Brent Mills and the team at Four Winds joined the burgeoning BC craft beer scene and opened their doors to a public thirsty for new local offerings in June 2013. The vision was born out of passion for craft beer, community and entrepreneurial independence.

Owned, operated and built from the ground up by the Mills family and friends, they take great pride in their continued effort to improve, innovate and refine their craft. Simply put, they make the beers they want to drink, and try to enjoy the process as much as the result. And it’s safe to say they’re doing just that.

While Four Winds is now a cherished and established part of the Delta fabric, Brent and his brothers have their father to thank for leading them into the wonderful world of brewing. And to get to where we are today, we first must head back to 2007.

“I had just spent a year abroad in Asia and I came back as a 23 year old, moving in with my parents,” he recalls. The beer overseas, to be honest, was pretty bland and said ‘let’s go out and get some beers with real flavour’. While there were only a few craft breweries in Vancouver at the time we were getting a lot of Belgian beers imported that we were really hyped on.”

He adds: “We enjoyed drinking those beers and they turned me and Dad into ‘you know, we could make some at home’. I was like ‘What are you talking about?’ But before you knew it we were at the local home brew shop, Dan’s Homebrewing Supplies, like most would-be brewers in Vancouver.

“So there we were, brewing on my parents’ stove top and transferring the wort into a carboy with my dad in my ear telling me that we should open a brewery one day. I would end up working in restaurants for years and was very familiar with the back of house side of things as a result. The whole time I’d be asking myself how I can get into beer properly.”

While pursuing his passion on a homebrew basis Brent would make a boat load of beer.

“I mean, we’re talking way too much. I’d be giving beer to friends and family, whoever. I would end up quitting the restaurant business and then applied to work at all the live breweries that existed in Vancouver at the time but unfortunately, there were just no jobs.

“Fortunately, though, my dad was semi-retired and was working on trying to open his own boat-building business and he hired me while I was trying to find my feet in beer more professionally.”

Several years prior to his new venture, in 2004, Brent’s dad Greg Mills had also left the boat business and had returned to the family business.

Mills family business since 1930. Along with his brothers Sean and Adam, Brent would help their father set up shop in Tsawwassen.

“I pretty much went from working in a kitchen one day, to fibreglass boat building the next,” he says. “That was life until the 2010 Winter Olympics came to Vancouver and R&B Brewing, a brewery I’d sent my resume to, contacted me to see if I was interested in working for them. They knew they were going to be busy with so much travel and beer production taking place around that time.”

“For those few months I was filling kegs, washing kegs and helping out around the place. When the Olympics ended I returned to the boat-building business but one day I got a call from them again saying there’s an opening for a brewer. ‘Of course I said yes.’ Those three years with them, along with a stint at the Siebel Institute, helped me solidify my knowledge.”

While dad Greg would eventually leave the world of boat-building, the founding challenge – poking Brent to go into a brewery of his own.

Brent explains: “He was itching to jump back into something and I now had the experience I needed in brewing, so we thought let’s do it! We brought in my two brothers Adam and Sean and just went for it.”

“Our dad was the driving force to get this brewery up and running, we would all be in a different place if he didn’t have the conviction he did to start this brewery.” Through seven years of growth and the challenges that come with opening and new business he was our rock and kept the ship steady until his sudden passing in early 2020.

“It was a tough time for us as he was not only our president he was the financial controller and the GM of the business. After Adam and I fumbled through managing the financial side of the business for a few months we convinced our sister Brooke to come on board and take on some of this responsibility.”

“Our mom passed away in 2015 so the whole family that was once six now four work together to operate the business. We brewed a commemorative beer for Greg for Father’s Day the year after he passed away and it became a full time 5K our first hazy – Greg West Coast IPA.

“I get to work with my family everyday doing something that I never knew you could make a living at. We have had our challenges, but I couldn’t be luckier to do what we do with the people we do it with”

At starting out, Brent was excited about the challenge ahead: “It was the only one with industry experience, and we had very little concept of what existed on the other side. Our rents were lower than a lot of other businesses. We’d go onto build most of the brewery ourselves, hiring the practically essential roles.”

