Weaver Haney interview with Chip Owen, Co-Owner and Brewer Innovation Brewing
Q. How long have you been in the brewing business?
A. We have been in business since October 2013.
Q. What prior experience have you had that helped you open this business?
A. I was a home-brewer for ten years. I also graduated from Michigan State University with a degree in Mechanical Engineering. I left an engineering job at Kearfott to open this business. Before that I worked at an electric heating element company in Arden. The experience helped a lot. I used my knowledge of mechanical engineering to help design and construct our brewery. I designed our system layouts, and controller for the brew system. I welded the pipes and valves. I also designed and built an automated keg washing system.
Q. How did your company choose the name of the business?
A. One day when we were working my partner Nicole said “we sure have done a lot of innovating on this brewery. So the name stuck-Innovation Brewing.” “We were sure the name had been taken-but we did an extensive trademark search and it was available. There is one brewery in Michigan who is trying to contest it. But they don’t have a trademark.”
Q. What was it like in the early days when you were trying to build the business?
A. Well it’s still in the early days. We worked a lot of 12-16 hour days seven days a week during the construction. We still work seven days a week but we can put in a few shorter 12 hour days. “Once you’ve started you don’t have a choice. But all things said I still love it. I wouldn’t go back.”
Q. What is your corporate structure?
A. Limited Liability Corporate Structure. I have a 50/50 split with my partner Nicole. We have a signed operating agreement.
Q. Would you change the corporate structure if you grew larger?
A. I don’t think so. There are some pretty large brewery’s still operate as LLC’s.
Q. How many people does your company employ?
A. We have six employees and two owners.
Q. What were some of the challenges you face in the brewing industry?
A. First I had never run my own business before. We started extremely small since we didn’t have much money. Because our brew system was so small, at first we had a hard time keeping making enough beer as demand became larger. We have just reached the point where we produce enough that we have extra beer to distribute. We have beer in seven different places. Mostly local restaurants.
Q. How does your company recruit/hire employees?
A. We hired two bartenders who were friends from Asheville. The others just came in and applied and we hired them. Our brewer came to us and said he wanted to learn to brew beer. He worked unpaid as a volunteer for three and a half months before we hired him.
Q. How do you finance the business? Are you profitable? How long did it take to reach profitability?
A. I took out a personal loan and a mortgage on my house. One other investor took out a mortgage. We two partners also invested money we had saved-and credit cards. We were pretty much all in.
At this point we are not profitable but we expect to reach profitability in six more months.
Q. How is management structured in your company?
A. We are equal partners.
Q. When problems arise how do you resolve them?
A. Usually we are in agreement about what needs to be done. If not, then we discuss and we compromise.
Q. How do you train new employees?
A. Nicole works a training shift with the bartenders and she teaches them how we do things here. There is no table service, no food and no mixed drinks-so it’s pretty much just pouring beer.
Q. How do you motivate and reward people?
A. We just gave our brewer a raise. We try to have an employee party. We rented a pontoon boat and spent the night on a house boat on the lake and the company covered all the expenses. As we grow and expand we hope our employees will grow with us and take on new roles.
Q. How do you reprimand employees?
A. We have verbal talks at first. Then written warnings. After that it is pretty much suspension/termination. We really haven’t had any major problems.
Q. What is the current status of your company? Are you growing, down-sizing, or staying the same?
A. Our company is growing. We have expanded our brewery three times. We added three new fermenters, and six new serving tanks. We now have a few extra kegs of beer to sale.
Q. How do you keep up with current best practices in the brewing industry?
A. I do online research. I do a lot of brewery visits and talk to other brewers. Nicole went to a fermentation science clinic. We attend brewer’s conferences and are a member of the Asheville brewer’s Alliance.
Q. How many beers do you brew?
A. Right now we have 21 beers on tap plus our house made ginger ale.
We are pretty much coming out with something new each week.
Q. How do you develop the recipes for your beer?
A. I have been brewing for ten years so I have basic recipes. We do a lot of experimentation. “Whatever comes to mind?” We will make small changes to recipes-change one thing at a time and taste test it. If we don’t like it the next time we change something else.
.Q. How do you name your products?
A. We bounce different ideas off one another and “use whatever sounds fun!”
Q. How do you market your products?
A. We use social media-Facebook and a website. Also we do interviews with newspapers and magazines. This year we entered the NC Brewer’s Cup where we won an award and we went to some beer festivals. A lot of it is word of mouth.
Q. Who is your biggest competitor?
A. There really isn’t one. There is another brewery in town but we don’t really compete. As a town becomes known as a beer destination more people come to try the beers. “It’s pretty much the more the merrier. It’s a very friendly business to be in.” Beer tourism is becoming a big thing. I do it. When we go somewhere we will look for local breweries and stop in to try the beer.
Q. What are some of the fixed and variable costs associated with a brewery?
A. Well it really depends on how much you brew. The more beer you make the higher your utilities and water bill. Of course there are ingredients. I guess fixed cost would include taxes and book keeping.
Q. What do you do to keep costs low? Do you shop around for different vendors?
A. Well right now hop availability is low so we pretty much have to take what we can get. We reclaim water from the heat exchangers and recycle it. We reuse our yeast. Yeast is good for about ten generations. .
Q. How do you maintain the atmosphere or environment of your business?
A. Well everything requires maintenance. Fortunately we are pretty rustic so everything doesn’t have to be in tip-top shape.
We did our own wood work. We built the bar. It’s brewing grains embedded in epoxy bar-top resin. We just added a roll up door to open things up during good weather. We built a fence to screen the street from the outside seating area.
On Monday night we have old time string band open jam. Wednesday night is open mic night. Thursday night is Jazz night and on Saturday night we have live bands.
Q. What advice you give to someone starting up a brewing business?
A. That a good question. We had a new brewer who came to us for help so we spent a day brewing with him. I guess I would say to start with as large a brewing system as you can. Although I wouldn’t change the way we did it if I could. It gave us a chance to perfect a lot of recipes. Some want to do it as a pub, others are just interested in production. It’s all in what you want to do. Other than that I would say “Follow your dreams.”
Q. What does your company do for philanthropy?
A. This year we did Dining Out for Life and we donated 10% of our sales.
