One of Australia native Bruce Dean’s first jobs after he arrived in Canada in 2001 was working for the company that distributes Corona beer, a brand virtually everyone in North America — beer drinker or not — associates with good times and Mexico.

That’s the sort of strong association between a product, a place and an experience that Dean and his colleagues at Whistler Brewing Co. are hoping to achieve.

During an exclusive interview with The Question at his and his wife’s second home in Nordic, Dean last Thursday (April 2) said he thinks the company has recently taken a big step down that road by securing a lease agreement for the current Whistler Transit maintenance facility in Function Junction.

That’s where Whistler Brewing officials plan to establish what Dean called a “craft” brewery that they hope will begin supplying the Sea to Sky corridor with the company’s products by the start of 2009-’10 ski season.

Dean 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.

After the new brewery goes into production, all Whistler Brewing products meant for distribution from D’Arcy to North Vancouver will be produced in Whistler. All kegs and canned products will also be brewed here. Most of the bottled brew to be distributed elsewhere — including Japan, China, several western U.S. states as well as B.C., Alberta and soon, Ontario — will still be produced in Kamloops, Dean said.

Dean admitted that until now, local bar owners’ receptiveness to Whistler Brewing products has been mixed, with some welcoming them and others shunning them because they carried the resort’s moniker in name only.

Having a brewery here will help cement the association both customers and local bar owners have with the Whistler brand, Dean said.

“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.

“I don’t think there are many products that can so well associate themselves with a resort community.”

Until now, officials at the Fairmont Chateau Whistler and Gibbons Hospitality Group (Longhorn, Tapley’s, etc.) have embraced the brand, “but in some senses our re-launch has polarized the hotel and restaurant community,” Dean said. “Some said, ‘You’re using the Whistler name but you’re not authentic. We’re not going to sell it.’”

Despite those challenges, Whistler Brewing is 10 times the size of the company Dean and his partners bought some 3 ½ years ago, he said. And its future prospects appear solid — its brews will soon become the first from a B.C.-based craft brewery to be sold in Ontario, and the company plans to expand its distribution even further afield.

Technically speaking, the current iteration of Whistler Brewing is the same company that used to brew its product at a facility on Alpha Lake Road. Almost a decade ago, though, Calgary-based Big Rock Brewing bought up a number of small B.C.-based brands, including Whistler and Bowen Island Brewing, retaining the brands but closing down some of the brewing facilities.

The original Function Junction brewing facility closed in 2001. In 2005, however, Dean and others purchased the company from Big Rock and re-launched the brand in 2006.

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.

Bill Brown, manager of current planning for the Resort Municipality of Whistler, said the zoning on the 6,500-square-foot transit building is IS4 (Industrial Service 4), for which one permitted use is the manufacturing of food and beverages.

Robert MacPherson, municipal general manager of community life, said that if no exterior changes are being made to the building, no development permit is required. A building permit, however, is needed for interior upgrades, he said.

Dean said Whistler Brewing officials plan to add a bit of office space and move some walls around, and that the only exterior changes will be a sign and some planters.

“The building itself is surprisingly well suited to what we do,” he said. “The bus maintenance depot, with the exception of the wash bay, is pretty much empty.

“The building has an all-glass front, so people will be able to look through and see the brewer at work. The public will be able to almost do a self tour, just walking along the front of the building.”

The company also plans to conduct tours inside the facility, complete with product samplings and a gift shopping selling Whistler Brewing T-shirts and other logo items, Dean said.

Dean, who recently became a Canadian citizen, said he and his wife Susie plan to become full-time residents in the next couple of months. He said he’s particularly looking forward to that move.

“Without wanting to sound like a TV commercial, this is the best piece of geography on Earth,” he said. “If you haven’t traveled extensively, it’s hard to know just how good we’ve got it here.”