Of the thousands of new breweries that have opened in North American over the past couple of decades, perhaps the most interesting is located in Edmonton, Alberta. Blind Enthusiasm Brewing Company was designed to blend old world techniques with science to create beers never before seen in the world.
It is a grandiose plan and not just anyone could execute it. Enter Greg Zeschuk.
Zeschuk was co-founder and joint-CEO of BioWare Corp., a legendary video game company, famous for Mass Effect, Dragon Age and Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic, among other famous titles. BioWare would go on to be acquired by Electronic Arts for $860 million.
Of course, that sale price was distributed among Zeschuk’s co-founders, private equity investors and staff, but Zeschuk left the transaction with enough money to pursue his wildest beer dreams.
Wild Beer Dreams
Zeschuk’s beer passion is lifelong, but it accelerated while setting up and managing BioWare’s offices in Austin, Texas.
“I grew up on beer,” said Zeschuk during a telephone interview. Eschewing domestic lagers, Zeschuk found himself gravitating toward craft beers, which were gaining popularity right about the time Zeschuk came of drinking age. “Big Rock was big for me,” he said, referring to his home province of Alberta’s first craft brewery, founded in 1985 and an early mover in craft beer. Later, Zeschuk, who is a medical doctor by training, would do his internship in Ohio where he discovered Pete’s Wicked Ale.
In 2006, Zeschuk was charged with establishing and managing BioWare’s Austin offices. “I would go to Austin two weeks at a time. I worked all week, but had free weekends,” said Zeschuk. “A friend introduced me to the Ginger Man.” The Ginger Man pub was at the time world-famous for it’s beer selection. While Austin’s Ginger Man is now defunct, the Texas-based chain of beer pubs helped shape the craft beer industry in America. “I tasted a Victory Storm King and my whole world changed.”
Zeschuk left BioWare in 2012. “I felt I did everything I wanted to do in video games,” said Zeschuk. “And I didn’t realize it at the time, but I was really burnt out.” Having left the video game industry, Zeschuk dove into his growing passion for beer, starting a YouTube channel called The Beer Diaries.
“I was in Funkwerks in Fort Collin, Colorado. I was interviewing the guys for The Beer Diaries and I thought, ‘You know, I could do this,’” recalled Zeschuk. “These are guys who just love beer and are figuring out how to run a brewery.”
“I like to build things. I like to take on impossible projects,” said Zeschuk.
The Impossible Project
Perhaps no beer style is more mysterious than the lambic beers of the Pajottenland region of Belgium. These beers are spontaneously fermented, meaning that no yeast or other microbes are added to the beer by the brewer to cause fermentation. Rather, the unfermented beer is exposed to the elements and whatever microbes are carried to the beer through wind and gravity, or that live within the oak staves of the barrels in which the beer is stored, cause fermentation to occur spontaneously.
Because the brewery cannot control what microbes ferment the beer, the results are deliciously unpredictable. And they are incredibly complex since many different microbes contribute flavors to the final beer. Some microbes create chemicals that serve as food for other microbes, adding yet another layer of complexity and adding time as a factor in how the beer will taste.
It is believed by many that the microbes in Pajottenland are unique, and few dare to make spontaneously fermented beer elsewhere. In fact, “lambic” is protected in the European Union under under Traditional Specialty Guaranteed regulations. There are only about a dozen traditional lambic breweries, though other companies purchase and blend lambics under additional brands.
These are the beers that really captured Zeschuk’s imagination. For a beer-passionate person who likes to “take on impossible projects,” the opportunity to create something this unique in his hometown of Edmonton, Alberta was a way to make a mark on the beer world.
Zeschuk would name his impossible project “Blind Enthusiasm.” And if making lambic-style beers over 4,000 miles from its native land was not daunting enough, Blind Enthusiasm simultaneously build a brewery and associated restaurant serving more widely accessible, non-spontaneously-fermented, flavors. That brewery, called the Market Brewery, and that restaurant, named Biera, opened in 2017, quickly winning top restaurant accolades; Zeschuk is not capable of doing anything with partial effort.
But the jewel in Blind Enthusiasm’s crown is The Monolith, a purpose built brewery which began production in 2018. It is here that the spontaneously-fermented beers are made. In addition to having temperature and humidity controlled barrel warehouses, the Monolith’s top floor features a coolship, a shallow pan into which hot, freshly brewed wort—as unfermented beer is called—is pumped. Louvered windows are opened to allow outside air in, cooling the wort and inoculating it with microbes that will magically start fermentation.
From there, the beer is put into oak barrels, the pores of which contain more microbes. And years later, the beer will be ready. Usually beer is blended from multiple different, unpredictable batches of beer to create a balanced, complex product.
Despite much critical acclaim, Biera and the Market Brewery closed in 2024. “I thought I was a good business person,” said Zeschuk. “But it’s hard to run a restaurant.” The Monolith remains, as does Zeschuk’s passion for spontaneously-fermented beer.
Zeschuk takes the setback of the Biera and Market Brewery closure in stride. “It helped us to focus our story,” he said.
Continued Blind Enthusiasm
The former doctor and technology developer is not content to leave everything to the winds. Blind Enthusiasm has partnered with the National Research Council Canada in a multi-year study, analyzing the microbes that ferment the beer, which differ throughout the year, and what they do.
“We have utilized a ton of stuff we’ve learned,” said Zeschuk. Using precise brewing techniques, but mimicking the traditional techniques used in Pajottenland, Blind Enthusiasm’s team of brewers always makes the same wort. “Our numbers are perfect,” said Zeschuk, referring to brewing quality and consistency metrics. Differences in the beer therefore come from the microbes that infect it, the barrels in which it is matured, and fruits and spices—which may themselves carry microbes—added to the beer.
Each result is unique, not only a unique offering from the brewery, but unique in the world, a reflection of the place in which the beer was made and the time at which it was made.
But do beer drinkers care?
With beers this different from what most people think of as “beer,” education is fundamental to what Blind Enthusiasm does. It has not been easy. Zeschuk candidly admits that the brewery is not yet profitable. But it has seen growth every year and Zeschuk’s blind enthusiasm remains intact. He personally leads brewery tours and can often be found pouring beers at festivals. “If I’m not excited to try to convince you this is an awesome beer, why would I keep doing this?” he asked rhetorically.
Blind Enthusiasm beers can be purchased in Canada in Alberta, British Columbia, Saskatchewan and Quebec, and in the Netherlands. There are plans to distribute the beers from the Netherlands throughout Europe and Zeschuk is in discussions to start distribution in the United States. 2026 will see Zeschuk attending trade fairs in Asia so he can give his local beer a global audience.
Bringing spontaneously-fermented beer from Edmonton to the rest of the world may be this former video game developer’s final boss.
