30 Years of Homebrewing
Dastardly Villain has its roots in the home brewing community
Maybe you were looking for our old website, or our former webstore, or just clicked the link on the Dastardly Villain page and wondered what Grape & Grain is about. Or was about, since it is now closed for business. It was the first business I opened and was the fore-runner for Dastardly Villain. Grape & Grain was as friendly local homebrew shop here in Winnipeg. It had a 30 year run, which is good by any metrics for a business. It was bittersweet to close it after 30 years, but things change and we continue to move forward.
Our Story
Original location at 300 St. Anne's Road - 1995-1999
Grape & Grain first opened its doors January 3rd 1995. It missed the busy Christmas season while waiting for occupancy permits from the city of Winnipeg, something that hasn't changed. It was a cold windy day in January, and I remember selling 1 bag of corks for $4.25 on our inaugural opening day. Needless to say, things got better.
I had been working at another home brew store, where there wasn't the interest in beer that i had. A couple of friends and I started talking about what we could do if it was us running the store. In the end, I decided to forge ahead alone. With a woefully inadequate loan, no experience in business, and a huge amount of optimism - I opened Grape & Grain.
Renovating the rented space to become the first store - 1995
I found a space in the St. Vital Neighbourhood, in a small strip mall. It took a bunch of work to make it into some semblance of a retail store. Without a lot of money I had to find used fixtures, shop at value village, garage sales and liquidation stores for fixtures. I didn't budget for flooring, so I simply painted the floor and spray painted wine and beer glasses on it with a stencil. My first sales counter came from my mother-in-laws Donut shop since it was being renovated and the fixture was scrap. You know what they say about one mans garbage...
The Donut shop counter and some simple fixtures - 1995
I was a beer nerd right from the start, so I focused on beer and beer related ingredients when no one else did. Wine kits typically sold far more than the beer kits did, and for more money. Sure I liked wine, and I was good at making it, and helping others to do the same, but it lacked the creativity of making beer. By selling the "from scratch" ingredients for making beer, I could play around with making recipes and trying new things. I had found something I was passionate about.
Diabolically Decadent Brown Ale as a beer kit - 2015
I was brewing constantly, and making my own recipes adapted from other I found in books (yes, on paper, I couldn't afford a computer, so no internet). In time I was able to offer a small selection of ingredient kits that clients could take home and brew. "Scotty's Beer Kits" was my brand and I had it available for almost 30 years. I know a few professional brewers who can say they made these before they went pro. These kits and all the hops, malts, and grains was something that set us apart from all the "wine stores". It gave Grape & Grain some staying power when the industry started to decline and other stores started to close.
The Industry was going through its ups and downs as stores struggled to stay in business. I was able to weather the storm because we were small and specialized in beer, which was growing and getting more popular due to the microbrewery renaissance and interest in craft brew. In 2002 I took a bold step and opened a second store. The decline in the industry stopped and business was on the rebound, and my plan had always been to have more than 1 location. So we rented a space on Scurfield blvd. and opened a second space.
Somethings work out, and somethings don't. The second store lasted until spring 2005. While it seemed like progress, and I don't regret trying new things, it just wasn't to be. Several things went wrong during this period. We didn't get the full support of our suppliers and couldn't stock all the brands we wanted. Rent was high at the Scurfield location, despite the small size. The industry as a whole took another down turn. Our rent got increased dramatically at the original store, and we were forced to move again. If I had failed while other stores were opening and growing - I would have known it was something I was doing wrong. But at the time Winnipeg lost a few more stores and the story in Ontario was something else - over 200 stores closed in 1 year. Ultimately it wasn't the best time to try growing with a second store.
Somewhere I have a picture of the St. Mary's Road store, without the protesters...
Over our 30 year run we had multiple locations. Or rather we occupied multiple places during that time. Life for Grape & Grain stated at 300 St. Anne's Road in 1995. We had the original spot for 5+ years. We moved to 437 St. Anne's road in 2000 as we needed a bigger spot. It was while we were in this space that we opened up the second location at 149 Scurfield Boulevard. That lasted for 3 years, before the rent went up more than the business could afford. We moved into 978 St. Mary's Road. It gave us even more space, and a huge basement to use. It was here that we used some of this extra space to open GameKnight Games (see below). In 2009 we found a building we were able to purchase, which was something I had always wanted to do. We moved both Grape & Grain and GameKnight over to 726 Osborne Street. Then came the switcheroo as I call it. Due to increased growth with GameKnight and its demand on the space, we moved Grape & Grain to 721 Osborne Street, right across the street. Since a space opened up, it was nice and convenient to the building at 726, where we kept GameKnight. It was in the 721 Osborne space that we started to do Wine On Premises (also see below). In 2018, GameKnight expanded again into its own building down the street at 519 Osborne Street, so Grape & Grain moved back into 726 Osborne Street and was able to use the entire space. Plenty of room for a large grain room for the beer people and room for the Wine on Premise operation.
