72 - Christina Owczarek (XhAle Brew Co.)

This week’s episode features XhAle Brew Co’s Christina Owczarek sharing her plans to expand this contract brewing brand into a destination brewery that gives people the space to breathe easy.

Christina’s story begins across the globe in Melbourne Australia where she was born and raised. She learned just 3 years ago about her self described super-power of ADD, which as she explains provides a lot of context for her educational background - jumping from performing arts to dance to education to music business, and finally physical education. Like her varied educational background she held a wide variety of jobs on the journey from Australia to Canada, nearly all of which somehow related to kinesthetics and teaching.

Her interest in brewing began just over a decade ago seeing an ex’s home brewing setup in Santa Rosa and thinking “there’s a lot of science-y things going on in here, and I bet I could do this better.” Since then she spent an enormous amount of time travelling throughout Canada and the US visiting craft breweries, and even had the privilege of making friends with the folks who helped get craft beer legends Lagunitas up and running.

Back here in Alberta she’s got huge plans for XhAle, which is starting out doing contract brewing with a potentially controversial, politically charged beer launching this October just in time for the US election. Christina’s penchant for social and political commentary will be a common theme for XhAle, which is hugely evident in her plans for the future physical brewery, which if it ends up in Alberta will be the province’s first cooperative employee owned brewery, making it possible for her to give people more than just a job.

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