Sometimes the stars line up. You know, the ones where dreams, passion and feasibility all meet and create a big bang. Such was the case with The Collingwood Brewery. One guy with a passion for making beer, and three other partners with foresight and a willingness to invest in a project. Owner, co-founder and brewmaster Chris Freeman started brewing beer eight years ago. He was working at an office job and battled the ho-hums by getting into home brewing on evenings and weekends. And like many home brewers, after he made his first batch, his thoughts turned to making a living out of his new-found talent and passion. Not one to let the moss grow under his feet, Freeman and his brother started pounding the pavement in search of financing and interested investors. In the meantime, Freeman applied to a college brewing course and moved down to the Niagara area for a couple of years to pursue the brewmaster program. While at school, he secured a summer job with the highly successful Creemore Springs Brewery and was hired on full-time after he graduated. All the while, he was in conversations with potential future partners on starting a brewery in Collingwood. Spotlight on Business Magazine spoke with Freeman about their beginnings, their products, whats down the road for the brewery, and their support community in Collingwood, a small town on Georgian Bay, north of Toronto.
in the marketplace. But Freeman explains that he took a different approach to developing his flagship beer. He was looking for something that was appealing and less represented by the trends. “Whenever you start making your own beer at home, you realize the potential of what you can do with different recipes. So I started making my own beer, and like most early brewers, it was average to bad. But I was experimenting, so my expectations were in check.” He adds, “Actually, it was my time at Creemore Springs where I really learned about the art of making beer. It's one thing to make a recipe off the cuff and make a really crazy tasting beer — that’s a very simple thing to do. The real art in the craft is making a well-balanced beer that you can keep coming back to, and that you can make consistently the same every time.”
way we started.
Veteran brewers now four years in, and the market is not showing any signs of slowing down or becoming less crowded in Ontario. It is increasingly difficult to secure retail shelf space now in the Liquor Control Board of Ontario (LCBO) outlets. But Freeman focuses on the positive and touts the Colling- wood area as becoming one of Ontario’s latest beer-lover destinations. “The great thing about Collingwood now is that two other groups have had the same idea. So literally within one month, three breweries opened up in Colling- wood. So now we have a great beer culture up here. I’m happy about that. And there are more cideries and brew- eries opening in the near future. It’s great to be a part of the community.”
The now Molson-owned Creemore Springs specialized in very approachable German-style lagers. And that’s where
Often, the inspiration behind the types of beer craft brew- eries develop are driven by popularity and current trends
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APRIL 2018 • SPOTLIGHT ON BUSINESS MAGAZINE
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