We were lucky to catch up with Brandi Calhoun recently and have shared our conversation below.

Brandi, thanks for taking the time to share your stories with us today Risk taking is a huge part of most people’s story but too often society overlooks those risks and only focuses on where you are today. Can you talk to us about a risk you’ve taken – it could be a big risk or a small one – but walk us through the backstory.

Life is full of risks. When you decide to get married or have kids, or take a job or make a move, those are all life-changing risks. But the biggest one we’ve taken by far is starting our business. We’ve been working for so many years to get to a place where we can finally open and right before COVID happened, we were looking for a spot and we were ready to start moving forward. When everything shut down, we were stuck. Going through COVID and the uncertainty of life at that time really pushed us to be brave enough to just dive in once things opened back up. That time really drove home the idea that life is short and unexpected, so why wait? Why not now? Once things opened back up, we found our spot and started moving forward. We opened this year and it wasn’t how we wanted to, but we’re working hard to get the space to where we want it and to get our own craft beer recipies on tap. Even if we fail down the road, I’m glad we took the risk. I’d rather look back and be proud of taking the leap than regret not at least trying.

Awesome – so before we get into the rest of our questions, can you briefly introduce yourself to our readers.

My husband and I were gifted a homebrew kit for our engagement many years ago and we have always been craft beer people. We had so much fun learning about the process and playing with flavors that we ended up really getting into homebrewing. It was something we really enjoyed doing together and we always had fun being creative together. Our friends and family didn’t hate getting to reap the rewards of our efforts either! We always heard, “You guys really have something here!” So eventually we started believing that. Maybe we do have something! And how cool would it be to work together every day doing something we love and are passionate about? How amazing would it be to grow something that we can leave to our kids, to help our community? In our area, there isn’t a craft brewery that’s kid friendly and every time we brought up our ideas to friends and other community members, the responses were always “we NEED something like that here!” So we jumped in. Even now, our guests constantly tell us how excited they are for us to be there and to see us grow throughout the year.

Have you ever had to pivot?

Our whole journey has been nothing but pivots it seems! Haha. When we found our perfect space, COVID shut everything down. Luckily, it was still available after everything opened up, but once we got financing, everything after getting approved has been a pivot, from how we’re brewing our beer to how our space is currently (temporarily) set up. You have to be ready to roll with the punches and luckily, my brain never quits. I’m stubborn, so when you tell me something is going to work, my immediate response is “watch me find another way.”

How’d you build such a strong reputation within your market?

I think what’s helped us the most is not only being the face of our brand, but being real and relatable people. It means a lot to us to meet our patrons and be able to show them gratitude for supporting our growth. We’ve been open and honest about our hardships and about how and why we had to make so many pivots. We’ve shared our goals and we haven’t been shy about struggling. We didn’t start this business with huge backers and connections. We do know people in the industry as we’ve been apart of it for so many years, but we’ve done all the hard work ourselves, so I think that’s helped to solidify a positive reputation.

Contact Info:

• Website: www.rockabillybrewing.com
• Instagram: www.instagram.com/rockabillybrewing
• Facebook: www.facebook.com/rockabillybrewing

Image Credits
Brennan Boller with SBB Photography