BURST
Three years and a month ago, on a beautiful, sunny July morning in Forest Hills above Portland, Brian Smith’s dream came to a crushing end. He just didn’t know it yet.
He lay in a ditch beside his mangled road bike, with 13 broken ribs, a broken sternum, a broken arm, and a broken back. He couldn’t move; all he could do was hold up his good arm and hope a passing motorist spotted it.
That was the root moment, he said, that led to his decision last week to put his beloved Persephone Brewing up for sale. The accident left him paraplegic, a version of himself he says can’t be one to lead his company forward.
“I was coming out of a hospital, having just literally barely survived an accident. Everything starts to take new perspective, and what matters,” he said. “And then as I went through rehab and started to come to grips with the fact that two-thirds of my body doesn’t work, (I realized) I wasn’t going to get back fixing fences and digging holes and moving kegs. So really, it’s been a three-year journey in many ways to try and figure that out.”
Smith penned a poignant open letter outlining his thoughts on how things got to this point, writing: “This is a handoff, not a goodbye. This isn’t a fire sale, and it isn’t anyone’s fault, it’s just the simple, unglamorous physics of gravity and pavement.”
It wasn’t a plea for sympathy, either; his thoughts are only on what comes next for the brewery he co-founded on a farm outside Gibsons, B.C., 14 years ago.
Persephone, the “Beer Farm,” became known for being sustainable and community-oriented, soon achieving B Corp certification by meeting high environmental and social standards. A second location in Powell River opened up, quickly becoming the hub of the community’s social scene.
Awards flowed in for their beers. Summer tourists flocked in to sample their beers and ciders while watching chickens. They have taps all over the Lower Mainland, and four different products in the B.C. Liquour stores. Their cider is so popular, they’ve run their Okanagan apple producers dry.
When COVID shut down the world, Persephone adapted and survived when so many other breweries failed. Their sales and distribution fleet began delivering groceries to shut-in Sunshine Coast residents, a way of paying back the community that had rallied by the thousands years earlier for the ‘Save the Beer Farm’ campaign to change the ALR regulations that had threatened to shut them down.
The name Persephone was an homage to the boat from Beachcombers , the iconic CBC series that filmed more than 350 episodes in Gibsons between 1972 and 1990.
Since putting out the word the company was for sale, Smith has been contacted by hundreds of interested parties, and has a short list of the serious potential bidders who’re will to sign a non-disclosure agreement. Smith didn’t want to give a specific dollar figure for media reports, but for the cost of a home on Point Grey road in Vancouver, you can get two plots of land, and two “turn-key” businesses complete with beer formulas, suppliers and clients, and a staff of around 45 — many of whom have been with Persephone from the beginning.
He’s open to selling the two different locations separately, as they are two very different communities and businesses. Powell River is a community hub, where they’ve had 56 concerts with crowds in the hundreds over the past year. Gibsons thrives on the tourism that flows constantly through the Sunshine Coast.
The Gibsons property has a working farm, craft brewery, and taproom/restaurant operation built around a farm-to-glass brand identity. The Powell River location — ‘The Alley’ — includes the Spinnaker, a 25,000 square foot commercial building housing 14 fully tenanted units, an operating pub and eight-lane bowling alley, a well-established local gathering spot with live music, a loyal customer base, food, beverage, and entertainment revenue.
Before the accident, Smith was a boss who was checking the crops in the morning, running the tasting room later in the day, or spending an afternoon in the tank room. That’s the kind of buyer he’s looking for.
But if the right one doesn’t step forward, Smith said the brewery will close in the fall.
“High on the list is that somebody comes in with similar, if not the same, values as us,” he said. “That means that they are going to care for the land and care for people, and ideally they see the value in a community hub as integral to a business model, because I think that’s what makes Persephone strong.”
Smith said he expects official offers to start coming in next week, and hopes to have a deal done by the end of August, with a closing in September or October. He hasn’t had a chance to thin about what that moment will be like, but he’s already dealt with life-altering circumstances.
The morning walks through the field in Gibsons, getting his boots wet and hearing the crickets and frogs, used to be his favourite part of the day. He lost that when he lost his ability to walk. He found acceptance of that, just like he will when the brewery is no longer part of his life.
“I’m staying busy and distracted enough to not really think that far ahead, but I know two of the biggest things I’m going to miss: to go over there and be able to get a free beer, and to be able to go over there and climb up on the tractor once in a while and turn compost.
“The rest of the you know emotional journey, we’ll just have to see.”