Original 16: The story of Saskatoon’s Great Western Brewing Company

“Well, look, 16 guys risked it all when a larger brewer decided that they didn’t want to continue to brew in this city,” explained President and CEO Michael Brennan.

“And instead of losing one of the great brewing companies in Saskatoon, 16 guys put their houses and lives on the line to invest and keep it here.”

They would become known simply — and now, almost reverently — as the Original 16.

Ian Senterre moved to Canada from England in 1980. Within a decade, he became a founder of Great Western Brewing Company. (Brittany Caffet/650 CKOM)

A firefighter, still using water

Among them was Ian Senterre, who didn’t begin his life in Saskatchewan, or even in brewing.

“I love beer. It was just a fortunate thing for myself. I mean, originally from England, I was a firefighter in England, so I’m just using water in a different perspective here,” he said with a laugh.

He arrived in Canada in 1980, part of a wave of workers chasing opportunity across the Prairies. A job at the brewery came almost by accident.

“I was supposed to work at one of the mines up north, and they went on strike. That didn’t work out. But one of the guys up there at the mine, he used to work at the brewery and said, ‘Well, I think they’re hiring,'” Senterre recalled. “So I gave them a call. Forty-four years later, still here.”

Within a decade of first setting foot in the brewery, he would become one of the men trying to save it.

Betting everything

When the closure came, it wasn’t just a business decision — it was a personal crossroads.

“Depending on how long you’d worked at O’Keefe’s, you got a payout,” Senterre reflected. “So you’re using that money to reinvest in the brewery. It was a hard decision, because you have money in hand, or you use that money and take a huge chance.”

They weren’t entrepreneurs in the modern sense. They were tradesmen, operators, brewers — people who understood the work more than the risk spreadsheets. What they did have was experience.

“For us as Great Western, we’d all worked for a national brewery. So we were already educated in the system and cleanliness and everything else,” he explained. “And I think the fact that it was a national brewery helped us, because we carried on those traditions of everything that you do in a national brewery, but locally.”

That last word matters: locally.

“When it was a national brewery, decisions were made in Toronto that didn’t really reflect on Saskatchewan,” Senterre said. “And it was kind of nice to bring that back home again.”

Great Western Brewing Company began the process of making the first brew in their new facility on Mar. 9, 2026. (Submitted)

Brewing the hard way

The early days weren’t romantic. They were exhausting.

“Back in the day, the amount of steps we would do just to do one brew is incredible,” Senterre laughed. “Up and down stairs, probably 10, 12, 20 times a day, whereas now, you know, you’re in front of a computer screen!”

They had limited money, aging equipment and no guarantee of survival. What they did have — what Brennan now calls a defining trait — was necessity-driven creativity.

“When they purchased the brewery… they didn’t have a lot of money, and they had to do what they could to keep going,” Brennan explained.

“It is one of our core values today, which is relentless ingenuity. We can’t solve every problem with money. So sometimes we have to figure out the ingenious way to solve an issue that we have, and that has continued right till today.”

People doubted the men’s plan. But time proved otherwise.

“People wrote us off way back in ’89 saying it’s never going to work,” Senterre said. “And here we are.”

Michael Brennan is President and CEO of Great Western Brewing Company. His brew of choice? “I like to go to the lake, sit in a lawn chair and look out at the lake and drink an original 16 Pale Ale all day long.” (Submitted)

Taste, tradition and time

Back then, the North American beer landscape was narrow.

“I remember way back when, if you strayed from the normal of a North American beer, then you were crazy,” Senterre said. “As years have gone on and the craft beers have come in, it’s opened up people’s taste buds. And now we can do the same thing. We can challenge those extra flavours.”

That evolution mirrors the brewery itself: grounded in tradition, but gradually expanding its reach and imagination.

It also remains deeply tied to place.

“We are very Saskatchewan focused,” Brennan said. “I would tell you we’re western Canadian focused.”

From barley grown near Biggar to hops sourced as close to home as possible to beet sugar from Alberta, the beer remains, in a literal sense, made of the Prairies.

Michael Brennan said the expansion was much needed as the brewery continues to grow. “The equipment we were using before this was installed in 1954 or before,” he said. “That is a little old!” (Submitted)

The long arc forward

Time, inevitably, changed the Original 16.

“I was the baby of the family as such,” Senterre reflected, thinking back on the original group of investors. “So I retired two years ago. It was a gradual thing where, obviously the older guys, they would retire earlier, and unfortunately, a few have passed away now, so we’re not the 16 anymore.”

But their legacy is embedded in every part of the company.

The recent expansion — $25 million, modern, efficient, forward-looking — might seem worlds away from those early days of stairs, steel and uncertainty.

But in a symbolic moment, Senterre became the bridge between past and future, pushing the button to start the first brew in the new expansion.

Ian Senterre, one of the founders of Great Western Brewing Company, was the person tasked with launching the first brew in the new facility. (Brittany Caffet/650 CKOM)

“It was an exciting way to have a nod to the last original 16 member that was working for us in the brewery,” Brennan said.

“Ian also spent most of his time in the brewing floor in the old facility. It was the right person to kick us off into the new era for Great Western Brewing Company.”

For Senterre, the transformation is still something to marvel at.

“Never would expect that this is where we would go to… but to have this in one place, and the efficiency of it, it’s absolutely fantastic. You know, efficiency on power, efficiency on the grains that we use and the waste that we put out. Everything’s being used, reused, and I think it’s fantastic.”

The first brew in the new facility was launched with the click of a mouse, a bit of an upgrade from some of Senterre’s earliest brews at Great Western. (Brittany Caffet/650 CKOM)

More than beer

If you ask about favourite beers, the answers are simple — personal, even.

Senterre smiles toward tradition: “I like the copper for sure, and then the bitter as well. I don’t if you notice, but my name is on that!”

Brennan paints a perfect Prairie picture: “I like to go to the lake, sit in a lawn chair and look out at the lake and drink an original 16 Pale Ale all day long.”

But the story of Great Western was never just about what’s in the glass.

It’s about a group of people who refused to let something local disappear. Who chose risk over certainty. Who carried forward the knowledge of a national system and rooted it firmly in Saskatchewan soil.

And in the end, it’s about continuity — the kind you can’t manufacture.

Sixteen workers became owners. A closing plant became a legacy. And decades later, in a brand-new facility humming with modern precision, you can still hear the echo of that original decision:

Stay. Build. Brew.

Great Western Brewing Company was built on risk, resilience and 16 men who refused to let their brewery fade away. (Submitted)