It seems like a lifetime ago;  back in July of 2008, when Jason Meyer and Kevin Hearsum were given the keys to a dusty old industrial space in Rock Bay. Once we had dispatched the dirty mattress that blocked the door, we were ready to set to work  building our dream!

Here's Jason wandering the brewery-to-be.

One of the first orders of business was to knock down a 20 foot high wall that was six sheets of drywall thick! The snowiness of the photo is because of the copious amount of dust we created.

Once we’d cleaned up the space we were ready for the arrival of the tanks! We bought our system third-hand from a brewery in West Yellowstone, Montana. Getting the tanks off the trucks and into the building was one of the most stressful days of our entire lives!

Needless to say there were a few tense moments.

Standing up the first tank, easy does it...

Paint those kegs fellas!

Gary Lindsay joined the partnership in August bringing with him years of success promoting craft beer locally. He was a very welcome addition to the Driftwood family. The three amigos were ready to introduce their beers to Victoria and beyond!

The next year and a half was a steady grind with Jason, Gary and Kevin handling all the duties themselves! Kevin was doing all the production, as Gary kept adding new customers on a weekly basis. Jason did the deliveries and government tax stuff and shared the office duties with Gary. Needless to say these were three busy guys!

In the spring of 2010 the pace was getting to be a bit too much! We needed help! At last we could finally afford some relief, and we were fortunate to enlist the talents of Tim Fukushima. Kevin now had an accomplice on the production floor…

We were selling quite a bit more beer in Vancouver than we expected, and all without a Sales Rep over there! When our friend Ian McKay offered to step in, we realized he would be a great addition to the Driftwood crew! Look out Vancouver here we come!

We had been growing at a pretty good rate, but with someone promoting us in Vancouver, beer sales  there really took off! More assistance was required, and Gary was spending too much time taking orders in the office. Every day was a struggle to get on the road! At the end of May 2010, Justine Leonhardt took her place in the office, and became the first point of contact for our growing list of customers!

At that point we were running at full capacity. With the brewery as is was it could not produce any more beer! Time to order more tanks!

These are actually the old tanks, but it's a cool picture!

Driftwood has room for more than one Jason, so we hired Jason Carpenter to help ship the beer to the thirsty folk of Victoria! Rock on Jason!

Our journey continues…

They brewery continued to grow at a steady rate and soon more tanks were added. Now the problem was that we were beginning to run out of room!

Justine decided to hit the road and go traveling for a few months; we were sad to see her go, but were very fortunate to find another great addition to the team: Justine Darnley! (We know, we are a weird crew who have an odd desire to have as many people working at the brewery with the same name as possible!)

Once again it was time to have another set of hands on deck, when we met Nolan Francis we knew right away he was the guy for the job!

Thanks to the efforts of our Chief Beer Conversion Architect, Ian McKay, sales in Vancouver had been expanding rapidly!

We decided it was time to have our own warehouse in the Lower Mainland, along with our own truck and Driver, so we could provide the same high standard of service that our customers in Victoria had enjoyed. An old friend, Chris Waterman took on the task!

In April of 2012 we will be expanding into the space next door! Our journey continues…