The Spotlight is a series of interviews with the craft beer heroes behind local organizations who are helping grow the beer scene in our fine city. This week’s spotlight is on Powell Street Brewing
It’s not uncommon for husband and wife duos take up a hobby together – be it tennis, scuba diving or traveling the world. So naturally, Nicole Stefanopoulos and David Bowkett decided to open a brewery. But before we can get into the history of the brewery, we need to get into the history of the couple! Nicole and David met on Myspace – how awesome is that? Nicole was managing a punk rock band, and David was a good friend of some members of the band. Love happened, and before they knew it they were married and Powell Street Craft Brewery opened its doors in December 2012. The facility found a beautiful home in the lower level of a small, vintage house, located in the historic shipping waterfront area of Vancouver. As a two-person operation, David works as its brewer and Nicole oversees the operations of the facility.
One has to wonder, what was going through their mind when they first opened their doors? Nicole explains, “Well first off, I always wanted to open my own lounge, as I was in the food and beverage industry for years, but I never found the right business partner or the timing wasn’t right. So after our trip to Portland, Oregon where we learned about nanobreweries, the contemplation and discussions began and we were clearly on the same page. With my background and his brewing talents we said, ‘Let’s Do This!’ and a year and half later we were open.”
When they first opened up, the goal was to brew a few times a month and gauge interest in the community. David brewed on the weekends while keeping a job throughout the week. Meanwhile, Nicole worked days and evenings in the brewery retail store. Fast-forward 5 months, and their Old Jalopy Pale Ale was awarded Beer of the Year and Gold in its category at the Canadian Brewing Awards 2013. In Nicole’s words, “The brewery was a secret no more, business had shot through the roof and with the high demand, and selling out of beer; expansion was inevitable. Within a year and half, we moved up the street and started building into our new microbrewery location.”
New location? You read right! Powell Street Craft Brewery will be opening up at their new location, 1357 Powell Street, in mid-september. The new facility is a total of 5000 square feet which is about 5 times the size of the old space. The new brewing system is 18 hectoliters (1800L) which is much bigger than the old 3.5 hectoliter (350L) system found in their first brewery.
Frequent visitors of Powell Street Craft Brewery will tell you that it was quite the cozy location. This larger building will offer a tasting room complete with tables, chairs and two growler filling stations. Additionally, they will be receiving a lounge license near their opening day, which will allow them to serve more than one glass per person per day (which they couldn’t do before.)
On opening day, we can expect to see a lot of Powell Street’s mainstay brews available: Ode To Citra Pale Ale, Dive Bomb Porter, PSCB White IPA. But once there is a good stock in place for the regular Powell Street crowd, the plan is to move into barrel aged beers, including some sours. There will definitely be more seasonal releases, and some small batch beers that they will be using our their old system for. They will also have added bottling capability, so look for their beers in your local liquor store soon!
If you’ve never been down to Powell Street to visit this brewery at its old location, make sure you head out and check out the new one. Being a big fan of it myself, I can assure you that you won’t be disappointed. You want a place that feels like an episode of Cheers when you walk in? You’ve got it! “Breweries usually reflect the owners and ours is a very friendly, homey atmosphere. Not only do we own the joint, brew the beer, take care of the books etc, we also serve the beer and have built relationships with our customers. It’s a community feel, a fellowship and now we have three great employees that share that rapport.”says Nicole. They don’t just talk the talk, they walk the walk! With David’s help, I coined the term “Rusty Buckets” for people like me that obsess over Old Jalopy Pale Ale. It hasn’t quite caught on yet since I seem to be the only one using it but I’m hopeful it will go viral and make me millions. My wife seems skeptical.
Cheers,
David Perry – @davidjp87
CAMRA BC – Vancouver Branch Communications Team
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Powell Street Craft Brewery’s new address is 1357 Powell Street and will be open Tuesday-Saturday 1pm-7pm. The plan is to open their doors by mid-September, but it might be earlier so keep on eye on @powellbeer, their Facebook page, and their Instagram feed for more up to date information. Or better yet, sign up for their mailing list here.
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