THE INFLUENCERS
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AFTER TEN YEARS: STILL HERE FOR THE BEER >> DAVE SMITH British Columbia is home to many firsts in Canadian craft beer history. The province gave birth to the nation’s first microbrewery, its first brewpub and its oldest beer festival. In our last issue, we examined another pillar of the craft revolution: beer writing, in which passionate advocates document their experiences in print—or, using today’s technology, on their social media channel, blog or podcast. Podcasting. It’s the radio of the Internet. But craft beer is on the real, old-fashioned radio too. Google ‘Canadian beer radio show’ and you’ll find something called Just Here For The Beer, Canada’s original and longest-running all-beer talk show. It’s the broadcasting equivalent of just-referenced Horseshoe Bay Brewing, Spinnakers and Great Canadian Beer Festival. The story of Just Here For The Beer has special meaning for this author. It involves young people embarking on a bold adventure. It’s about pursuing a dream, even in the face of tragic loss. The tale begins 32 years ago when two college students become friends for life.
WHEN RICK MET COLIN
I
n 1988, Rick Mohabir enrolled at what is now Kwantlen Polytechnic University, Richmond campus. There, fate introduced him to a fellow with whom he had a lot in common. Like Rick, Colin Jack lived in Richmond’s Ironwood neighbourhood. Like Rick’s, Colin’s family was of Caribbean extraction, and both their fathers were teachers. “I used to give him rides home, because we lived not even a five-minute drive from each other,” Mohabir reminisces. “Our friendship just naturally evolved from there.” They remained friends well after their time at Kwantlen. Colin eventually transferred to the University of British Columbia in pursuit of his teaching degree, then in August 2004, he took a part-time job there as a mini school coordinator.
Photo: Brian K. Smith
In higher education, ‘mini schools’ handle basic non-credit general interest courses like photography, web design, and guitar. A popular theme at the time was wine tasting. Colin conspiratorially shared this tidbit with Rick, noting, “I don‘t know anything about wine. Why don’t we do a beer course?” Today, Rick admits that it seemed like a dumb idea at the time. But Vancouver did have a tiny craft beer movement, and the idea of beer tasting was just beginning to catch on. Somehow, Colin sourced a brewer to help teach the proposed course. One problem: nobody signed up for it. So, five buddies— Colin, his brother Byron, Rick, and their friends Zayvin and Roy—used its scheduled time slot to hang out, drink beer, and talk about what they tasted. Kind of like beer geeks will do on a bottle share, or on a podcast (that’s foreshadowing, folks). Colin didn’t give up on the idea of teaching beer appreciation. In early 2005, the course was offered again, and this time 17 people signed up. He broke the news to Rick: “Holy shit, what are we gonna do now?” They didn’t really know anything serious about beer, and they needed to learn fast. So they got to know a fellow named Dave Varga from Taylor’s Crossing brewpub in North Vancouver. Varga was kind enough to show the neophytes around the brewhouse and kickstart their learning. Today, there is much more of a network for this. A newbie who experiences their beer epiphany and decides to become an evangelist has a whole community of beer fans to help them along (as we’ll explore in this magazine’s next story). The JHFTB guys were not connected to any such network. There were small groups of beer fans like CAMRA BC, which produced a newsletter called What’s Brewing that members could write for, and which occasionally organized educational events. But there was no template for teaching a course about beer. “Slowly, we started to evolve the curriculum,” Rick recalls. “Zayvin and Colin and I just kind of split up the different areas based on our specialties. Coming from a business background, I handled the marketing and advertising side of it.” Through sheer enthusiasm, the youngsters made the idea work, and Just Here For The Beer Ltd. became an official entity. Continued on page 12
FA L L 2020 WHAT'S BREWING 11
