Whistler Brewing has secured a lease agreement for the old Whistler Transit maintenance facility in Function Junction, with plans to establish a brewery that officials hope will begin supplying the Sea to Sky corridor with the company’s products by the start of 2009-’10 ski season.

Company President Bruce Dean, in an exclusive interview with The Question on Thursday (April 2), said he’s excited that the brewing company that has borne the Whistler name since he and a group of investors bought it from Calgary-based Big Rock in 2005 will soon be brewing its product here in the resort.

He said that in addition to creating between 10 and 20 new jobs in the resort, the move means Whistler beer — which to date has been brewed exclusively in Kamloops — will be an authentically Whistler product.

The Australian-born Dean recently became a Canadian citizen and is planning to make Whistler his full-time home along with his wife Susie in the next couple of months.

Dean formerly worked with the company that distributed Corona beer, which has a strong association with Mexico. He said he’s going for that kind of association between a brand and a place.

“Whistler is probably one of the best-known Canadian names outside Canada,” he said, ranking it fourth behind Toronto, Montreal and Vancouver. “When you say ‘Whistler,’ as a non-Canadian, perhaps even Whistlerites don’t realize how much of an image that conjures up.”

Whistler Transit’s maintenance facility is being moved to another that is under construction just north of Nesters later this year. Dean said Whistler Brewing is set to begin moving equipment into one of the transit facility’s bus bays beginning May 1. The plan is to begin working to convert the building into a brewery on July 1. Dean hopes to begin brewing in October and have a ribbon cutting on Nov. 6.

“We’re on a bit of a compressed timeframe because I want to have a ribbon cutting the week before the mountains open,” he said.

For more on this story, please pick up the April 9 edition of The Question.