By June 2013, we found ourselves ready to open. Based in the middle of the an industrial estate some 15 kilometres from the closest community we thought that if 5 people come through the doors then we’ve done well.”

500 turned up that day.

“We were very lucky that people of Delta came out to visit us. There was a real appetite for craft beer but there was a real lack of beer made locally so the demand was there for it as well. It felt like the whole town was out!”

Starting out, the brewery’s range was influenced by a number of different geographies. Four, if you will. “Four Winds is a name that was born out of our desire to honour our origins in a number of facets and for why it can serve as clear link to the family’s ancestry and beer influences,” says Brent. “Germany, Belgium, the US and even British played their part.”

Rather than opting for a somewhat traditional six-pack beer offering, Four Winds opted for a four-pack bottle offering comprising a Pale, Pilsner, IPA and a Saison. “Saison is a style dear to me and we were probably the first to brew one full-time. Sadly that’s no longer the case because for the life of us, we just can’t sell them anymore,” he laments.

Early influences behind Four Winds’ initial beers came from Brasserie Dupont’s Saison Dupont, Mirror Pond Pale Ale from Deschutes and Green Flash West Coast IPA. Though the market availability of the required hops to match this profiles would lead them in different directions.

“In 2013 we couldn’t get Centennial so we had to settle for a blend of Cascade and Chinook, and also found ourselves, for a good while, using Falconer’s Flight as an aroma hop for our IPA,” he says. “And when it came to our Pilsner it was something of a Frankenstein beer! Inspired by Pivo Pils from Firestone Walker if was a Czech-style number dry-hopped with Motueka. I’m pretty proud of those beers. I feel like that had a uniqueness about them, backed up by a sense of character.”

And a sense of character is a trait that runs from the Mills family. In the 12 years that have passed since that successful opening, the day-to-day ethos of the business and those behind it is hard work. “It can be a grind but we pride ourselves on hard work. It’s the standard we’ve always set,” says Brent.

In 2025 the original River Road location is still going strong. With a trusted 25HL brewhouse, Brent admits that maintenance is becoming more of a regular part of life. But it’s a production setup that is still producing a wealth of superb beers like Hazy IPA Fluff, Four Winds Light Lager, and Dry-hopped Sour Nectarous.

He explains: “It’s a four vessel brew house. Originally it was two but then we added third and a fourth so we can turn a couple brews a day. With an initial focus on Belgian styles we needed to have a mash tun, or a mash kettle that we can do step infusion.

“We decided to add a mash kettle that doubled as a kettle whirlpool. So we’d mash into the mash kettle, send the mash over to the lauter, lauter back into the kettle whirlpool, boil whirlpool in there and send to the fermenter. So to do two turns in a day was nearly impossible, because you had to wait make sure that you’re fully in the fermenter before you can start the second turn.

“So about a year later, we added a third and fourth vessel. They’re actually one vessel stacked, so up top is a brew kettle and below is a whirlpool. We just didn’t have the square footage for two vessels, but it works…”

Cellar capacity was added year-on-year, doubling and sometimes tripling in volume. The current output now is around 13,000HL per annum and this is made possible under the stewardship of head Brewer Jules Dubus who hails from France but also spent 10 years brewing in Quebec mastering the art of big stouts and mixed culture beers.

“Through the last couple years as Adam and I have had our heads down designing, planning and building the new Beach House location Jules has been the driving force of creativity, quality and execution in our beers alongside Jared Whalen our Production manager. These two dudes held it down while we built the new location,” says Brent.

While the River Road location is the engine room for production volumes, that’s only part of the story. Because as of 2024, Four Winds added that exciting new location to their bow.

Southlands is Tsawwassen’s new agriculturally-focused beachside community development. But step back some 10 years, shortly after Four Winds started out the team were approached by Southlands to discuss the prospect of building a new brewing facility coupled with an attached onsite restaurant.

