Page 34 - INSIGHT MAGAZINE_July 2025

MEMBER PROFILE

Turning a dream into reality
is something many would-be
entrepreneurs long to achieve.
Mike Hruden is one of those entrepreneurs
who has managed to do just that as part of
the creative team of business leaders behind
Four Fathers Brewing Co.
The Cambridge-based brewery/restaurant,
housed in a former washing machine factory
a stone’s throw away from downtown
Hespeler Village, has quickly become a
popular destination by offering not only
a tasty variety of craft brews and food, but
an extraordinary event space and an indoor
multi-court professional pickleball facility.

“I always dreamed of this little box of
a craft brewery,” laughs Mike, seated
on a comfortable couch in the lounge
area adjacent to the restaurant which
encompasses about 5,000-square-feet. “But
my partners dream a lot bigger than I do
and I’m very happy they did because of what
we’ve built here.”
It’s been open for seven years on Guelph
Avenue, first as a tap room and retail store
carrying a variety of products, including
t-shirts and hats, with a food truck onsite
for about a year prior to the kitchen being
constructed. But Four Fathers’ roots date
back several years before that when a mutual
love of hockey and watching their young sons
play on the same Centre Wellington team
brought together Mike and his partners John
Kissick, Martin Castellan and James Tyo.
Each took a position on the team, including
coach, manager, and trainer, sparking a
friendship based on their mutual admiration
for craft breweries.
“Whenever the parents got together after a
game we’d go to each other’s houses and
while the kids played downstairs, we were the
four that would bring whatever craft beers
were around back then,” says Mike, noting at
‘We’re not just a tap the time few existed compared to the more
than 300 plus breweries that now operate in
Ontario. “We were having a good time tasting
room or a restaurant and talking about the beer and talked about
how it would be fun having a brewery – even
though it was always my dream.”
anymore’ - Four Fathers Brewing The four took the plunge in 2015, each coming
from a variety of backgrounds. Kissick is a fine
arts professor at the University of Guelph,
Tyo is the president of EB Games Canada, and
Castellan is a partner and CAO of Skyline, a
PHOTOS BY BRIAN RODNICK & FOUR FATHERS Guelph-based commercial investment firm.

34 Summer 2025 www.cambridgechamber.com