Restaurant Management
Meet the People That Keep Us Ticking and Improving!Our large brewpub has 50+ team members, which is just too much for us to list here all at once as we launch this new website. We’ll gradually expand this page to include more of our team!
Front of House Mgr: Aidan Hill
Aidan joined Prairie Dog Brewing in 2023 as an all-rounder and quickly proved himself, becoming an adept supervisor after a few months, and eventually taking on a role as Front of House Manager, where he excels at organization, inventory management, training and communication with our team. Aidan is recognizable based on his glasses, strawberry blonde hair and a notebook that he almost always carries with him.
In his spare time, Aidan loves to hike in the rockies, and he’s a huge movie buff, having gone through film school in the past. He’s also a big reader with a big heart.
Head chef: Patrick Everett
Meet Patrick āPattyā Everett, a talented Head Chef in our Prairie Dog Brewing kitchen. Originally from Didsbury, Alberta, Pattyās passion for cooking was inspired by his grandmother, who taught him the joy of preparing meals for family. After honing his skills at the Culinary Institute of Canada in PEI, with a work placement at the Fairmont Chateau Whistler, he spent four years mastering upscale and fine dining at Buffalo Mountain Lodge in Banff. With a dream of working in a smokehouse, Patty eagerly joined Prairie Dog Brewing in late 2023, bringing his expertise in quality-driven cuisine and onsite butchering. He thrives on creating exceptional guest experiences, often stepping out of the kitchen for Clifford tours or carving stations at events. Outside of work, Patty enjoys side-by-siding, camping, cheering on the New York Giants (despite the losses), and coaching football. Weāre thrilled to have his passion and dedication on our team!
Restaurant Ops Manager: Pascal Mckillcan
Pascal recently joined Prairie Dog Brewing as our dedicated Restaurant Operations Manager, bringing over 15 years of experience from some of Banffās most prestigious restaurants, including Saltlik, The Maple Leaf, and Park Distillery. A Red Seal Journeyman Cook, Pascal has spent his career excelling in busy kitchens with a strong focus on exceptional service and food quality. His passion for building and empowering teams is at the heart of his leadership style, fostering growth and engagement without relying on fear tacticsāa refreshing approach in the industry. Outside of work, Pascal is a proud father who loves cooking for his family, traveling to Asia, and supporting his wife in her entrepreneurial pursuits. Weāre thrilled to have Pascalās expertise and vision helping us elevate our guest experience every day!
Sous Chef: Katarina Csuti
Our Brewery Team
It Takes Teamwork To Make The Dream Work!
Crafting, packaging, selling, and delivering our beer across Western Canada is a team effort! Meet the incredible folks ā brewers, sales, delivery, marketing ā who make the magic of Prairie Dog Brewing happen. Get to know the faces behind your craft beer journey! š»
Wholesale Beer Rep: Kyle Matlock
If you are looking to purchase wholesale beer from Prairie Dog Brewing, chances are that it will be Kyle who you work with first and foremost. Kyle makes most of our in-person visits at Calgary-area liquor establishments, facilitates beer tastings, and runs a lot of our deliveries, too. Kyle has tons of bar industry experience, so he knows what it’s like to be on both sides of the deal. When he’s not busy serving our wholesale beer customers, Kyle is happy sliding down glaciers, couloirs and any other bit of snow he can find on his snowboard, 12 months of the year, or hiking in the rockies.
Kyle is your direct conduit into Prairie Dog Brewing for anything related to volume/wholesale beer sales. The best way to reach Kyle is to email sales@prairiedog.beer or to call our sales hotline at (403) 589-4762.
Brewer: Nigel Flynn
Nigel recently came to Prairie Dog Brewing after a successful brewing career stretching back to 2017, where he worked in several brewery roles, including as Head Brewer for another Calgary-area craft brewery. Nigel’s creativity, experience and handy skills with equipment have rapidly made him an invaluable member of our brewing team, and you are sure to taste his contributions to our recipes very soon!
Head Brewer: Curtis Greib
Curtis has been working as a brewer with Prairie Dog Brewing since the very early days of the business (including some homebrew batches prior to us finding a location!), and today he runs the day to day operations of our brewery, including brewing most of the beer that we make available on draft, in cans, or in bottles. Curtis manages our brew team, barrel aging program, brewery cellar and production schedule. Curtis is the creative genius behind many of our recipes and is happy to come out to talk beer, give a tasting, or even to run the occasional beer delivery when our sales team needs help.
