About Bryn

I didn’t set out to own a brewery. I started my career working in IT, "deep in the bit mines" dealing with fun things like "systems integration" and "comprehensive monitoring of application metrics". While I love all things technical, the problem with IT work is it is like drawing the Mona Lisa on an Etch-a-Sketch. You can be very proud of what you've built, but all it takes is a quick shake and your creation is dust.

I grew up in Vancouver - I’m from here. In a city that constantly reinvents itself, I’ve always been drawn to the pieces of history that quietly survive. The businesses that don’t make noise but stick around. The places that become part of people’s lives. I'm very much interested in the history of the region - I love digging through archive photos looking for interesting moments. I love knowing about the different changes that have happened. Having lived here through Expo '86 and the 2010 Olympics I've certainly seen things shift!

I'm a firm believer that we need to hold on to the great experiences we come across. I try to put that in to action whenever I can.

When I was younger, I set a goal for myself to "learn about beer" - I would never have dreamed of getting this deep in to it! Like most people I started out with big label Canada-branded lagers before really learning what beer was all about, a journey I don't think I'll ever grow bored of.

My first U-Brew experiences were through my dad. In the 1990s, he made his beer at a Kitsilano U-Brew. When I turned 19 in 1998, my Christmas gift was my first batch of beer from there. I didn’t know much about styles at the time - I just said, “Make me whatever’s popular.” It was probably a light lager inspired by that big brand that dominated the fridges back then. I remember enjoying it!

When I got married in 2002, I went back to get beer for our wedding. I had my first experience with a portable draft system - they set us up with their setup, which was literally a metal Oscar-the-Grouch-style garbage can with a tap sticking out of the side and a keg inside. Well it absolutely worked, but I still remember laughing about the 'Garbage Can Beer' at my wedding!! (Don't worry, we have MUCH nicer draft systems available for rent!)

That experience stuck with me. As I got older, I started looking at beer the way I look at most things in life: analytically. I like to measure. I like to test. I like to understand why something works. I’m optimistic, but cautiously so. I don’t jump without looking. I want to see the big picture before getting lost in the details. U-Brew made sense to me because it was practical. Predictable. Efficient. You could control your cost and still have something you were genuinely excited to drink.

Around 2004 I decided I'd start getting beer made for me on a regular basis, and stop wasting money at the liquor store. The Kitsilano place I had gone to earlier had closed down by that point, but I found a shop over on Skeena near Grandview, close to Boundary. To my surprise, I saw a lot of the recipes were named after "Mike", who I had met at the Kitsilano shop years earlier. He was no longer brewing there, but I felt comfortable knowing his recipe book was delivering great results. 

In 2006, I moved on to West Coast U-Brew. Once again, there's Mike! This time in the flesh. Vancouver has a habit of being a small world - it's amazing how often you bump in to people again and again in different situations. West Coast U-Brew had opened in 1993, with its original founder moving on almost immediately to Campbell River, starting North Island Brewing which is still around today. Dave Harrop bought the shop about 6 months after it opened, and turned it in to something great. In late 2005, West Coast U-Brew moved to its current location on Clark Drive, and less than a year later I started going there as a customer. Little did I know that it would become much, MUCH more than just a place to get beer for me!

That little idea turned in to jokes between me and Dave about how I was going to buy the place one day. Then some discussions about what that could look like, but it was still really just an idea rather than a plan.

One summer afternoon in 2019 I was in picking up my kegs and Dave said to me "Well I think I sold the place!"

WHAT?

Yep. This guy is going to start a Kombucha factory in here or something. Ummm...

I was desperate. Where was I going to get my beer? I started looking in to home brewing systems, but couldn't figure out how I'd make that work. I didn't want to have all the hassle of cleaning and things in my house. While I love the smells of brewing and fermenting, I didn't quite want to be sleeping in the same house as them. I approached Dave to see if we could work out a deal.

November 1, 2019 I became the proud owner of Terminal City Brewing. "I loved it so much I bought the store" is absolutely true in my case! After 12 years as a customer, I was now running the show!

We weathered the challenges that COVID brought on; during that time I was getting a crash course in business management - nothing like a pandemic to teach you all about workplace safety, customer service in a complicated environment, all of that. Very quickly we had to change how we were doing things - some of those changes have been for the better! Improved scheduling for bottling visits, the ability for customers to text us, better tracking for batches being ready, all of that grew from needing to make things work in a complex environment and have stuck around to make our store even better.

Just over 6 years later (late 2025), I found out that Cask & Keg Brewmasters in Maple Ridge was for sale. As the only other store in Metro Vancouver doing what we were doing with beer, I felt like I needed to see if I could save the place. I was able to make a deal to buy the equipment and the name, set up a new lease and get started on the next big challenge! As of February 24, 2026 I own both Terminal City Brewing and Cask & Keg Brewmasters.

I feel these stores are a critical piece of Metro Vancouver history. Both locations have a long history of serving many customers for decades - we still have customers come in regularly that first started brewing with us in the early 1990s, back when I wasn't even old enough to drink. Preserving that history is important to me, and I'm glad to be able to share it with you.

- Bryn