Only in Saskatchewan could you expect to hear the words "beer," "sex" and "potash" uttered in the same breath.
Making that linkage is Ron Waldman, CEO of Saskatoon's who credits some of the word-of-mouth appeal of his company's beer to the allegedly libido-unleashing power of potash deposits in the province.
"We have maybe the world's sexiest beer," Mr. Waldman proclaims, with tongue only slightly in cheek.
Mr. Waldman is not prepared to market the idea that by drinking Great Western beer, amorous couples are more likely to rip off their clothes and hop into bed.
But he is not exactly pouring a cold shower on the chatter in bars, and among health writers, that potassium helps stimulate the production of sex hormones - and malting barley used to make Great Western's beers grows atop of the world's largest potassium deposit, Saskatchewan's rich potash reserves.
If Mr. Waldman is right, Saskatchewan potash ends up fertilizing more than the world's growing fields.
His message underlines the journey Great Western has taken since 1989 when the old brewery, built across a Saskatoon city block, was rendered redundant in a big beer merger, and rescued by the savings and grit of 16 of its workers.
Since then, it has gone from salvage operation to a company more obsessed with its sexiness, bar-talk credibility, and brand imagery than on whether it will survive to the next payday.
Mr. Waldman, the gregarious CEO, says the company's challenge has gone beyond grappling with production and financing issues to becoming a "customer-facing company" with an increasingly diversified portfolio of beers and brands.
Once near death, Great Western is comfortably profitable - it does not disclose finances - building on its double-digit market share in its home city and vigorous sales in Alberta, which is its biggest market.
Unlike craft brewers, which appeal initially to a premium segment, Great Western started out making discount beers and moved up into mainstream beers. Its Pilsner and light beers are strong sellers.
Now it plans to go further upscale to premium products that cost a bit more, but perhaps reflect the increasingly affluent Saskatchewan clientele. That market is, of course, spurred by global demand for potash - for use in growing crops, not testosterone.
The plant has come a long way from the darkest hour in 1989, when Molson's takeover of Carling O'Keefe Breweries seemed to doom the circa 1928 Carling brewery. The 16 workers rallied to save it by investing their buyout allowances.
When the founding group, backed by the Saskatchewan government, went looking for management depth, they enlisted Mr. Waldman, from a local Coca-Cola bottling family, to come in as president.
In a reorganization in 2002, Mr. Waldman, along with car dealer Vaughn Wyant and accountant Maurice Duval, ended up with a collective 75 per cent of the business, with the workers owning the rest. The original workers' stakes have evolved into a formal shareholding plan for the 90 employees.
Six of the original 16 still work in the company, and most of the founding families still own shares. Debbie Lukenoff was a teenager in 1989 when she went to work in the brewery where her father Walter was one of the 16 worker-owners.
Walter has since died, but "Mom owns the shares," Debbie says. She is a kind of roving handywoman - "You have it, I do it" - and, on this day, is working as the lead hand in the bottle shop.
That intense local involvement has made Great Western a big factor in the Saskatoon market - not the largest share, but very competitive, Mr. Waldman says. It is hard to miss the stylized grain stalk in a diamond-shaped logo in the city's taprooms.
The brewery itself blends modern technology with a hodge-podge of rooms that echo an earlier era of chopped-up production. The hand of E.P. Taylor, legendary owner of Carling, can be seen in the fermentation rooms' elegantly tiled walls, a style favoured by the long-dead plutocrat.
Despite Great Western's cachet in Saskatoon, 85 per cent of the beer is shipped to other Western provinces. This consumption is fuelled by all the former Saskatchewanians who work in the Calgary-Edmonton corridor, but remain loyal to the home beer. Years of out-migration from Saskatchewan has served as a handy marketing tool, Mr. Waldman says.
Then, there is sex.
Viv Jones, the British-born brewmaster, was originally impressed with how the potassium content of the barley caused the brewery yeast to thrive. Then he started reading of the link between potassium and hormones, and brought the news to Mr. Waldman.
Scientists confirm that Saskatchewan malting barley is relatively high in potassium. Bryan Harvey, professor emeritus and barley specialist at University of Saskatchewan, estimates that potassium levels in local barley would reach about 300 parts a million, more than twice the level in, say, European barley.
That extra content would certainly be reflected in the beer's potassium levels, although Prof. Harvey, as a crop scientist, doesn't feel qualified to talk about sexual performance.
Mr. Waldman has fewer inhibitions. "Saskatchewan barley is sexy," he says, and, therefore, so is his beer. Yet he worries this knowledge could trigger insatiable demand. "Imagine how the world would be if everyone knew about it."