If you have a dream of starting your own brewing business someday, what's holding you back?

Since football season started I’ve been opening the taphouse on Mondays with a little mixed success, but the last couple weeks have been dead. People will come in and tell you “Oh I’m so glad you’re open on Monday!” But you might see them once a month when they decide to actually go out on a Monday. And I don’t blame them, I was thinking about all the places that I LOVE in town, and they might only see me once a month. You can’t take it personally, and every business feels the pinch this time of year when the tourism dies down (for us). Just gotta trim the fat, limit your spending, and keep the faith!

I left my job as a fisheries biologist in 2021 to start my own brewery in a small logging town in North Idaho. I had never worked in a brewery before, and my hometown had never had a brewery in it before. After a failed attempt to get an SBA loan and buy a building in town for my brewery and Taphouse, I took up a job as a postal worker (A story for another post) to pay the bills and we decided to build the brewery from the ground up on my families farm. 4 years later and we have a successful local distribution brewery, and a new Taphouse on the waterfront. I get to take and pick up my son from preschool several days a week, take off for elk hunting whenever I feel, and there hasn't been a single day where I regretted leaving the career I went to college for. Here are the top three reasons why YOU should take the leap and start that passion project for yourself: 1. FREEDOM & Independence - Being able to control your own schedule, decisions, and direction of virtually every aspect of your career is really what started it. I stepped out of the "someday" phase of starting my own brewery to actually taking the first actions when my wife and I were expecting our first child. If you are someone who cares more about being free in the long term, and in my case it was to be able to be there for my family whenever I could, then starting your own business might be for you. You WILL BE BUSIER than you ever have been, but you have more freedom to choose WHEN you are busy. Owning my brewery gives me the freedom to take time off whenever I can afford to. 2. Growth Potential- You probably won't get rich quickly by starting your own brewery or cider etc. but in the long term if you're smart with your branding and culture, you can build something that exceeds any value you might have accumulated in your 9-5 and create generational wealth for your family. I have two sons under 4 years old and one more on the way, and I love the idea that they will have the option of using what I've built to help springboard them in their adult life. 3. Purpose and Fulfillment- The immense about of responsibility you feel for your own business is real, and brings with it an equally powerful sense of meaning. Like becoming a father, now every decision I make impacts everyone around me. The local store managers and customers that I provide beer feel a sense of pride in seeing me succeed and go out of there way to promote my product. As the first and only brewery in the county, I have other businesses that stake their reputation on selling a local product and it feels good to be tied to others success.

👋 Welcome to the EntreProBrewer Academy! My name is Grant Lee, and I own Two Saints Brewing Company in Saint Maries, ID. I started home brewing beer as a hobby when my boss gave me his stash of home brewing equipment. Working with zero experience, a couple home brew books, and as many YouTube videos I could find, I made my first beer, an Irish Red Ale. It was drinkable but underwhelming. Similar to a farm animal that is destined for the freezer, it was best not to name it. That first brew day on a random Saturday in between work weeks at a job I hated, in a town I was never going to raise a family eventually led me to finding myself starting brewery in my hometown, a small logging town in North Idaho. When I started making beer, my wife Kelli and I were living in Olympia, Washington. A town that USED to be home to the storied Olympia Beer, remember the slogan "Its the water"? There were quite a few people that grew up with parents or grandparents that made a living and raised families working a middle class blue collar beer factory life. Beer was more than just a beverage you bought at the gas station on your way to your buddies house to watch a game, it was a cultural driver of the local community. Equipped with a propane burner, a turkey fryer pot, and an old half barrel keg with the top cut off for a mash tun, I started brewing five gallon batches almost every weekend. Most beers were OK, good enough to drink, but nothing to write home about. Other breweries started to interest me, seeing their equipment, trying their beers, eating at their tap houses. I started to long for one in my own hometown. Small towns in my experience tend to change slowly, if at all, and a brewery just wasn't something that had made its way into St. Maries, ever. I told my wife I wanted to be the one to start the first brewery in St. Maries, she liked the thought of raising our future children in the place and manner that I was, and our mindsets completely changed. Now everything we did and planned was working towards that goal of taking that leap.