Top Dog Brewing combines great taste with unique branding

By Fred Groves

KINGSVILLE — Leamington and Kingsville are quickly gaining a favourable reputation in the expanding craft beer market.

For Kieran Buzek and his unique method of branding, it has been an opportunity to tap into a passion that has steadily grown over the past five years.

Located on Road 3 East in Kingsville, Top Dog Brewing offers up a variety of blends including Watermelon Wheat, Blue Bronco IPA, Talk to Me Goose, Lemondrop Summer Ale, and – soon to be released – Peach Milkshake IPA.

“The feedback has been good. A lot of friends and co-workers pick out the best and I brew them to perfection,” says Buzek.

It was 2016, and after a game of baseball when he was in a Windsor establishment tasting craft beer for the first time. He went home, went online and immediately got to work, self-teaching how to brew craft beer.

Like any new venture, especially for a young entrepreneur, there are numerous risk factors. He started out brewing in his parents’ garage, bottling in their kitchen, and now has a well-laid-out facility on his grandparent’s property.

“It’s a very humbling business. You could make three great batches in a row and then you have to backtrack,” says Buzek.

Kieran Buzek at his Kingsville Top Dog Brewing along with his dogs Tulo and Maverick.

Fred Groves photo

The ingredients are basic – water, malt, hops, and yeast – but it’s the added extras, mostly local, that set Top Dog apart from the others. That and Buzek’s personable approach and uncanny business savvy, which local pubs seem to gravitate to already.

“I just started delivering kegs last week and it sold in three days,” he said.

Buzek works 40 hours a week for a local produce company and puts in as many hours at Top Dog Brewery, doing everything from making the beer, to marketing, to delivering.

“I am probably the only brewery in Canada that is run by one person,” he says.

One person, yes, but he won’t come right out and admit that he has regular companions who aren’t yet on the payroll. Four-year-old Tulo and three-year-old Maverick are the canine inspiration to Top Dog. That and the movie Top Gun, which Buzek admits he has seen a hundred times.

Maverick is a character in the film and one of Buzek’s beers, ‘Talk to Me Goose’, is named for another.

And if you are wondering where the idea for ‘Blue Bronco’ came from, when you see Buzek in his mint 1982 beautifully restored Ford Bronco, complete with the Top Dog logo, you’ll understand.

A baseball player, university-educated, and a dog lover, Buzek plans in the future to donate part of his sales to the local Humane Society.

It appears his heart is as good as his beer.

For more information go to topdogbrew.ca