We were lucky to catch up with Courtney Servaes recently and have shared our conversation below.

Hi Courtney, thanks for joining us today. What was it like going from idea to execution? Can you share some of the backstory and some of the major steps or milestones?

I think almost every home brewer dreams of opening a brewery some day. That was certainly true for me. I started home brewing in 2012 with a friend. I didn’t know much about beer or brewing, but I thought it sounded like a fun hobby to explore. It didn’t take long before I had become pretty obsessed with it. I wanted to try every beer available, and I wanted to learn how to recreate my favourites. Over time, the obsession continued to grow as I learned more about beer and began to purchase my own equipment and start to figure out my own process. I met a lot of really fun and helpful people along the way – especially in the Lawrence Brewer’s Guild. Even though I loved brewing, I didn’t necessarily think opening a brewery was feasible. I had a career in digital marketing that I was happy with. I had great benefits, great co-workers and overall – I was happy with where I was.

Over time, though, I began to spend more and more time doing beer-related things and it got to a point where it just didn’t make sense not to at least look into it. I was brewing every weekend. I was paying to enter competitions. I was taking my beer to festivals. I remember my wife telling me that if I could get a bank to loan me money to open a brewery, she’d agree to go along with it. I didn’t realise then how difficult of a task that would be, but I started looking into options for financing.

What I didn’t know is that getting a home loan and getting a small business loan for a startup were two completely different things. It took awhile, but I eventually found a lender and began the process of openingg a brewery – with significantly less money than I needed. I tried to shave money here and there. I didn’t order the best of anything. I simply couldn’t afford it. And I needed to get open as soon as possible because I only had so much money to put toward rent.

It was incredibly stressful and I would probably do a million things differently, but I eventually opened the doors to the brewery and put the opening phase behind me.

Courtney, before we move on to more of these sorts of questions, can you take some time to bring our readers up to speed on you and what you do?

ABOUT US
Servaes Brewing Co. (it’s pronounced like service) is the culmination of passion, hard work and persistence. Courtney Servaes began brewing in 2012 with a kettle, a propane burner and a few beer-loving friends. That casual hobby evolved into what can only be described as an obsession. Since then, Courtney has brewed hundreds of different beers, challenging herself to try new things, learn new styles and explore new and inventive flavor profiles. As a homebrewer, Courtney was heavily involved in the Lawrence Brewers Guild, had the opportunity to participate in a few scale-ups at professional breweries and won several awards for her homebrew. Courtney married Brandi in 2015. They have two sons, Aaron and Dylan.
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SBC is a 2,700-square-foot brewery and taproom at 10921 Johnson Drive in downtown Shawnee, Kansas. We took possession of the building in August 2018, after filing for our LLC in March 2018. In November 2018, we successfully completed a crowdfunding campaign that raised $25,494 from 186 backers (126% of our $20K goal). We opened to the public in April 2019. The brewery space takes up the majority of the square footage, leaving an intimate taproom that can hold around 50 people. Our goal with the taproom was to keep it small and simple and to make it an approachable place for families.
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One thing to remember about SBC is that you might not always know what beer we will have on tap. We focus on NEIPAs, novelty, barrel-aged and innovative sour beers. Courtney has been known to add all kinds of interesting things to beers, including whole pumpkin pies, entire boxes of red velvet cake mix, chocolate chip cookies and much more. SBC produces the highest-quality beer that is fluid and dynamic, flavorful and ever-evolving. We are always trying new things and always reinventing ourselves and our beer. We do NOT have flagship beers. In addition, we focus heavily on to-go options, offering several different 4-pack and crowler options.
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When we sat down to try to figure out the look and feel of SBC, the word fluid came to mind. We wanted our logo to represent that sense of fluidity, which is why it has a watery, wavy look. The idea of fluidity is the primary reason we don’t have flagship beer. We want our beers to be ever-evolving and rotating. We want the experience at SBC to be different every time, so you’ll never know what to expect.
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As Courtney developed her love and passion for brewing beer, Aaron grew to love craft soda. He and Courtney began brewing soda at home, exploring different styles and ingredients. Aaron’s Craft Soda is exactly the kind of soda that Aaron wants to drink. It’s produced in small batches at our brewery in Shawnee and is unique and full of flavor — just like our beer. And, best of all, every single one of our sodas is inspired by a kid.

Let’s talk about resilience next – do you have a story you can share with us?

One thing that has been a challenge in this industry is being a woman. In the beginning, that is all any media outlet wanted to talk about. But they only talked about the good stuff – how cool it was that a woman was opening a brewery. What they didn’t tell. you is how challenging that really is.

Being a woman brewer isn’t hard in the ways you would think. As a brewer, you carry heavy bags of grain, you move heavy objects, you climb tall ladders and you do a lot of cleaning. But those are things that women can do, too. What is challenging about being a woman in a male-dominated industry isn’t the physical differences, it is the public perception of our differences. It’s not uncommon for a new customer to walk up to the bar and ask the male bartender if he is the brewer, instead of the female bartender. And when he tells the customer that a woman actually brews the beer, they often make a look of shock and disbelief. I’ve seen a guy come to the bar and explain how good he thinks the beer is, then ask the bartender if he’s the brewer. When the bartender tells him a woman brews the beer, I’ve seen the same man, take another sip of the beer, as if he has to double-check the beer now.

Unfortunately, I have accepted that it is simply part of the business. Some people won’t come in here because I’m a woman, and I can’t help that. I just hope that that changes eventually.

How about pivoting – can you share the story of a time you’ve had to pivot?

I would say the biggest pivot we’ve had to do is in regards to Covid. We weren’t even open a year when everything started shutting down. It forced us to rethink our business model and I’m not sure that things will ever go back to the “normal” they were before. We started packaging more of our product and focuses more on to-go vs. taproom sales.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://www.servaesbrewco.com
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/servaesbrewco/
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/servaesbrewingco
• Twitter: https://twitter.com/servaesbrewco?lang=en

Image Credits
Leah Wankum, Shawnee Mission Post