William Hubbard and Mike Johnson are helping to build the Broken Clock Brewing Cooperative in Minneapolis, Minnesota. It follows the cooperative brewery business model. Cooperative breweries are an increasingly popular way to build a local brew

MicroBrewr 092: Email marketing for breweries

Dec 31st, 2017 1h 1m

Alex Standiford in Akron, Ohio started Fill Your Taproom to help breweries attract more customers. He does that through website development, social media management, branding, and email marketing. “It’s not about trying to get people to buy you

MicroBrewr 091: Let them do the job you hired them to do

Oct 11th, 2016 45m 31s

Michael Altman was in the industry for years when he bought a brewpub. Now he’s been operating Iron Springs Pub & Brewery in Fairfax, California for 12 years. Before they opened he had to have back surgery and totally reinvent his role for the

MicroBrewr 090: State of the podcast

Nov 17th, 2015 14m 26s

TRANSCRIPT: Welcome to MicroBrewr podcast. Where we talk about everything craft beer related, but especially for if want to start your own microbrewery or take your existing brewery to the next level. As usual, I’m Nathan Pierce, the host of Mi

MicroBrewr 089: Make whiskey from high-quality craft beer

Nov 10th, 2015 1h 6m

Over a few beers, Tim Obert’s friend from college, Clint, told him that whiskey is actually made from cheap beer. They got to thinking, why not make whiskey from high-quality craft beer? Thus was born Seven Stills of SF, in San Francisco, Calif

MicroBrewr 088: A brewing pedigree from Kansas to Texas

Nov 3rd, 2015 26m 36s

Andrew Huerter comes from a family of brewers. His parents were founding members of the Kansas City Beer Meisters homebrew club and his dad won a blue ribbon for one of his beers. Now Drew is following in their footsteps. He worked at a handful

MicroBrewr 087: Differentiate your brewpub with unique menu items

Oct 27th, 2015 47m 53s

At 55 years old Ken Carson tried to get a job at a brewery, but nobody would hire him—even for volunteer. So with no brewing nor restaurant experience, he started Nexus Brewery in Albuquerque, New Mexico. “I fell in love with the concept of bee

MicroBrewr 086: The future of apple cider in America

Oct 20th, 2015 1h 9m

Nick Gunn and his wife were working for her family’s winery. They had the idea to start growing apples for cider. One of the cideries to whom they were selling apples decided to close down and they offered to sell the business to Nick and his w

MicroBrewr 085: Starting a brewery is a full-time job

Oct 13th, 2015 45m 9s

Cody Martin worked in civil engineering and environmental engineering. After touring some breweries and seeing that they use familiar equipment, he asked his wife if he could start a brewery. She found work in Texas and he started Martin House

MicroBrewr 084: A healthy alcoholic beverage: hard cider

Oct 6th, 2015 51m 58s

As soon as Mark McTavish could acknowledge alcohol, he gravitated toward hard cider. Later, he attended beverage management school and opened a craft beer bar in Toronto, Canada. Now in the U.S., Mark owns a cider distribution company and 101 C

MicroBrewr 083: Market branding for a cider company

Sep 29th, 2015 1h

Fran Toves’ son challenged her to enter cider into the homebrew competition. After her 3 entries made it to the top 10, she figured it time to take the product to market and started Common Cider Company in Drytown, California. “There is no need

MicroBrewr 082: Gluten free beer for a large market

Sep 22nd, 2015 59m 13s

Brian Kovalchuck has a background in finance and marketing and came to beer late in his career. After he helped with the turnaround of Pabst Blue Ribbon, Brian became CEO of the gluten free Bard’s Tale Beer Company in Minneapolis, Minnesota. “I

MicroBrewr 081: An R&D laboratory for craft beer

Sep 15th, 2015 53m 24s

The guys at Portland Kettle Works had the idea to start a nanobrewery. They needed one of their employees to run it, so Chris Sears stepped up and took charge of Labrewatory in Portland, Oregon. “If Portland is anywhere close to being saturated

