Steve Beauchesne, Co-Founder, Beau’s All-Natural Brewing Company
You can check out the full episode with Steve here.
What You’ll Learn In This Episode
- How and why Steve decided to start a brewery.
- How Steve’s background in music has helped with the branding and marketing of the beer.
- Why values are so important to Beau’s and shaped the way Steve does everything in business.
- How businesses can have an important benefit to the communities around them.
- And much more!
The Setup
Steve Beauchesne is the co-founder and CEO of Beau’s All Natural Brewing Company in Vankleek Hill, ON.
He’s an amazingly humble and inspiring person. Each time I’ve met or spoken with him, he’s impacted my perspective on business.
Steve studied Management & Entrepreneurship at Ryerson University, but had his mind set on being a entrepreneur since a young age. Steve is a musician and wanted to start a record label (which he did — but couldn’t make any money at).
After university, Steve ran a “night club” with an innovative business model. The bands that would sign to his record label needed to work at the club a few nights a week. In turn, all the money raised was used to promote the music they were all producing.
“I had a lot of fun with it, just never made a lot of money.”
Steve’s dad had been an entrepreneur in the textile industry. As the economy started to change in early 2004, his retirement plans were wiped out as the business began to crash.
On the day his last client left, Steve and his dad brainstormed what he could do next. The idea for a brewery came up during the conversation.
“On the spot I said ‘If you’re serious, I’ll quit my job, sell my house, and move back home and I’ll start a brewery with you’. The next day we sobered up and it still seemed like a good idea. We just kinda rolled with it from there.”
Over the next few years, Steve and his family built a brewery based on family values and doing the right thing. They’ve gone from 6 employees (two of whom wished they were on payroll) to 125 today, growing at about 40% per year.
“In the starting days, we couldn’t actually drink our own beer because we didn’t have it in bottles, we didn’t have a way to get it out of the kegs, and we were always sold out. The only way to get it was to go out to a bar.”
Beau is the first brewery in Canada to achieve a B-Corp status, are certified organic (since 2009), and have chosen to use 100% renewable electricity and natural gas to power their operations at the brewery (also a first in Canada). They believe in supporting the community they serve and set an ambitious annual goal as to how much they want to raise for charities. Their signature fundraising event, Oktoberfest, recently raised over $95,000 dollars in 2014.
“[On Oktoberfest] That first year we were expecting maybe 500 people to show up and it turned out that 5,000 showed up at the gates that day.”
Music has always played a central role in Steve’s life and it’s key to Beau’s brand and marketing success.
Steve often says they’ve followed the marketing plan of an independent record label. A few examples are:
- Beau’s created Fe-BREW-ary, where just like a small record label, they release some of their best products at a time of year when the bigger corporations are doing nothing so that they have better visibility.
- Beau’s also partners with international micro-brews through their “B-side Brewing Label” program. Kissmeyer’s Nordic Pale Ale was one of their first ones.
- Oktoberfest blends independent artist, bigger bands, and beer into an amazing 3 day party.
- Beau’s coasters often promotes independent Canadian musicians or “mixtapes” people can download for free online.
There’s something really special about the brand and the products they create. If you’re lucky enough to be able to get your hands on some, we know you’ll be able to enjoy it.
Checkout the full Hack To Start episode with Steve here:
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