The Beertown Public House in Canada is a series of restaurants/beer bars with six locations in several Ontario cities that all utilize Ashly Audio Pema amplifiers and additional components from the company as the backbone of the sound reinforcement approach.
The operaton was formed in 2012 by Jody Palubiski, CEO of the Charcoal Group of Restaurants, which operates multiple restaurant brands in Canada. When designing the Beertown locations, Palubski focused on delivering a quality AV experience and called on Don Wiens, owner of the Waterloo-based Mr. Stereo integration firm, to help in that quest.
“They are all very welcoming restaurants,” Wiens says of the Beertown locations. “You have multiple television panels all around the space. It’s an incredibly comfortable environment to watch a game and hang out. To support that, we had to ensure we provided excellent sound as well.”
Wiens utilizes Ashly Audio Pema amplifiers in all six Beertown locations. The Protēa-equipped Pema media amplifier is available in either 4- or 8-channel configurations and provides a 8-in x 8-out matrix mixer, with any any input able to be assigned to any output. Pema is also a digital signal processor with the Ashly’s Protea suite of DSP settings.
Pema solution also offers gain sharing automatic microphone mixing, an automatic feedback suppressor, ambient noise detection and adjustment and a real-time clock with an event scheduler. “The Pema offerings are incredibly versatile,” Wiens explains. “Not only does it provide impressive sound, but it comes with an incredible support team at Ashly. The team has been really amazing in partnering in our success as we’ve integrated all our systems.”
Wiens notes that the goals of the systems go beyond amplification. “Sound has to be easily controlled by the staff,” he adds. “You have to provide the right experience depending on what events may be happening. There may be a time when it is one big event. It may be a day with multiple games. Either way, we have to give the team at Beertown control.”
To do this in a streamlined manner, Wiens utilizes Ashly WR programable wall remote controls that offer customization at the integrator level while bringing simplicity of use for those operating the system on a day-to-day basis.
“At the end of the day the staff doesn’t need to know what is going on behind the scenes,” Wiens says. “All they know is they are looking at a very elegant control option. If the staff moves between locations, they are using the same controls, which is a real benefit for the Beertown operation. It is just the perfect option for the organization and the staff.”
After integrating the system at the first Beertown location, Wiens was asked to continue to build the Ashly-backed solution into new locations as they opened. “It has become a very trusted system,” he concludes. “We use the Ashly components in every install because of how well they work and how much you can trust the team supporting it. Plus, having that level of control and familiarity is important to the brand.”
System components by location include:
Beertown Cambridge – a Pema 8250, a NE- 1600, and four NE-WR5s.
Beertown Waterloo – a Pema 8250, a Pema 4250, and five NE-WR5s.
Beertown London – a Pema 8250 and three NE-WR5s.
Beertown Burlington – a Pema 8250, three NE-WR1s, and a NE-WR5.
Beertown Oakville – a Pema 8250, three NE-WR1s, and a NE-WR5.
Beertown Guelph – a Pema 8250, four NE-WR1s, and a NE-WR5.
