This is the first in a series of Spotlight posts on new breweries that may not otherwise receive front page coverage here on Beernews.org (hey, this site is a BEAR for one person!). Interested in having your brewery featured in a front page interview? Find a business to sponsor you and shoot me an email over at adam@beerpulse.com. If you are a business interested in sponsoring a startup brewery, use that same one.

(Sawyer, MI) – Greenbush Brewing just opened up for business in Southwest Michigan this past summer. The brewery initially caught my eye thanks to some flashy labels that I posted here earlier in the year and I was fortunate enough to steal some of Owner/Brewmaster, Scott Sullivan’s time to answer some questions. Note that these questions compliment some of the existing press already out there about Greenbush. Enjoy!

1) How did you transition from your old jobs to the brewery? At what point did you finally cut the cord and start working full-time on Greenbush?

I started full-time on the brewery in November of 2010, and we opened in June of this year. I had been a solo woodworker/furniture maker since 2004 so I was able to modify my schedule to brew on a greater and greater basis from 2008 until I went full-time. Ironically, full-time on the brewery meant building all the oak elements for the tap room, ie. the bar, the back bar, the tap room walls, entryway and a bunch of other woodwork. Pretty easy transition.

2) It sounds like the beers are being received favorably. What resources have you used in forming your recipes?

Interestingly enough, I’ve never had any idea what commercial breweries use for this sort of thing and now that I know people at other breweries, I still forget to ask. I started out homebrewing using Beer Tools and never switched. It does what I need it to, so I figure why reinvent the wheel? As for recipe development itself, I used to always pick a style I wanted to do and sort of get an idea of how other breweries I liked did things. Then I’d build a recipe that I thought was sort of something like that particular family. Usually, I was wrong. Apparently, people like our wrong-headed approach to brewing because yes, we’ve been at capacity from just about the first day and have another 60 barrels worth of fermentation coming online.

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Greenbush is sponsored by The Hopman, maker of custom brewery apparel. The Hopman works with The Brewers Association, Upland, Maui and a slew of others to craft their merchandise. Iain and the team are also ongoing supporters of beer geeks like me so a special thanks to them for their continued sponsorship of Beernews.org!

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3) One of your strategies to market has been to reach out to customers through restaurant partnerships (dinners, tastings, etc.). What is the strategy behind this decision?

That has been something of a fortunate accident. We all cook a lot and are into food, so we’ve always thought of our beer in a food, rather than a bar context. Early on when we were still trying to figure out how to get this business off the ground we met a guy named Joe who was a chef. We thought he’d have some ideas on how to get our beer into restaurants. Instead he showed up with an idea for a series of beer/food tasting sessions. He cooked and brought a bunch of chefs, my partner Justin and I paired the beer. They were wildly successful and all the chefs told their friends, who got beer from me and then told their friends. 9,000 free handout bottles later, we knew tons of people. When the doors opened, we had unintentionally created a tsunami effect.

4) Your branding has a a bit of a horror flick tone to it. Nearby, Goose Island has gone in the completely opposite direction with its branding, giving labels an elegant look. Do you see that as a challenge in getting your bottles in high end restaurants?

I wouldn’t think so. Actually, one of the things we get complimented the most on is our design aesthetic, and with the particular places that are asking for us, it seems that won’t be an issue. The labels really just reflect their name, which in turn reflects where I was at when I named them.

5) On that note, you are very active in building your brand on the web as well through heavy use of Twitter, Facebook and a built-out website. Do you ever hear from businesses that they have checked out your brand online?

Very often. That’s all Jill, our Ambassador of Everything. Her emphasis on social media has picked up for us where the free bottles of beer left off. It’s a great way to get our presence in front of more people.

6) You’ve received label approval for six different brands to appear in 6-packs. What is the plan for rolling these bottles out?

Probably in the tap room before the end of the year, and some distribution early next year. I’d like to have our new fermenters in place before I add that to our workload.

7) Lately, a lot of new breweries have started out with 22 oz. bottles as a method of entry to off-premise accounts. Less shelf space required, encouragement of trying multiple varieties, lower price point than a 6-pack, etc. What are the benefits of a new brewery going to market with 6-packs like you’re doing?

Mainly that we’ve configured our bottler to handle six-packs and don’t want to reconfigure it again. It’s a tempermental grouch. We also don’t want to go resubmit all our labels with the corrected size notations at the moment. I am sure we will at some point though, as 22s are a nice thing to have around.

8 – As mentioned, you are at capacity. What’s the plan for expansion?

We’ve begun looking at 15-20bbl systems and would love to expand our current building, but we don’t own it so we’re trying to figure out how to proceed on that. We know we need to as soon as we can. In the meantime, we can fit a few more large fermenters in the space so that will be the first priority.

9) Greenbush is located in a fairly rural corner of southwest Michigan though you are less than two hours from Chicago. Greenbush beers are already in the Windy City market. Once you expand the brewery, will your distribution footprint change after that?

Rural indeed. Our town has like 800 people. Amazingly, in less than five months our mug club already has over 200. With the new fermentation coming in, we’ll add the Detroit area and slowly the rest of Michigan. Beyond that, we’lll need to expand our space first.

10) Which distributor did you choose to go with in Chicago and what were a couple keys to picking that one?

We went with Windy City, and our reasoning was twofold. First, they have a reputation for not playing games (ie. pay to play), which Chicago is notorious for. Our feeling is that it’s our beer and we’re not giving it away or doing some sort of buyback in order to gain a tap handle. That was the first thing Wes from Windy City told us, and we’ve already had opportunities for them to prove it to us, which they have. If we had to play games, I’d be happy to skip Chicago and distribute to Omaha or Pierre or something.

11) How big do you guys want to grow? Into the size of a regional craft brewery or stay smaller?

Ha, this and anonymous rating forums are my favorite topics! I have no problem with breweries getting big and I hope we are fortunate enough to do so. I do however have a problem with breweries sacrificing quality and creative aspiration. The indie beer cred community thinks those two things are synonymous, which I think is flat out ridiculous. If I can maintain quality standards and creativity and grow big, I will without hesitation do it. Is that the measure of success? No, not anymore than staying small is a measure of credibility. People in Michigan love piling on Larry Bell for being big, as if that’s against the code of beer ethics. Anybody who says they wouldn’t do the same thing if given the chance is couch quarterbacking.