The Brewer’s Blog was launched last year by Dageraad Brewing founder Ben Coli as he prepared for opening. It’s now being picked up by Josh Vanderheide, who is on his way to opening Field House Brewing Co. in Abbotsford.

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by Josh Vanderheide | It’s been almost a year since I wrote the business plan for Field House and we’re now 3 weeks from opening the doors. I’ve drunk way too many cups of coffee, accumulated a lot more grey hair, had to loosen the belt loop a couple times and signed my life away with personal financial guarantees. Is it worth it? I think so, but I will soon find out for sure as we go into the home stretch of opening our craft brewery in Abbotsford.

First off, I’m not a great writer. I’ve been working the last 15 years as a marketer and visual communicator. Writing is not my strong suit, so you will have to bear with a few run-on sentences and grammatical errors as I try to offer some insights into the ups and downs of opening a brewery in the eastern Fraser Valley. [Ed. note: impossible]

I can tell you that opening a brewery is not as glamorous as it sounds. It’s really hard work. There are some obvious challenges – ie. securing financing, finding a great brewmaster, and building the right team – but all of them can be figured out in due course. The main challenge for me has been the journey itself. Going into every day not having an idea as to what I’m doing takes a mental toll. I’m still giving myself mini pep talks every morning to assure myself that ‘everything is going to be okay’. For certain, the positive support that we have received from the community and from family and friends still gets me up at 4:30am every morning. And I hope it will continue to do so during this, our final push to get our doors open.

But why should you care about a new brewery out in the Valley? It’s a fair question. I’ll be honest: moving back to Abbotsford, where I grew up, was difficult at first. After living in Vancouver through my 20s and now into my 30s, I had grown accustomed to amazing experiences on a daily basis. I had lived only a 15 minute walk from Kits Beach, worked at a little design studio in the heart of Gastown, ran the seawall 3-4 times a week, and regularly sampled the best local food and beverage establishments around the city. Life was good! But with a small, growing family to contend with, it made sense to move out to the Valley. It afforded my wife and I more space and allowed me to re-connect with the community that I grew up in. Once settled, we decided that if we were indeed putting new roots down, that we should really dig in. To me, that meant creating and finding the types of experiences that inspire and excite people.

There are so many great things about life in the Valley. There’s space to roam and play, amazing natural surroundings, endless hiking and biking trails, and a great and growing community. But the truth of it is that there are very few food and beverage experiences of the kind that you can easily start taking for granted when living in a city like Vancouver. In recent years, however, a lot of smart, young entrepreneurs have started to change not only the big box strip mall perception of Abbotsford, but also the reality. This new wave of businesses includes places like Old Hand Coffee, Spruce Collective, Lepp Farmer’s Market and Duft and Co. Bakehouse. All are run by independent owner/operators who put their passion into their products, and the community has been responding with their support and loyalty.

Field House Brewing Co. is looking to follow suit by offering a unique Craft Beer Experience and our own locally made products. So, what is a “Craft Beer Experience” and why is it important? And how are we going to create one? Those are just some of the questions that I hope to answer in a series of blog posts that will be published on Scout over the next few weeks, so stay tuned…

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