Greg Loudon: Brewery Sales Manager
Greg has been with Prairie Dog Brewing since 2019, starting in our Front of House and gradually transitioning to the brewery side of our business. Today Greg is a recognized BJCP Beer Judge and Certified Cicerone and he works in conjunction with Curtis, above, to manage Prairie Dog Brewing’s inventory of finished beer, which is split up across Liquor Connect and our own warehouse. Greg also manages our sales team and initiatives as well as our EKOS Order Hub, so if you place a self-service order there, it will be Greg that receives the order, invoices you, and ensures it is paid for, picked and delivered.
Greg also manages our lineup of beer products and SKU registrations, such as setting pricing for the various products and available formats and ensuring that all our systems for both direct and Liquor Connect-based sales are consistently giving the same price for those products.
Senior Officers
Meet the people in charge of running Prairie Dog Brewing’s daily corporate affairs and operations.
Co-Founder Gerad Coles
Gerad was born and raised in Calgary. Before founding Prairie Dog Brewing, Gerad had a 14-year career managing operations for tech companies and working in data analytics, as well as having countless interests and hobbies, and side hustles. For a time, Gerad lived in Silicon Valley, California with his wife Laura, where he got into brewing beer at home, teaching himself and eventually another of our co-founders, Tyler Potter, how to brew beer on the weekends. It was this bond over beer that eventually led to the founding of Prairie Dog Brewing.
Today, Geradās work is focused on ensuring that our company is continuously in a state of improvement and growth. Reporting to our Board of Directors, Gerad acts as General Manager for both our restaurant and brewery operations, and works with other members of our leadership team to solve problems, set strategy and establish and measure progress to goals, while also heading up our admin teams (Finance, Facilities, and HR). Gerad is also a passionate musician and personally heads our live music program, while also being our resident food photographer!
Co-Founder Laura Coles
Laura was raised on Vancouver Island, eventually making the leap to the mainland to work at a Calgary tech startup where she met her husband and Prairie Dog Brewing co-founder, Gerad. A busy mother of a pre-teen girl, Laura has a creative mind and loves free-form art like sculpting, traveling and being outdoors, but she is also a business powerhouse at Prairie Dog Brewing.
After helping found the company in 2016 and establishing Prairie Dog Brewing’s brand and physical space, Laura took on our Events program, which she still leads today. Laura oversees all aspects of our marketing online, in print, and in radio advertising, and she organizes our involvement in festivals and community events. Laura curates all things customer facing, and is the first point of contact for most of our online inquiries, such as requests for charity donations and media attention. Whenever time permits, Laura tries to read and respond to nearly all of our Google reviews, social media messages and website-based emails. Finally, Laura acts as Assistant General Manager to our restaurant and meets many times a day with restaurant management and team members.
Board Of Directors
While we are a small, Calgary-based business, Prairie Dog Brewing is also federally-incorporated. It took a lot of capital to get Prairie Dog Brewing’s 58th Avenue Brewpub and Brewery constructed and fully operational in 2018, then even more to make it through the tough covid years and to expand into the wholesale beer business afterwards, so we’ve taken on just short of 50 shareholders over the years. That’s a lot of people depending on us to put their investment to good use, which is why we have a Board of Directors that oversees company performance and holds our senior officers accountable.
Prairie Dog Brewing was founded by 5 people initially, and they all sit on our Board of Directors today, as well as a close business advisor. Learn more about them below.
Co-Founder Tyler Potter
Tyler Potter co-founded Prairie Dog Brewing alongside his friends and family members in 2016, and after working tirelessly to help get our doors open in 2018, Tyler took on oversight of Brewery Operations, where he worked on site until late 2023, before exiting operations to focus more on family and other career initiatives. Tyler is a multi-talented, brilliant man, and he continues to be involved in Prairie Dog Brewing projects from time to time, while sitting on our Board of Directors and governing the direction of the company.
C.A. Clayton Achen
Clayton Achen is a childhood friend of co-founder Gerad Coles and was with Prairie Dog Brewing from the start, whether putting in physical labour to help demolish our 58th Avenue Brewpub space in 2017 or providing financial accounting services or advice. Clayton is also senior managing partner at Achen Henderson CPAs, where he acts as a Canadian tax expert with a background in tax compliance, planning, and strategy. Clayton’s experience with a wide variety of clients ranging from owner-managed small businesses to publicly traded oil and gas companies has helped Prairie Dog in many ways over the years, both in his role on our Board of Directors and as a general advisor. Clayton has also served on several other Boards of Directors including Music Seeds International, and currently sits on the board of theĀ Elder Statesmen Group.
Co-Founder Gerad Coles
In addition to his role in the company’s daily operations (above), Gerad also sits on our Board of Directors, where he provides business, financial updates and his operational perspective to the board.
Co-Founder Laura Coles
Laura sits on Prairie Dog Brewing’s Board of Directors in addition to her operational role (above), and works with our Board to guide the company to profitability while working to support our mission of community engagement and, especially, inclusivity.