MicroBrewr 080: Brewing the American Dream winner for 2015

Sep 8th, 2015 48m 21s

A friend asked Marta Jankowska and her husband whether they wanted to use his warehouse space and go pro with their brewing. The warehouse space fell through, but they were far along in the process, so they decided to go for it and opened Chuck

MicroBrewr 079: The importance of budgeting for working capital

Sep 1st, 2015 1h 7m

Wim Bens was born in Belgium and moved to Texas when he was 7 years old. He applied to American Brewers Guild just to have the option. Now, 3 years after opening Lakewood Brewing Co. in Garland, Texas he can barely keep up with demand. “If you

MicroBrewr 078: Around the world and back with the craft beer industry

Aug 25th, 2015 1h 22m

Bill Morgan has brewed on 2-BBL systems all the way up to 250-BBL systems. Craft brewing has taken him around the world and back. Now he’s gone full-circle, brewing on 4-BBL system and loving the flexibility it provides at The Blind Pig Brewery

MicroBrewr 077: The importance of writing your goals

Aug 18th, 2015 56m 52s

Michael Peticolas learned about homebrewing from his mother. After achieving all the goals he set for himself in the legal field, he decided to pursue his passion of beer with Peticolas Brewing Company in Dallas, Texas. Michael says he feels ve

MicroBrewr 076: Carrying the torch of authentic beer styles

Aug 11th, 2015 1h 9m

After a microbiology degree and studies at the world’s premier culinary college, Seth Gross was working at a restaurant and hanging out at the nearby Goose Island Brewpub. Pretty soon they offered him a job. Today Seth owns his own brewpub, Bul

MicroBrewr 075: Recruit the right people for the right job

Aug 4th, 2015 55m 48s

Mark Doble opened Aviator Brewing Company, Fuquay Varina, North Carolina, in November 2008. In less than 7 years he has started a brewery, a trucking company, a restaurant, two bars, and soon a new brewery with a distillery. All of these busine

MicroBrewr 074: Contract brewing for homebrew craft beer club

Jul 21st, 2015 1h 7m

Noble Brewer is an online craft beer club featuring homebrewers’ best beers. It’s not exactly legal to sell homebrew by mail, so Claude Burns at Noble Brewer connects the homebrewer with a commercial brewery. Then they ship great homebrew from

MicroBrewr 073: Contract brewing: quality product with low barrier to entry

Jul 14th, 2015 49m 44s

David Olsen dives into things all the way. He decided that he wanted to homebrew, so he read about 15 books and took some short classes at UC Davis. Within 6 months he was winning awards at homebrewing competitions. He started Craft Artisan Ale

MicroBrewr 072: Batch 4,000 and brewery law reform in Minnesota

Jul 7th, 2015 37m 40s

Dave Hoops has been brewing for decades. He brought what he learned in California to Minnesota and helped change the brewery laws there. Now his West Coast style beers have been working well for Fitger’s Brewhouse Brewery & Grille, in Duluth Mi

MicroBrewr 071: Four years from brewing school to brewmaster

Jun 30th, 2015 1h 11m

Ashley Kinart began homebrewing to learn about the brew process so she could better answer customer questions at the craft beer bar where she worked. She eventually realized that it really interested her, so she enrolled in the World Brewing Ac

MicroBrewr 070: Brewery law reform and scaling up in Indiana

Jun 23rd, 2015 1h 18m

Jeff Mease worked in his parents’ grocery store when he was a kid. “I had grown up in a family business,” he recounts. “By the time I was legal, I didn’t have any fear of business.” Indeed, when Jeff was just 19 years old, he started a pizza bu

MicroBrewr 069: Arrrgh! What to do when yer job gets boring

Jun 16th, 2015 49m 17s

Mark Robertson got bored of his job, so he opened a brewery. Pensacola Bay Brewery, in Pensacola Bay, Florida follows their local heritage with a fun pirate motif. But they’re not all scurvy. After 5 years, Pensacola Bay Brewery is going strong