Graham Sherman, president and founder of Tool Shed Brewery, admits no limits. He was once challenged to run an Ironman triathlon without training. So he did. He holds three Guinness World Records. He boasts a world championship win in barbecue. Tool Shed itself is the manifestation of Sherman’s homebrewing hobby taken too far.
Dos Equis — a major international beer brand — once had a fictional Most Interesting Man in the World as a spokesperson. But Sherman is the actual living embodiment of that character.
So, when WestJet issued a request for proposals (RFP) to be the airline’s beer supplier, Sherman knew his brewery could win it.
The story starts long before WestJet issued the most recent RFP. According to Sherman, Tool Shed was not even invited to participate in the last WestJet beer RFP five years prior. And nothing fires up Sherman more than being told he can’t do something. So began his obsession with winning the most recent RFP.
Sherman began marketing Tool Shed as “Canada’s Craft Brewery.” Team meetings at Tool Shed would begin with Sherman asking, “Why are we here?” And the team would respond, “To be Canada’s craft brewery!” It was a deliberate effort by Sherman to get his team to think on a national scale.
Tool Shed started sales in other provinces. The brewery entered and won beer competitions. And the brewery began brewing beer for WestJet’s airport lounges, where it proved to be a favourite beer of WestJet clients. Think big. Make noise. Be so good they can’t ignore you.
“What better way to be Canada’s craft brewery than to go after one of our national airlines?” asked Sherman. “We went in thinking, ‘we can win this.’”
The RFP was not limited to craft brewers, so Tool Shed was competing against large multinational brewers. And not only did Tool Shed win, it won all three available slots: a light lager, a regular ale and a premium beer. It was possible for different breweries to win the three different beer categories in the RFP, so for Tool Shed to become WestJet’s exclusive beer supplier is huge.
For Tool Shed, which brewed its first batch of beer on February 9, 2012, the WestJet contract is transformational.
“This wasn’t a craft beer RFP,” says Sherman. “This was a beer program. We were bidding against the largest brewing companies in the world.” According to Sherman, the contract could see the brewery triple production at its facility in Calgary’s northeast.
“This is one of those few moments in life when you get to sit back and ask yourself, ‘Is this real life?’” said Sherman. “This started as a small backyard project and now our beer will be available across Canada and in 22 countries.”
WestJet was founded in Calgary and flew its first flight in 1996. One of its three Boeing 737-200 airplanes flew from Calgary to Vancouver with just complimentary beverages and no beer on board. By choosing Tool Shed for all three categories of their on board beer, WestJet is now the first major airline in North America to offer exclusively craft beer.
“Tool Shed is so authentically Calgarian and Canadian, and embodies the entrepreneurial spirit,” said Sam Taylor, chief experience officer of WestJet Group. “This partnership allows us to bring this spirit on board. Tool Shed reminds us of WestJet when we were starting.”
As of July 15, 2026, and for the next five years, Calgary’s Tool Shed Brewing will be the only beer available on all of WestJet’s flights where beverage service is available. That means sales and exposure on flights to almost 40 destinations across Canada, about 20 destinations in the United States and to about 20 other countries.
Calgarians get a prize as a result of the new contract as well. As part of the WestJet contract, Tool Shed agreed to give a 15 per cent discount at their brewery taproom in Calgary’s taproom —which also serves world-championship-winning barbecue and some non-beer beverages — to customers showing a WestJet boarding pass on the day before, the day of, or the day after their flight.
At Tool Shed’s first team meeting after announcing winning the WestJet contract, Sherman asked, “Why are we here?” The team responded, “Because we are Canada’s craft brewery.”
Visit Tool Shed at 9, 801 30 St. N.E.; toolshedbrewing.com
