Beer Barons article in the Star

[sstackho]

I couldn't find this online, but it showed up in my news feed.

Feature Pages
Bay Streeter brews up a new career; Accountant moves from poring over numbers to making beer and cider
Josh Rubin Toronto Star
776 words
19 February 2011
The Toronto Star
TOR
ONT
B3
English
Copyright (c) 2011 The Toronto Star

Sitting in a meeting at the investment firm where he worked as an accountant, Sean Fleming had a life-changing thought.

"A few of the older guys were talking and one of them said, 'Do you realize we've been working here for almost 20 years?' " Fleming recalls of the meeting at BMO Nesbitt Burns. "I suddenly thought to myself, 'I don't want to be that guy. There's no way I'm going to be here for 20 years.' "

Not long after that, while on vacation in Italy, he tried a German wheat beer for the first time - another life-altering moment.

"It was delicious. I'd never had anything like it before," Fleming says.

When he got back home to Toronto, he tried to find the beer - Weihenstephan - but couldn't. The brewery, founded in 1044, had no Ontario agent.

"I was really surprised that the oldest brewery in the world's beer wasn't available in Ontario," says Fleming. He decided to do something about it, and started along his path out of the corporate world.

Fleming got in touch with the brewery, and offered to become its Ontario representative. Together with former Labatt sales staffer Troy Taylor, he formed Beer Barons.

In 2008, Weihenstephan arrived in the LCBO. The thirst-quenching, slightly cloudy brew flew off the shelves.

By then, Fleming was chief financial officer at a broadcast technology firm. Although it was a little more creative than working at a bank, he decided running his own business would be even better.

It took a while, but late last year, Fleming left his day job and turned his efforts to Beer Barons full-time.

He and Taylor had already added a few other beers to their import portfolio. In December, they took an even bigger step, and decided to buy a brewery of their own.

Together with the backing of Leaside Investments, they bought Nobleton-based King Brewery, a small brewery specializing in classic European lager styles.

A little while later, they also bought Thornbury Village Cidery, which produces Peeler brand cider. Leaside is now the majority shareholder in King, but Fleming and Taylor own a sizeable minority stake.

"King makes some great beer, but there hasn't been a lot of marketing and distribution hasn't been so good, and we thought we could really improve on that," Fleming explains.

At both King and Thornbury, Fleming and Taylor kept the original owners on as minority partners. Phil de Fonzo's award-winning Pilsner and Dark Lager, and Doug Johnson's Peeler just wouldn't have been the same without the founders around, Fleming says.

Besides, neither he nor Taylor is a brewer or a cider maker. And it just makes good business sense to keep someone around who knows the company.

"We couldn't have done this without Phil and Doug," Fleming says.

New tanks are already being installed to increase King's brewing capacity, although the brewery may end up moving to Thornbury's 50,000-square-foot facility in The Blue Mountains. King's lease on its strip-mall location is coming due in a few months.

Fleming admits that running a small business has been a bit of an adjustment from his previous work in the corporate world. For one thing, there are far fewer zeros on the ends of the financial statements.

"At Nesbitt, we'd have $90 million in business a month. At King, we'd be thrilled if we hit a million a year," he says with a laugh.

The biggest change, however, is the level of responsibility. When you're running the business, there's no-one else to blame if things go wrong.

"I don't want to overstate it and say that it's a fear, but you're responsible for people's lives and livelihoods, so you want do what's best to keep the company strong," says Fleming. "It's certainly a different kind of pressure."

Between production and sales staff for the brewery, the cider producer and the import business, Beer Barons has 18 employees.

On the plus side, there are advantages in lifestyle, including being able to set his own hours, and ditching coffee breaks for something more refreshing.

"I can drink beer at my desk every day."

Bored with their corporate jobs, Sean Fleming, left, and Troy Taylor, right, bought the King Brewery in Nobleton from Phil di Fonzo, centre. They made di Fonzo a minority partner to preserve his brewmaking expertise.

[Belgian]

Good for them, it sounds like they have the right approach.

Sometimes people from a disparate profession (law, finance) do really well going into a more 'creative' field. They already have the business chops, and want to do something with a little more passion behind it.