SETTING THE TONE FOR CRAFT BEER EXCELLENCE NEW LEVEL BREWING H ow did a guy with a Ph.D in philosophy end up running a brewery? Or have beer and philoso- phy always been made for each other? by Anita Flowers Spotlight on Business chatted with Drew Ross, President and Co-Founder of New Level Brewing in Calgary about his path to becoming a brewmaster and the fun and challenges of running a brewery.
Ross didn’t set out to become a brewmaster. He completed a masters degree and Ph.D in philos- ophy at Queens University in Ontario. Feeling burned out after doing contract teaching work, and discouraged by the lack of tenure track posi- tions, he began looking for a career change. After considering law school and social work, he ended up in the Brewmaster and Brewery Operations program at Olds College in Alberta. “As soon as I started, I knew I was in the right place. That was what I wanted to do,” said Ross. Ross remembers his father brewing wine and beer when he was young. “Wemade beer and soda together. That was fun. In my early 20’s I took a trip to Germany and I loved that there was beer everywhere. I loved the atmosphere and the crisp German lagers.” Ross and his brother, James, both heavy metal fans, came up with the idea for the brewery while in the U.S. at the Maryland Death Fest. “Bars there were just loaded with craft beer and we loved it. We spent as much time checking out beers as we did bands. It was a glimpse of the more flavour -
ith a brewery born at a heavy metal festival, it made sense to continue the theme into the name. “We came up with a lot of metal sounding names. A lot were pretty extreme and not something you would see on a menu at a restaurant. New Level is a Pantera song. It has a positive message about trying to do things better than you’ve done them before and take it to the next level. We liked it for the name because it’s a little more accessible – a little more broad. But some people get the reference and come up and show us their Pantera tattoo.” The brewery quickly grew to be more than the two brothers could manage alone. Now, ten employees share a hard-working culture. “We’re all pretty into the beer and putting out a quality product. Everybody here is serious about doing a good job and we share the vision of making the company bigger and better. We have lots of good times. We play hard and work hard. Our goal as a company is to make craft beer that’s excellent but also have fun,” said Ross. The brewery runs a B and E system from DME with quite a bit of automation. “We can do 30 hectoli- ters at a time or we can do 40 hectoliters if we fill it up. It is a bigger system, but we have a differ- ent approach. We like to experiment with different things.”
ful extreme stuff - before there was a lot of craft beer in Canada. We thought – Why can’t we have beers like this at home?” After returning to Calgary, Ross began research- ing his new project. “I started to home brew, readbooksandthenwent to Olds College for the brewmaster program.” Ross’ brother, James, joined him in the brewery project. The Ross brothers launched New Level Brewing with a soft open on April 2018 and a grand opening on July 2018.
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JUNE 2020 • SPOTLIGHT ON BUSINESS MAGAZINE
SPOTLIGHT ON BUSINESS MAGAZINE • JUNE 2020
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