recession-proof.
It also comes in the wake of Gibbon's decision not to use sex and provocative advertising to sell his beer.
"No boobs in Amber's," he quipped, noting that that's not the image he had in mind for his brew. Rather, the beer has been marketed as uniquely Edmontonian.
Bub's Lunch Pail Ale, for instance, features syndicated comic-strip character Bub Slug on its label.
Slug, created by Edmonton cartoonists Gary Delainey and Gerry Rasmussen, is pictured on the label smiling in front of the High Level Bridge and Great Divide Waterfall with Edmonton's skyline in the background.
"A blue-collar guy with a hard hat, proud of where he's from," Gibbon explained of the famous waterfall maintenance man currently appearing in the Betty comic strip that runs daily in the Edmonton Sun and other newspapers around the globe.
The hometown microbrewery's rapid growth over its first full year of business was punctuated last month when the Liquor Depot chain opted to start carrying Bub's Lunch Pail Ale.
"That takes us from 40 stores across Alberta to 220 stores across Alberta overnight," said Gibbon, a fourth-generation Edmontonian.
Amber's, currently the purveyor of seven types of craft beers, is also bolstering its tap presence in bars and restaurants across the city. Late last week, two taps were installed at Dewey's on the University of Alberta campus.
"In this industry, taps are gold. In other words, a person who will put your beer on tap and sell it to the public is gold," Gibbon said, noting it's no easy task to displace an established beer maker. "It takes a long time to get even a single tap."
And if all goes well in the new year, the barley-pop firm will soon start selling a sampler six-pack of its offerings across Canada under the trademarked Amber's E-Town Ales.
It all points to the need for increased capacity, which is why Amber's is in the midst of releasing $30 shares and hunting for secured investors. Minimum buy-ins are expected to be around $15,000.
"We'd like to find 20 or 30 people in Edmonton that realize the stock market is a disaster right now, so pull a few of those dollars out of the stock market and throw it into a local company," Gibbon said.
"It's called a private placement. We're going to use the money to upgrade our equipment, hire new staff and go to phase two."
Gibbon realizes that the next year will bring some new challenges. But for now, the optimist says his glass is half full.
Visit ambersbrewing.com for more information.
