It was a busy week at Four Winds Brewing Company.
Last week Four Winds opened an expanded tasting room at its Tilbury brewery, won nine awards in Growler magazine’s B.C. Craft Beer Readers’ Choice Awards and launched a designated driving program it hopes will expand to other craft breweries around the Lower Mainland.
“We’re very happy with the tasting room,” said sales and marketing manager Adam Mills. “We have been planning it for a few years now, but we decided to put it on the backburner when we were working on the Southlands project and when that didn’t go our way, we said we need to focus on this space to make it more inviting, comfortable for our regulars and attract new clientele.”
Mills said 50 seats have been added, which doubles capacity.
“It’s much more comfortable in there – a really good vibe,” he said. “We’re also adding a live music element and we had our first night last Thursday. We will be promoting this through social media and we plan to do this every Thursday night at 5:30 p.m. during our Thirsty Thursday nights where all our beers are $4 a glass.”
Tasting room hours have also expanded with Four Winds now open every day from 11 a.m. to 9 p.m.
“The music makes it more dynamic and helps to make this an even greater destination place,” said Mills. “We are really trying to promote our great food and dinner aspect. We know we are off the beaten path, so expanding our hours and space allows us to make this a dinner spot with our ever-changing menu from our talented kitchen staff.”
For the Growler magazine awards, Four Winds picked up first place for Best Farmhouse/Wild/Brett Ale for Juxtapose, Best Wood-aged beer for Norwood and Best Sour Ale for Nectarous. It received second place for Best Light/Amber Lager for Huft Gold and Best Belgian-style ale for Triplicity and third-place for Brewery of the Year, Best North American-style ale for Velo, Best Low-Alcohol Beer for Sour Weisse and Best Collaboration Beer: Ten.
“It’s amazing. Something you work really hard for, especially in our kind of business, is public perception and you want that perception to be quality, a sense of care and a high level of standards, so for people to vote for us and for us to win nine awards, we are very happy about that,” Mills said.
“It’s just great to know that the general public is behind us and behind what we do and sees us as among the best in the province.”
The designated driving program launched Dec. 6 with partners Deltassist Family and Community Services and MADD Metro Vancouver.
“We really want to promote a responsible drinking culture. We think we should shine a light on the designated driver, the unsung hero of these establishments,” added Mills. “We want to reward them for their service when they come in with a free taco or non-alcoholic beverage or you can forgo those rewards and we will donate $5 to MADD in your name. It’s one-time per visit, but you do that as many times as you want.”
Mills said through #DDchallenge Four Winds wants to broaden the program in 2020.
“We want to start a movement and make sure people are responsible with their consumption,” he said.
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