For some, it’s a welcome watering hole after a day riding the trails. Some drop by for a carton of eggs. Or to buy a book. Others come for the farmers’ market, live music or games night. Beyond brewing award- winning beers, Persephone Brewing Company has been adding reasons to drop by for more than 10 years.
Now entering its second decade, the 11-acre “beer farm” at the corner of Stewart Road and Highway 101 is broadening its horizons while determined to stay true to its roots.
“People, planet and profits —in that order,” sums up Persephone sales manager, David Schneider. “But let’s be clear, Certified B Corporations are certified for profit—businesses using business as a force for positive change in the world. Figuring out a way to grow while reducing our environmental impact is definitely a tricky thing but we’re committed to it, absolutely.”
Being a Certified B Corporation means Persephone must balance purpose and profit. Community engagement, food security and regenerative agriculture is at the heart of navigating that balance. The latter partly depends on nurturing and improving land by composting spent grains, spent hops and food waste to improve the health of soil.
“By running our farm using regenerative agricultural practices, we’re essentially setting up our land as a carbon sink. We actually don’t till our lands. Every time you till your soil, it releases carbon into the atmosphere, destroying the soil structure and increasing the need for artificial fertilizers and pesticides.”
From Day 1, partnership with Sunshine Coast Association for Community Living has been built into Persephone’s business plan. The association supports people with disabilities and develops employment skills. Several of its clients are employed on Persephone’s farm, which cultivates honey, apples, hops and barley. The extra ingredients needed are sourced from farmers who are as local and as organic as possible.
Manipulating and mastering those ingredients is Persephone brewmaster, Anders McKinnon, who’s responsible for creating drinks that go well beyond beer.
“We’ve expanded our portfolio quite a bit in the last couple of years,” says Anders. “We’ve moved into non-alcoholic products with our water kefir [a probiotic low-sugar beverage fermented with whole fruit]. We use it a lot in our tasting room for cocktails.
“Our cider production began in 2015 and it’s only grown since then. We’re doing a First Frost Spiced Cider for the holidays again because it was a big hit last year. As for Christmassy beers, we did release back in August our 10th anniversary barrel-aged Imperial Stout. At 10% [alcohol content], it’s going to age well in the bottle so it’s a perfect Christmas beer.”
Exciting Anders right now is Persephone’s Honeycomb Hard Seltzer, a product he describes as unique. “It’s different than all the vodka sodas that you see in the market in that it’s an actual product of fermentation and it utilizes the honey, which is an agricultural product. Beer’s my go-to but I was pretty excited to learn how to make it and I think we’ve turned out a pretty clean and interesting new product.”
But satisfying thirsty customers has only ever been half the equation for Persephone.
“A big part of our ethos is integrating agriculture because beer is an agricultural product, it could not be made without farms,” points out David. Persephone helped get a local food program off the ground a few years ago, partnering with other Sunshine Coast farms to provide farm boxes for people in need.
The brewery has also leased some of its market gardens to Grounded Acres Organic Farm, who David describes as “amazing farmers.”
“We’re professional Brewers, but we’re still amateur farmers. Grounded Acres have contributed so much. Quite simply, this land is putting out way more food than it ever has.”
To inform and inspire the next generation of sustainable farmers and food producers, Persephone partners with educational network, Young Agrarians, to provide mentorship programs and on-farm training for aspiring young farmers, and with Farm Folk City Folk to host workshops promoting local, sustainable agriculture.
Now the brewery is expanding to the upper Sunshine Coast. In September, Persephone announced that it had acquired Strikers Pub and Westview Bowling and Billiards in Powell River with plans to renovate and revitalize the venues.
“We’re really just looking at it as another community to build a hub in and a gathering place,” said David. “We’re aware of the importance of shared spaces and there’s fewer of them, particularly in small towns.
“So, we want to encourage gathering places for people to come and converse and talk about serious subjects sometimes and just have fun as well, because that’s important for the health of a community.”
“It’s cool to be tying the Sunshine Coast together!” Visit persephonebrewing.com for more information.
Welcome Back, Brian!
The winner of the Darren Entwistle Community Builder Award in 2021, former director of Sunshine Coast Community Futures, co-founder of the Community Food Box Program and catalyst for numerous non-profits, for-profits and co-ops, Persephone founder and CEO, Brian Smith, has always been front and centre of the brewery’s vision for positive social and environmental change.
In early July, Brian was seriously injured in a cycling accident in Portland, Oregon. He sustained injuries to several vertebrae and his spinal column, resulting in a diagnosis of paraplegia. After four months of physical rehabilitation, Brian was welcomed back to the brewery on November 7 by Persephone staff and regulars with an evening of food, drink and live music.
We wish Brian all the best with his continued recovery.
Books & Brews
(Subhed by Cathalynn Cindy Labonté-Smith)
Follow the butter yellow staircase upstairs over Persephone Brewing and you will find yourself in the idyllic attic of Upstart & Crow’s new bookstore. This hygge bookshop glows with sunny butternut squash-coloured paint, and the bookshelves are repurposed wood pallets. It’s an inviting place for bookworms to browse on a rainy day. There’s a dreamy deck with a picnic bench, where you can quaff a beverage as you devour a new book in the sun and watch the chickens below.
Upstart and Crow at Persephone is the child of its parent store on Granville Island, owned by Zoey Grams and Ian Gill. There are several elements that make their bookstore unique.
“We carry the underheard voices, books on social and environmental justice, literature in translation, independent publishers, and Sunshine Coast authors. Only three per cent of books read in English are translated from another language,” she says.
The shelves also have a curated collection of Indigenous authors and books with strong female leads. The most unusual shelves are where Persephone brews are paired with books. “The idea for the bookstore came from Persephone’s CEO, Brian Smith, who wants Persephone to be a cultural centre. We’re thrilled to be in partnership with Persephone’s sustainable ethos and thrilled to get to know the writers and readers in the community,” says Zoey. She also has a marketing company that has worked with local publishers Douglas & McIntyre and Harbour Publishing for the past decade.
Upstart and Crow relies on Persephone’s staff to run their shop when the owners aren’t on site. The Sunshine Coast can always use another bookstore, so let’s raise a stein to their success.
