Our Indiegogo campaign is almost ready to launch! I can hear you saying “Well that’s awesome, but what the heck is it?” Don’t worry friends, this post is for you. Indiegogo is a “launch pad for entrepreneurial ideas.” It’s a crowd-funding platform, which means that it will allow us to raise funds online. These funds are provided through contributions made by many different people, from our fan-base and also from others around the world. The best part of all of this is that in exchange for your donation, you’ll get amazing perks. Here’s how it works: Step 1: We enter […]

Have you ever been working on a long project, and you reach the point where you know you are super busy all the time but you can’t actually seem to make any forward progress? Right now that is what it feels like to be involved in Trek Brewing Company. In fact, as I was planning this post, John said, “What are you going to update about?” It’s been a two steps forward, one step back kind of month. Yet, as I sat down to write what all has happened this month, I found that there IS a surprising amount of […]

“So what does it take to open a brewery? I mean, what do you have to do?” These are the questions that we get asked the most. In this post I’ll oversimplify things to make it fit into ten easy steps. Ten steps seems like a doable number, right? Step 1: Make Big Plans. If you’re like us, you’ll spend forever and a day on step one. You’ll need to figure out all the particulars of what you want your brewery to look like. For us, this was defined and re-defined by making a business plan. A business plan is […]

There seem to be two philosophies that craft brewers fall into when determining the location for their brewery. Theres the “if you build it, they will come” camp which basically says- “hell with the atmosphere, I’m brewing great beer and people will come to my garage to drink it.” John and I have been to several garages/warehouses/industrial centers where we’ve enjoyed excellent beers. And then there’s the other camp- the “location, location, location” people. These brewers think that their location and atmosphere play a large part in their overall brewery design. As we searched for a home for Trek Brewing Company […]

The wa-a-a-a-a-iting is the ha-a-a-ardest p-aaaart. We hope you read that like Tom Petty was singing it to you. We tried to get him to call each of you and sing it to you each individually but that was too expensive. We settled for this. Sorry. We thought that we’d update you once a month and let you know where we are in the process as we are waiting for Trek’s doors to open to the public. This doesn’t mean that we’ll stop posting updates on Facebook/Instagram/Twitter, so you should definitely like us there and follow, but we’ll do a […]

As we’ve been writing these posts, we’ve had a few questions about what it takes to become a BJCP judge. It’s slightly more involved than just drinking a lot of beers and pretentiously rating them. In today’s post, we’ll give you some background on BJCP and share a little bit of our experiences with the program. As we started getting more serious about opening a brewery, John began to investigate the best ways to become familiar with the different styles and flavor profiles of beer. He was looking for a tool to help him dial in the recipes for his […]

You may have noticed that we’re pretty serious about this whole community thing. We keep bringing it up, and you’re ready for us to move on and tell you something different. I promise, we will. But…. not this week. Last week we talked about what building community means to Trek Brewing Company. This week, we want to focus on the second part of being a part of a community; serving it. Trek is committed to giving back to those local organizations that make our neighborhood such a great place to live. Our Trek Together program will start up as soon […]

We once had an amazing high school literature teacher. She spent a great deal of time one class period drilling into our heads “the theme is the message the author is trying to send… (Or moral).” Consequently, you’ll probably hear the following a lot from us: The theme (philosophy) of Trek Brewing Company is: “We believe that great beer and great people come together to do incredible things.”  Community is a huge focus for Trek, and we’re aspiring to achieve community from both sides; building it, and serving it. This week we’re going to focus on how we want to […]

It all started in the kitchen of a college house in Cincinnati shared by 5 guys. It was the kind of place that screams cleanliness. Armed with some of my best friends and just a little bit of sense, I boiled water on the stove and added malt extract and hops. The first inkling of a dream began to form in the back of my mind as I poured my creation into a plastic bucket. The yeast sloshed and mixed as I carried the bucket into the basement to let it sit and ferment. Weeks later after bottling that first […]

Central Perk. Cheers! (Where Everybody Knows Your Name). McLaren’s Pub. If you can close your eyes for a second and picture these spots, you’ll realize quickly that they are all the same. They are places where the characters of some of our favorite shows go to hang out. Their “home away from home”. These are all classic examples of a “Third Place.” Sociologist Ray Oldenberg suggests that each of us needs three places: first is the home; second is the workplace or school; and beyond lies the place where people from all walks of life interact. An anchor of community […]