Craft brewers come from across North America and as far away as Korea and South Africa to search out the highly prized malt barley grown in the rich soil and cool climate of Alberta.
For Township 24 Brewery it is all about locations as they can easily pick up this highly prized malt barley with a quick trip down the road. We chat with Township 24 Brewery about getting into the Alberta brewing industry and the importance using locally sourced ingredients in their focus on putting local on the map one beer at a time in this month’s issue.
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In 1910, the Alberta Surveyors Act laid out the groundwork for the province’s township system. Following the lines of latitude and longitude, the grid was used to define the land for agricultural purposes. The agricultural land that surrounds Township 24 produces some of the highest quality malt barley in the world. The beer at Township 24 Brewery uses that barley to produce their award-winning beer. It’s a local win for all.
Spotlight on Business chatted with Mike Gron, founder and owner of Township 24 Brewery in Chestermere, Alberta about his focus on local agriculture and brewing great beer.
Gron grew up on a farm about 15 minutes from where his brewery now sits in Chestermere. After earning a degree in economics, he began a career in finance and IT, but chose to make a return to his roots. “I slowly made my way back here. I didn’t want to go back into farming, so the brewery is a nice compromise. I was a home brewer and the timing was right. At the time I became interested in brewing as a business, legislative changes were happening here, making this size brewery a possibility.”
In 2013, the Alberta Gaming and Liquor Commission removed minimum production requirements, opening the path for fledgling brewers to open for business without meeting a certain volume output at day one.
Gron became interested in a craft brewery as a business he could base around community and build out over time. After picking up the keys for the brewery in May of 2017, he was brewing by November of that year. The brewery opened for business on December 28, 2017.
“The brewery is in a rural setting and we put a lot of focus on local agriculture, specifically local malt barley production. We’re only ten minutes outside Calgary. I didn’t want to be competing with all the breweries inside the city. We wanted to have our own sense of community here. Our goal is to be as involved in the community as possible,” said Gron.
Township 24 focuses their story on local farms and the quality barley produced there. “We have some of the 
world’s best malt barley produced in this region. That’s the story that we tell. We do a lot of educating people about what we’re sitting on here in Alberta. Until recently all the malt went on a train car and left the province. Now we’re starting to capitalize on that as brewers.”
The small team of 6 employees “all do a little of everything.” Head brewer Curtis Metzger, a graduate of Old’s College Brewmaster and Brewing Operations Program, runs all operations in the back of the house, including the brewery, packaging and quality control. “We’re seeing a lot of breweries leveraging that program to find quality brewmasters,” said Gron.
The team at the brewery enjoys the creative process of making new beers. “We’re fairly nimble and we’re always experimenting. We do a lot of pilots, usually a couple a month. The process for some breweries to get a new beer out is 56 weeks. Our process takes two weeks.”
Running a brewery is a multi-faceted, ever changing job, one where Gron thrives, even with the administrative paperwork. “No two days are the same. I do a hundred different things throughout the course of the week. It’s a lot of administrative work which brewers don’t often anticipate. Since you’re dealing with alcohol, you’re coordinating with various government agencies.”
The community spirit in Chestermere is an asset in generating outside sales. “We depend on outside sales for half of our revenue. We’re out there getting new accounts and servicing accounts. That’s one nice thing about being in this community. There’s not a single bar or liquor store that doesn’t carry at least one of our products,” said Gron. Gives us a nice base to work with and we try to grow from there.
The brewery continues to grow, recently adding two new tanks to the system. Township 24 Brewery runs a 17-hex liter system with 90 barrels of fermentation space and has followed the trend into canning. “We started with bottling and have recently moved to canning. That’s the way the market is going. The demand is much higher for cans.”
Township 24 features 4 core brands including a black lager, kolsch, blonde ale and an American pale ale, plus two seasonals at any given time. “We do a stout for winter and a lighter beer for the summer. It’s all based on feedback from people in the tap room,” said Gron.
Educating consumers about the prized local barley is an intentional effort for the brewery.
“Our local barley is the best in the world, but we have to work harder to tell that story. Everyone understands that you can go to the farmer’s market and grab a tomato and that’s a local product. It’s not as obvious when you grab a pint glass.”
Buying local barley and using other local resources means sales benefit local farmers and the dollars stay in the
community. “There are all kinds of economic reasons to keep it local. And it’s fresh. It just fits with what we’re trying to do,” said Gron.
The brewery works with Origin Malting in Strathmore and Country Malt in Calgary. “Logistically, it works. If we’re brewing tomorrow, we just run and grab that product today. From a lean manufacturing perspective, it makes more sense than shipping product halfway around the world, stockpiling it here in the warehouse and paying to do that.”
“Craft maltsters have some unique offerings as well. It gives us more flexibility in what we can produce with it,” said Gron.
Those unique offerings have paid off for the brewery. After only two years, the brewery has picked up impressive awards. In 2019, Township 24 Brewery received a bronze medal for the Meridian Black Lager brew in the Amber or Dark Lager at the Canadian International Beer Awards. Also, in 2019, both the Meridian Black Lager and the Range 28 Vienna Blonde won Judges Selection for the Alberta Beverage Awards.
Recently, the Chestermere Chamber of Commerce awarded the brewery the Retail Excellence Award for 2019.
The collaborative spirit and camaraderie of the craft brew industry is part of what Gron was looking for. “The craft brew industry is a tight knit group. We did a coop brew with High River Brewing and we’re looking to do one with Origin out of Strathmore this year.”
Beer festivals, where people who love beer can sample different styles and interact with the brewers behind the beer, are also important events for the brewery. “It’s important for the industry and for the city. It gets people excited about beer for a weekend,” said Gron.
Township 24 participates in the well-attended beer festivals in Calgary and Edmonton, as well as smaller festivals. “We can get in front of more people in a weekend than we could all year in our taproom. It’s a big spectacular event and it’s fun to be part of. We also head up to Banff Craft Beer Festival for our wrap up for the year. It’s a smaller, more intimate affair. We can sit down for a beer with the other brewers and talk about the year you have had.”
Community involvement is a commitment for Township 24. Chestermere is largely a commuter town, but locals have built a sense of community around the brewery. During the winter, the brewery clientele is mostly local. In the summer, a cycling path from Calgary brings people on bikes in from the city.
Giving back also connects the brewery to the community. Township 24 provides silent auction items for youth sports and other groups. The brewery participates in Canada Day and other local festivities and will be running a beer garden for an outdoor boxing event in June. “We do music nights, often by donations for the local or veteran’s food banks or the veteran’s housing program. It’s about giving back and being part of the community,” said Gron.
Township 24 beers can be found in provincial Sobey’s grocery stores as well as co-ops and the Liquor Depot in the Calgary area and are available through the government warehouse system anywhere in the province. The brewery also has a direct delivery network in the southern Alberta area.
by Anita Flowers