A View from the Isle

Like many of my bloggy friends here in Vancouver, I attended Molson’s Brew 2.0 event at the Molson brewery on Burrard Street. Of course lots of us, okay most of us, were coming there (initially at least) to drink beer, eat good food, and hang out with friends. I left there however with a new appreciation of how Molson does business and how it brews its beer.

It’s no secret I’m a beer fan. Have been for a long time. So getting the chance to go to a brewery and drink their products pretty much as fresh as I could ever get it, yeah I’m so there.

Here’s the thing though, I left realizing that Molson Canadian isn’t a bad beer at all. I even had Geoff Molson pour a beer for me. Not often you get that chance in your life time. Not only that Gord Rickard (of Rickard’s Red fame—another of my fav beers) poured me one of his brews as well.

So beyond the yummy appetizers—Rebecca has the menu in her post: Brew 2.0, Molson’s Special Night for Bloggers—we got a tour of the brewery. Did you know that the brewery is celebrating its 50th anniversary? Yeah, no kidding, pretty cool. Did you know that Molson is serious about conservation? Yeah, there are posters everywhere talking about saving electricity and water. I even saw a chart/poster tracking how employees are doing.

I’ve been to smaller breweries and have brewed my own beer before, so I knew about the basic process behind it all, but wow seeing cans of beer literally fly by being filled with beer and sealed is pretty amazing.

Tasting a beer straight off the line then getting to have the special Rickard’s Gold beer that celebrates the 50th anniversary of this brewery, very cool.

So we got free beer, we got great food, a tour, and a little gift as we left (glass and flash drive with logos, etc), but that isn’t what has made me look at Molson in a better light. It was the people. Yeah, our tour guide was a brewmaster himself. He knew his stuff and was proud of it. Geoff Molson, very nice guy. Easy to talk to, yes a guy you’d like to have a beer with.

The folks at Hill & Knowlton did a great job organizing the event, however I think their job was made so much easier because of the culture and people of Molson.

The lesson here is, companies, take a risk. Bring bloggers and social media people in, show us why you’re proud of what you do. Give us the inside scoop (did you know beer tasters taste out of smoked glasses so they can’t tell what they are drinking?). Geek out on your products. We’ll dig it. We’ll appreciate the inside story. Yeah, of course free stuff is great, but learning about a company from the inside, that’s bloggable.