We were lucky to catch up with Colin Vanatta recently and have shared our conversation below.

Colin, looking forward to hearing all of your stories today. Risking 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.

Home State Brewing Co. is our team’s execution of a dream I had in 2017. I never planned on being an entrepreneur, or a business owner. I planned on working as an engineer like my Dad, and working at Lockheed Martin like my Mom, Dad, my aunts, uncles and grandparents did. The combination of inspiration from my wife and her urging me to find happiness and follow my dream and the market gap that existed in the Central Florida craft brewing industry were the impetus behind me working to determine how to open a craft brewery.

This was a huge swing to take, and a giant risk. Fortunately, by selecting strong co-owners (who are now family to us), we are able to deal with a lot that is thrown our way. More on that later.
In order to understand why we took the risk and continue to take the risk of being a small business owner-operator, it’s important to know what drives me and what we stand for.

My first experiences in craft brewing came while I was in Atlanta, going to school at Georgia Tech. I saw the incredible atmosphere these spaces provided: come as you are, bring friends or coworkers, have first dates and date nights with spouses. Craft beer for me embodies the welcoming spirit of community.
This is the inspiration for our taproom design and use of the word Gemutlichkeit. This doesn’t have a direct translation to English, but it essentially is the difference between what we call “coziness” but includes the feelings you get when you are cozy *and* surrounded by family and friends. It’s loosely the feeling of belonging.

I grew up in western Orange County and have lived here most of my life – save for my time in Atlanta at college and in my first engineering job. I am a third generation Orlandoan, if that’s what we call ourselves. There aren’t many of us, so it’s hard to get a consensus on what we are called.
My grandparents on my Dad’s side had a house in Pine Hills, were very active in the community, and made lifelong friends that we still run into to this day. My grandfather worked in Finance at Martin Marietta (the name back then) and my grandmother was a nurse who traveled highway 50 to the west and got to know all the families that lived out here. I got history lessons from her on the way home from school every day about the area, and we’d stop at the Winter Garden Heritage Museum at least once a week on the way home. The museum has since expanded and is definitely must-see. The history of Winter Garden is fascinating, and the community out here has always been strong: neighbors banding together to fix roads, help others and create social gatherings for everyone.
My grandparents on my Mom’s side lived in the South-441 area. My grandfather served in the Army but had passed away when my mother was young. My grandmother volunteered at the St. Vincent dePaul food pantry at St. John Vianney for a very long time. I would help out when she would get me from school. My Aunt and Uncle ran a charity auction in Central Florida for 22 years. Thus, service is in my blood as much as west Orange County is.

So combining service and my hometown community was a no-brainer. This is why we to carry on the long-standing tradition of the residents of western Orange County, Winter Garden, Ocoee, Oakland, etc. We look to leave a place better than we found it. We aim to keep the welcoming culture of my Home alive in our small business.

Home State is more than just lines on a map surrounding the place you were born. For us and our guests, “Home State” is the state of being in comfort, surrounded by friends, family and who you’re closest to. We have seen coworkers, first dates, and families bringing kids and grandkids to our taproom, patio and biergarten.

For me, that is the true measure of if a risk is worth taking. It is being asked, “Have we made a positive difference in the lives of others?” I leave it to our guests, friends, and partners to answer that. But for me and for our ownership, we know that we have already created a Home, and there is only more to come.

As always, we appreciate you sharing your insights and we’ve got a few more questions for you, but before we get to all of that can you take a minute to introduce yourself and give our readers some of your back background and context?

I believe I answered this best in my response to question 1, but in summary please see the below:

We are a family-owned small business that provides a welcoming and engaging space for our guests to relax and enjoy gemütlichkeit – the feeling of coziness while surrounded by the people you are closest to. We are a craft brewery! We produce all our beer on-site, supply 20 unique and 32 total draft beer lines in house to our two bars, inside and on the covered and weather-protected patio. We also have our own craft kitchen, where we elevate fast casual comfort cuisine to sustain our guests. We also offer a few salad and vegetarian options like our Beet Salad, which is unique and tastes wonderful.
Additionally, we offer plenty of non-alcoholic drinks for designated drivers, kids, or those who just want to come for the atmosphere and weekly events! We are here to provide gemütlichkeit for all!

You’ll also find us throwing seasonal and quarterly large events in our biergarten with stage for live music performances! We do Oktoberfest, Halloween, New Year’s Eve, our Anniversary in February, and a few more from the past year and a half. These are always a great time and often come with special drinks and/or food for the occasions!