Bottling and filling wine - 2016
One thing I had seen in my travels was how different the homebrew shops in Ontario and B.C. were from what we had here in Manitoba. Mainly, they were able to brew your wine and beer on site, and the stores were known as U-brews or U-Vints. It took a long time for the provincial government to change its position on this industry. In 2014, laws had been modernized and we embarked in a new direction - making Wine on premises. Now consumers could come in, choose their wine, start it up and have us process it and get it ready for the consumer to return and package it a month later. Awkwardly for us, we had just moved into 721 Osborne Street. While the unit had lots of space with a fully developed basement, we were unable to use it due to City of Winnipeg building codes. (You may have heard me complain about the Code regarding Dastardly Villain, sadly this is nothing new). So we set it up as best we could in the narrow unit and moved ahead making your wines on site. With the move back to 726 Osborne in 2018, we again set up space to make and process wines. I had always wanted to do beer, who knew where that would lead.....
In 2020 launched an online store, mostly due to the Covid Pandemic. It had been something we talked about for many years. I didn't think people would really mail order wine kits due to their weight, but I'll admit city delivery wasn't something I thought would be a big thing - until it was. We were also well entrenched in beer ingredients and specialty beer equipment. We had lots of stuff you couldn't find elsewhere, at least for a retail store. We kept this going until 2024, when we realized the health of the industry was still declining and not likely to come back. I'd say it was a good learning experience for what came next - something Dastardly...
Look - our first batch of contract brewed beer!
Finally in 2021 we launched a contract brewing company. Opening a real for real brewing company was something I had in mind since I opened Grape & Grain in 1995. However breweries are expensive and out of reach for the average me, or so I thought. I had approached the MLCC as it was called back in the late 90's with a plan for a brewery. It was quite hilarious in hindsight - just 27 year old me in a room with 6 old men in suits. I pitched my plan for a small made in Manitoba brewery. The head 'old guy' asked me only 1 question - "hey kid, you gotta million dollars to spend?" - And when I said no he said "...come back when you do". Meeting over. Dreams crushed.
Fast forward a couple of decades and the "Microbrewery Renaissance" was in full swing. Even in Manitoba the rules were changed and the race was on. The province went from 1 brewery in 1995 to over 20 by 2020, and it's over 35 now in 2025. So the plan I thought was dead was reborn. I rebranded to give the company a fresh look, with a fun steam punk and villainy theme, and Dastardly Villain was born! (Insert mad doctor maniacal laugh here). I took some of my Scotty's Beer Kits recipes, tuned them up, and brought them to Torque brewing and we launched our first microbrew - Nefarious Plan A - a dry hopped Yellow Ale. Soon to follow were Diabolically Decadent Brown Ale, Red Planet Rocketeer Red Ale, Sinister Intentions NEIPA, and Infernal Fusion Machine Black Ale. We've now added seasonal/limited edition beers using art from local artists. This was a great way to pivot the business into what I had really wanted from the beginning - a small brewery.
The last version of the Grape & Grain logo on our street sign.
So when do you shutter your doors? This was a tough question. We were coming up on 30 years, no small feat in business. We needed to make room for the future Dastardly Villain. Permits and plans were taking longer than expected or I might have shut it down before we did. And it always takes time to liquidate your inventory. I remember trying to start the business, and thank you - City of Winnipeg and your permits, we missed winter/Christmas of 1994. So I decided on January 3rd, 2025. 30 years to the day from when when we opened. Seems fitting right? Nonetheless it was bittersweet to see something I invested so much of myself in finally come to an end. But it is also the beginning of something new. Dastardly Villain is rising to take its place. To have a brewing company with roots in the home brewing industry the way we have only lends us a certain strength. We know beer, and we know good beer. And we love the craft. So no matter the outcome, I'll know we stuck to our roots.
Will it return? It has been asked more than a few times. I can't say that it will, but for now I'm keeping the name and domains registered. Could we transition to mail order? I suppose, but dealing with people face to face was always our thing. You could bring in your beer and I could tell you if it was sour, okay, needed tuning or a world class example that should be entered in competitions. So if you are one of our customers from 'back in the day' or just curious about everything that has lead up to this point, thank you for listening. If you see me around at any of the tasting events, I'd love to hear from you that you read this. I hope you like my beer, and the beers that my new team has yet to bring out. We have some great plans.
Global domination through better beer! Brew-hoo-ha-ha!!!
Cheers!
Scott T.