“They were redeveloping around 600 acres of land with most going back to organic farming while 100 of those were to be used for commercial and residential,” he explains. “Initially we considered moving our whole operation there. You know what it’s like. We were enjoying extreme growth so why not shoot for the moon?”

“But after spending a lot of time and money, we handed back the original business but some time later on we bumped into friends and asked: ‘How about if we forget about a 35,000sqft brewery and instead we open up a 3,000sqft restaurant with attached brewhouse?’”

The plan was brought to local council. It was approved, and now there’s a West Coast take on the classic beer hall where they celebrate both traditional and modern brewing methods, paired with exceptional hospitality and memorable dining experiences.

“Tsawwassen, where the team grew up and now raise our families, is dear to us. Joining the Southlands development—a unique ‘agri-hood’ with 530 acres of farmland, green spaces, a growing neighbourhood and a bustling market square, is a dream come true,” says Brent.

The fantastic new venture was made possible by assistance from Century Group that provided the superb building. The building was designed by Motiv architects while the interior design was Ste. Marie. Finally, Gillian Gonzalez-Risso, of Feast Strategy Partners was integral in handling the administrative side of the team’s goals and dreams.

Open six months in February 2025, the Beach House boasts a 15HL, semi automatic, decoction-capable brewery with two 15HL open-top FVs. Here they brew their traditional Czech beers and then blend the two 15 HL batches into 30 HL horizontals. You heard that right. Czech-style beers such as the 4.4% Archetype Czech Pale Lager, 4.8% Czech Dark Lager Antithesis sit side-by-side a Hefeweizen, Dunkelweizen and Kölsch. While there’s also no shortage of hop-forward Pale, IPAs and Dry-hopped Sours, too.

“We need to do a bit of everything here. Tsawwassen is a small community of around 25,000 people so if we made only the beer I wanted to drink we’d probably only have a very small group of die-hard fans,” he laughs. “So instead, while the focus is on beer there really is something for everyone.”

But it’s the ability to brew a range of Czech-style beers, and educate the local consumer base on the beer’s appearance and form, that really excites Brent. And a timely visit to the Czech Republic as a guest on a ‘Beer Mission’, which featured Canadian diplomats, importers and brewers opened his eyes further.

“It was an amazing opportunity. I got there a few days earlier than everyone else so I could do a training session with a local pub chain and learn more about how to pour beer from Lukr taps. Something I’ve gone onto do here in Canada for our staff, too,” he explains. “Initially our visitors questioned the abundance of foam in some beers and whether we were short-changing them,” he smiles. “It takes time but after a while they could see the qualities foam offers.”

The manufacture Lukr produces the outstanding Bohemian tradition of brass-made beer towers with side-pour taps. And during his visit to the Czech Republic Brent was able to visit their factory. “I had ordered our kit from it. We were on a tour and I heard the guide explain how the tower in front of us was bound for a customer in Canada. I knew that had to be us! I went to check the clipboard and there was our name – Four Winds. But before I had a chance to look further I was being told off in case I left some fingerprints on our brand new tower!”

In addition to fantastic Czech-style beers, Brent and the team are also dabbling in such creations as a 5% Concord Grape Spritz to complement a superb list of other BC wines and ciders. “We really want to explore that world a little more,” says Brent. “I’m still not fully sure where we place these drinks on the menu but we’ll get there eventually.

And it’s that organic, considered approach to growth and evolution that has served Four Winds so well on its journey to-date. A small family business has grown to one that now employs 130 across both of its locations. Something that any business owner should be proud of.

“It can be hard. This industry has its challenges. And when things are hard, you don’t get a chance to really enjoy it. And then when things are good, you’re so busy, they don’t really get the moment to reflect.

“So to see these breweries that we’ve help build, breweries that didn’t exist years ago, employing people and contributing to our communities keeps me feeling invigorated and excited. It feels good.”