We’re excited to introduce you to the always interesting and insightful Greg & Sara Fetzer. We hope you’ll enjoy our conversation with Greg & Sara below.

Greg & Sara , appreciate you joining us today. Covid has brought about so many changes – has your business model changed?

We opened in March of 2019 a business model of servicing our neighborhood one pint at a time across the bar. Once the pandemic hit we quickly realized we were going to need to pivot and focus on packaging our product to go to maximize revenues. We did offer 32oz crowlers to go however 32oz in a single vessel can be intimidating and filling a crowler straight from the tap is not great for beer stability. We switched to four packs of 16oz cans. A much more approachable togo option for our customer base and saw our togo sales triple.

Once we were able to open the taproom back up, in order to help keep customers from intermingling and honestly to help our staff not have to constantly remind customers about masking up when not at the table while ordering at the bar we switched to table service as opposed to making customers come to the bar and order. We saw some benefits from this that we hadn’t anticipated. We saw sales increase on a per customer basis by not making the customer come to the bar to order and it also helped our staff engage and get to know our customer base better which really helps with repeat business. This also helped with togo sales as it gave our staff the opportunity to ask each customer individually if they would like any beer to take with them. There’s nothing better then seeing the surprise on a customers face when we remember their name and the beers they like to drink.

Great, appreciate you sharing that with us. Before we ask you to share more of your insights, can you take a moment to introduce yourself and how you got to where you are today to our readers

We started our brew journey 10 years ago in Newport OR. Starting on the bottling line at Rogue Ales, Greg learned the integral aspects of the industry from the bottom up, working his way to cellarman. In 2013 we moved back to CO to take a cellar job at Rockyard Brewing in Castle Rock. After working his way up to brewer and then head brewer we were comfortable making the jump to make our dream a reality.

The Empourium Brewing Company opened in March 2019 and is located in the heart of the Berkeley neighborhood in Denver CO on 42nd and Tennyson. We brew a wide array of beer styles from around the world while focusing on sessionability. We like to show our customers that a beer doesn’t need to be high alcohol to have flavor. Whether you’re into trendy IPAs and fruit forward sours, or traditional German pilsners and easy drinking light lagers The Empourium has something for everyone. We have a comfortable taproom that is a mix of modern and industrial finishes that allow people to bring their family and friends and hang out for the afternoon and enjoy a couple of beers.

Being active in our community and neighborhood is a big focus of our business model. Sara is an active board member for the local neighborhood association. We’re proud to support local artists by rotating them every month and providing them with a free outlet to display their work and the opportunity to sell it. We support local charities monthly by donating a portion of our beer sales.

How do you keep your team’s morale high?

We like to maintain a work environment that is laid back yet professional. After all, we make and serve people beer. What we do should be fun. We empower our employees to make decisions on a daily basis without micromanagement. Allowing staff to make judgement calls on when customers need free splashes of beer or need to be cut off when showing the first signs of over intoxication, without a manager always looking over their shoulder, encourages employees to take more ownership in the business and brand itself. We often hear employees say “I have this beer on tap today that I think you’ll really enjoy”. When we hear employees refer to the products we sell as their own it shows us that they are bought in. Nothing makes us happier then that!

We also have an open door policy and a zero tolerance policy for any and all inappropriate behavior. If an employee ever has an issue whether at work or personally they know that they can always come to us for help, advice or just to listen. It sounds cliche but we have a small team and we really pride ourselves on being a family. We take care of each other and that reflects in our lack of employee turnover. Our employees are also empowered to hold each other accountable for inappropriate behavior or comments an this goes for customers as well. They know management has their back if a customer ever makes them uncomfortable or is making other guests uncomfortable to respectfully let that person know that’s not tolerated and should be asked to leave.

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

What is really fun about making beer is that there is literally a hundred ways to brew the same beer, and no one way is better then the next. Our industry is alway evolving, meaning no one day is the same as the next. Farmers are constantly cross breeding strains of hops which can add different characters to your IPAs. New strains of yeast are being discovered constantly resulting in different flavors and even resulting in new beer styles all together. If you aren’t willing to keep learning and aren’t pushing yourself to try new things in the beer industry you’re going to fall behind.

Contact Info:

• Website: www.theempourium.com
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/empouriumbrew/
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/EmpouriumBrew/