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Things are hoppin’ at Regina’s Rebellion Brewing Company and staff there are the opposite of bitter.
President Mark Heise says the company hit a recent beer sales milestone: After crunching the numbers, it found it had hit 1 million pints in beer sales for 2019.
It’s a few litres more than what he and his friends started with.
“We used to make 40 pints for us and our friends to chew through, and now it’s a million. That’s pretty staggering,” he said Tuesday.
That was about “20 litres of beer at a time, just us and our friends, brewing it at home on a kitchen stove.”
It was well before Heise opened Rebellion in 2014.
The closest Rebellion had previously come to 1 million pints was about 650,000 to 700,000 pints, Heise estimated.
Now, he’s chalking up 2019’s success to the late craft brewer Bev Robertson, who started Bushwakker Brewpub in 1991, and support from urban dwellers and rural farmers alike.
“Bev was huge; he was the true pioneer … He was doing it well before we did,” Heise said. “It’s been really cool for so many of us (not just Rebellion) to kind of pick up where he left off and take it to the next level.”
Heise referenced fellow craft beer brewers like Nokomis, Malty National and Pile O’ Bones as all having a strong influence from Robertson.
Then there’s the rural uptake of his brewery’s beer.
“I was just at an event in Aylesbury a few weekends ago,” Heise said. “There was a lot of very rural people there, born-and-bred farmers. They were high-fiving me, telling me to keep doing what we’re doing.
“Some of them told me they don’t even drink beer. They just view Rebellion in such a positive light.”
Heise said he figures it’s his company’s approach to business that has helped build up that reputation: Support other local businesses.
“Pump the tires of the farmers, pump the tires of the other great local businesses. We have a fantastic story to tell. We have been way too humble historically and I think it’s time to stop being humble,” he said.
Getting that support from farmers and other businesses is always a plus, and representative of mutual prairie support, Heise said.
“It means something to support their neighbours,” he said. “We haven’t lost that in Saskatchewan.”