Blindman Brewing, winner of the 2022 Alberta Brewery Awards Brewery of the Year, is a local favourite. They believe in creating innovative, quality, flavourful craft beer using the best ingredients; using local ingredients and supporting the places we live in and the people that live there.

The founders of Red Hart Brewing had been friends for years before embarking on the fateful Red Deer River weekend canoe trip where we first started to dream of a brewing business. We were somewhere downstream of the River Bend Golf Course when Curtis, our head brewer, having drunk several of his own brews at this point, stood up in his canoe in order to show the remaining founders his hind end. He succeeded, and then immediately failed, when he proceeded to fall over, spilling the canoe and its occupants into the chilly waters of our namesake river. It was conversations around the campfire that weekend that started us down this path to building this business, Red Hart Brewing.
Red Hart Brewing is named for our city and county - Red Deer.

The concept of Red Shed malting started as a small seed, when Joe started brewing small batches of beer. It took root through numerous conversations at the family dinner table and was nourished by our desire to taste our own barley in Joe’s beer.

We began touring breweries within Alberta and through our conversations with the brew masters, we identified a need for locally sourced, traceable specialty malt. Currently, most specialty malts are imported into Canada. After extensive research, conversations with industry experts, and attending the CMBTC Malt Academy, we decided to start Alberta’s first craft malthouse with Canada’s first malt roaster!

The consumer is seeking more complex flavours and a better understanding of what ingredients are used to make their craft beer and spirits. Red Shed Malting is the missing link in the chain between the barley grower and the brewmaster. We craft a local, sustainable, traceable specialty malt that brewmasters and distillers use to create beer and spirits with consistently more flavour.

Birdy Coffee Co. at the beginning of 2020: the start of the Covid pandemic - but that didn't stop us. Yet, roasting coffee started even several years before that. The journey of Birdy began with roasting coffee simply as a hobby and passion, which eventually turned into starting a business when the opportunity arose to partner with a commonwealth of local breweries (our other favorite type of beverage) and other entrepreneurs to create a space of community and like-mindedness. Our aim now, and our vision for the future, is primarily 2 fold: to roast exceptional coffee for others to enjoy, and to create solace spaces where anyone and everyone knows that they as they come, they will meet a friendly face who will listen and value them as a human being over a delectable cup of coffee.