We’re excited to introduce you to the always interesting and insightful Matt Morriss. We hope you’ll enjoy our conversation with Matt below.
Matt, thanks for joining us, excited to have you contributing your stories and insights. Let’s jump right into the heart of things. Outsiders often think businesses or industries have much larger profit margins than they actually do – the reason is that outsiders are often unaware of the biggest challenges to profitability in various industries – what’s the biggest challenge to profitability in your industry?
There was a time not long ago when craft breweries were popping up like mushrooms, and people were flocking to them all. If it was “craft” and “local”, it would sell. But as more and more brewery options arose, quality started becoming a bigger issue– it wasn’t enough just to be local, now you also had to be good– and you had to have enough marketing budget to attract attention over all the competition. But while market saturation has made operating profitably more difficult, a new challenge is emerging which may prove to be a threat to even well-established and well-regarded breweries, and that is relevance. The whims and desires of the public can shift in a heartbeat, and breweries that fail to innovate or evolve to meet changing demands will inevitably see their sales start to fall. Are craft breweries still relevant to an audience who has begun to favor other beverages besides beer? It’s our job to prove that we still can be.
Matt, 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?
Like many before me who have ventured into craft beer brewing, I started as a home brewer quite some time ago– a typical story of a home brewer who decided to turn their passion into a business. In business though, it takes a broader view to succeed– it was an adjustment to go from brewing what I liked and hoping others would enjoy it too, to crafting beers for a wide audience of drinkers who may not all share my tastes. That’s a core goal for the beers we’re creating at Three Wide Brewing; to keep our creative focus and produce not only familiar standards but also unexpected flavor combinations to appeal to an audience that perhaps hasn’t found their favorite beer just yet. As we grow, we plan to stretch beyond beer into other beverage categories and create even more innovative options.
We often hear about learning lessons – but just as important is unlearning lessons. Have you ever had to unlearn a lesson?
When my partners and I started in the industry, craft beer was largely about making local versions of classic styles that everyone else was making. Every brewery had to have a Pale, and IPA, a Stout, a Hefeweizen, etc, and a lot of the focus was on making the most “authentic” version of whatever it was we were making. This matched my experiences from entering beers into home brew competitions quite well, since those are judged on how well the entry matches a recognized style. Eventually though, people started growing tired of finding the same stuff everywhere they went, and differentiation became a bigger focus. I had to rethink my concept of what made a beer “good”– it had nothing to do with traditional styles or methods; innovation was the key. I have a much greater appreciation for that now than when I started.
Any stories or insights that might help us understand how you’ve built such a strong reputation?
The reputation that we strive for in our products is consistent quality. We’d love to get to the point where when people see a product from us that they’ve never tried before, they’ll order it straight away because they trust it will be enjoyable and as advertised. We get there through attention to detail and refusing to allow anything to leave our facility that doesn’t meet our standards. It will be a never-ending quest for us, as there is always room to improve.
Contact Info:
- Website: https://www.3widebrewing.com
- Instagram: 3widebrewingtx
- Facebook: three-wide-brewing
Image Credits
Sil Azevedo