49 - Derek Bostock
The Explore84 Podcast
English - February 18, 2020 08:00 - 42 minutes - 29 MBSociety & Culture Business personal growth entrepreneur wellness soul body mind healthy goals explore health topics self improvement Homepage Download Apple Podcasts Google Podcasts Overcast Castro Pocket Casts RSS feed
“How bad do you guys want to get out of your day job?” Derek Bostock joins us this week to share the story of how asking this question led to he and his business partners opening Red Deer’s newest craft brewery, Sawback Brewing.
When Derek asked his now business partners to quit their day jobs he had already long since established himself as a successful entrepreneur and risk taker with his other business, the Red Deer Shooting Centre. The entrepreneurial spirit runs in Derek’s blood, and he recalls the story of how his family first came to Red Deer when he was only a year old. His father and grandfather ran a frame shop for heavy trucks and trailers, a super specialized business that like many in Saskatchewan at the time was being ravaged by the recession at the time, and so they packed up the entire family and hit the road heading to Red Deer to start fresh.
This penchant for risk taking hit Derek early too, moving to Calgary at just 18 when he was still a self-described “typical Red Deer shit head” and new he needed to get out of Red Deer to get some clarity and reinvent himself. With only 20 bucks in his pocket he arrived in the city and took a job at a car dealership on commission, a huge risk that paid off. 8 years later after working his way up the ladder he was asked to come back to Red Deer to help his family open a parts division in the business.
Shortly after coming back to Red Deer Derek started getting into shooting and realized there was nowhere to shoot indoors in town, so he opened the Red Deer Shooting Centre. Having not yet had his fill of challenges in running businesses in highly regulated industries he decided to expand into brewing next. He started home brewing roughly 5 years ago when only Drummond and Troubled Monk were on the scene, and while at the time they thought they’d be able to take their time but once they saw the craft beer industry in Alberta start to ramp up they knew they had to do it now, and Sawback brewing was born.
Alberta Beer Festivals: website | twitter | instagram