Lastly, we are a private event venue and run all of our communication and coordination in-house! We are looking to expand this portion of our business, but while we do we have streamlined the process so we can set up events from 20 people to 300! We recently hosted the Florida Brewers’ Guild during their annual conference and have more private events already booked for this year!

We do everything we can to be a community hub. We work to ensure that our guests have a place to go that is owned by people who live here and care deeply about the community.

We’d really appreciate if you could talk to us about how you figured out the manufacturing process.

I love this question! Not only does it speak to the difficulties of entrepreneurship, but it allows me to highlight that yes, all of our beer, wherever it is enjoyed, is made right here at our facility in Winter Garden, FL. Our space stretches far beyond what can be seen in the taproom, and it took a lot of work to make it effective and efficient while remaining beautiful for our ambiance!
We just started distributing, so our beer is now in places in Tallahassee, Miami, Jacksonville, Tampa Bay, and other cities across the state. We are proud that we have a beautiful taproom and efficient and organized brewery – what else would you expect from a group of engineers and brewers?

I, Colin, was a mediocre homebrewer in my own right. I made beer that some friends and family called “good” and some stated “this counts as beer”. I was dialing my knowledge of the craft for fun, and to satisfy the creative side of my technical-oriented brain. There still had to be science involved.

Thus, when I started thinking about the impact we could have on the community if we coupled my dream of fitting into the market gap with creating great craft beer, it was a combination that would work for itself. Whether guests came for the community or the quality of the product, they were introduced to the other, and to us and other guests.
In order to do this, we set out looking for a brewer with experience that might want to join us on this ride.

The three of us, myself, my wife Lexi and our good friend AJ all liked Marco from the moment we started talking to him. He quickly proved that his business acumen and knowledge of the beer industry coupled well with his desire to craft his own place and take that entrepreneurial leap with us.
Marco’s service experience started in Chicago where he grew up, including his work at Goose Island where he began his love of craft beer. He then started brewing at Revolution, also in Chicago. Revolution remains in the hands of its original owners, and is a staple in craft beer. Marco then took a job running the Wicked Weed taproom brewing program. When they were purchased he moved on and brewed across Florida at multiple locations.
We tasted his beer and knew we were all set for liftoff.

It’s good that we are all technical people, because even the great amount we knew wasn’t enough, as every entrepreneurial adventure includes learning as you go. That is how our kitchen got started. That is how myself and Marco started working as General Managers of the Front-of-House operation. That is how our distribution expansion is going.
I think being effective in a small business is about choosing the right people to work with and to learn from, getting all the information possible, and being willing to work hard and adapt on the fly. It is never easy, but it can be so rewarding.

Can you talk to us about how your funded your business?

The Small Business Association offers some options for funding a business if, like us, you haven’t won the power ball yet. This is the route we traveled. It was a very long one, including years of working on being accepted for the program by a bank. When we finally got there, it was a big whirlwind of leasing, construction from dirt into our space today, and then learning and being agile from opening all the way to today.

We wound up moving on from our SBA loan very quickly after opening. The interest rate’s skyrocketing trajectory over the past year-plus was an enormous problem for us. Our rate more than doubled, which caused all our financial projections and the models I had worked on to go out the window and would have caused us serious and potentially catastrophic issues. Fortunately, we were able to restructure and move forward.

This year, we have worked very hard to expand the arms of the business so that we can have a margin for stability. That is where distribution comes in, and where our current work on expanding our food menu will help us. In searching for ways to keep guests happy and engaged, we continue to evaluate financial options at every turn. That’s the biggest lesson for those who may be thinking about entrepreneurship. There is never an “end point” – we are always looping back through our processes, our status checks, and our event planning. That’s the only way to accomplish our goals: to ensure we have the proper financial picture for what we want to do, whether that is innovation costing or revenue projections.

Contact Info:

• Website: http://www.homestatebrew.com
• Instagram: @homestatebrewingco
• Facebook: Home State Brewing Co.
• Other: All our links to connect with us are available on our website for convenience. This includes our Private Event information, video tour, and request form, as well as our current menus for beer, food, RTD cocktails, wines and NA beverages, and our contact form for general questions! We can also be reached on Instagram through Direct Messages. We have reviews across Google, Yelp and TripAdvisor, feel free to let us know about your experience as well! Cheers!

Image Credits
Shannon Ball