Page 2 of The Havenport Collection

Liam

I t was time to face the truth. My business was floundering.

I took a deep breath. “So what you’re saying is that I should close?” It was the last thing I needed to hear today.

“Of course not. What I am saying is that you need to find some ways to generate more income so you can keep brewing amazing beer.”

“But if I can’t do that in the next few months then I have to close?” I was well and truly screwed. And not in the fun way.

Callum, my older brother and financial advisor, sighed deeply. “I’m just saying. Your building is worth a lot now. The south side of town is experiencing a huge boom and I know there are many developers who would love to convert it into luxury condos.”

“I hate luxury condos.”

“I know you do. I’m just saying. As your financial advisor, you have a very valuable asset. If you need to shut down you will land on your feet.”

“But what about as my older brother?”

“As your older brother, I want you to keep brewing and build your empire. But if you want to keep the brewery going, you need to change things up a bit. I don’t know, maybe accept some fucking help once in a while.”

I let out a big sigh. “Okay, thanks.”

“I know you don’t want to hear this, but you need more support.

You need to take on investors and focus on new areas of growth.

And you also need to hire someone who can handle the marketing side of things, social media, events, that kind of thing.

You are an incredible brewer, but the greatest beer in the world still needs to be marketed and sold. ”

He wasn’t wrong.

“I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again. You need to hire a marketing and social media person. Promotion is eighty percent of the battle and you don’t have the time or the knack for it, bro.”

“But I don’t even have the time to advertise and interview applicants. Not to mention, who wants a part-time job that pays shit right now?” As much as I needed help, I couldn’t take my eye off the ball for one minute right now if I was going to save this place.

“Hey, keep your chin up. You are doing great and this is a temporary blip.” Cal was always such a good motivational speaker. “Who knows? The perfect person could walk in the door tomorrow.”

I had heard this song a thousand times over the years.

My family was incredibly generous and supportive, but they were not shy about calling me out on my shit.

Callum was a financial genius and one of my biggest supporters, and I knew he was right.

I just wasn’t sure what to do about it. “Okay. I gotta run, bro. But I will see you tomorrow night.”

I hung up and rubbed my temples. The conversation was basically the same one we had every week.

I needed to be making payments on my loans, I needed to diversify and come up with some new revenue streams, and brewing award-winning beer was not enough if you weren’t a fucking hashtag or distributed around the world.

And I would love to hire someone, but finding someone who could handle this shit show for very little pay was basically impossible.

And as attractive as outside investors would be, I was not yet ready to give up control of this operation.

I had been burned in the past, and Binnacle Brewing was my baby and I didn’t want too many cooks in the kitchen.

I was generally a laid-back guy. I was the youngest, the peacemaker, the one who could be counted on to crack a joke when things got tense.

But when it came to my business, I was a dictator.

The stakes were too high and I had worked too hard to risk screwing anything up.

I leaned back in my chair as I surveyed my desk.

My laptop was open, my inbox screamed for attention, and the piles and piles of paperwork mocked me.

It was only eight a.m. on a Monday morning.

I had thought I could do this. I had thought I could handle things, and I had thought I could scrape by.

But each day it was looking more and more like this was just another epic failure.

Opening a brewery had been my dream since college.

A dream I had carefully and slowly worked toward.

I got my degree in microbiology and then took every internship, apprenticeship, and fellowship I could find.

I traveled the world learning about the craft of beer, visiting Belgian Monasteries and German hop farms. My first venture went bust a few years back due to some bad luck and poor management, and I picked myself up, dusted myself off, and scraped and saved until I could try again.

A timely inheritance from my grandmother gave me the opportunity to buy this old warehouse and get my brewery set up, and for the last four years, I have been busting my ass to make it.

I have worked seven days a week, sometimes twenty hours a day to brew, distribute, and market my product. It was exhausting, but it was my dream.

I loved this town deeply. It was strange and fun and downright weird sometimes, but it was home.

Havenport is a pretty quirky place. We have a storied history of great thinkers, revolutionaries, artists, and rebels.

The town had been through so many transformations over the years, what was left was a melting pot of artists, activists, yuppies, fishermen, and working families.

In the eighties, Havenport emerged as a friendly hub for LGBTQ folks fleeing discrimination elsewhere.

In fact, Havenport elected America’s first openly gay mayor in 1989.

Burt, who had retired after serving four terms, was now a sort of town mascot and could be found riding his Vespa around town.

I wanted Binnacle Brewing to succeed so badly.

Both for myself and for this unique and crazy town.

The irony was that I had actually had some success.

My beer was good. Really good. Binnacle got some recognition in the trades and had placed well in a few regional competitions.

So the product was strong, and I had some interesting specialty beers.

With some more revenue, I could expand our brewing capacity and open up new areas for growth.

The problem was that the craft beer market was insanely oversaturated, especially in New England, and it was hard to break through.

Binnacle was carried in a lot of local restaurants, and our cans were sold in liquor stores across New England, but we lacked the “hook” to really take it to the next level.

And given how expensive the equipment and real estate was to brew beer, if I didn’t make it to the next level soon, the brewery would be toast.

It felt like we had been on the precipice of the next level for a while, and I just couldn’t figure out how to get us there.

It was not enough to brew good beer, you also needed a huge distribution network and catchy marketing.

You practically needed Banksy to design your cans and have millions of Instagram followers to pay your bills.

I was working day and night trying to figure it out, but I could only do so much on my own.

Between brewing and selling and distributing and dealing with the taproom and everything else there wasn’t much time for business strategy.

Maybe if we could get someone in to help, maybe a marketing person, that could take a few things off my plate.

The irony was that I couldn’t really afford to pay anyone, but I couldn’t succeed in taking these additional steps without more help.

I took my Binnacle brewing hat off and ran my fingers through my, admittedly, very dirty hair.

I thought about pouring myself a beer but settled on a half-eaten protein bar that I found lying on the desk.

It looked fine, and I hadn’t had a real meal or showered in days, so my standards were pretty low.

I decided to go in search of sustenance.

Unlocking the loading dock door, I looked up to see Trent, my oldest friend and loyal employee. He gave me a big grin and reached out for a fist bump. “I love the smell of hops in the morning,” he exclaimed with a spring in his step.

Trent was one of those amazing people who always had a smile on his round face.

He’s an assistant brewer and cellerman, which meant he was responsible for cleaning and sanitizing the fermentation and conditioning tanks and transferring the beers from tank to tank.

He kept all the machinery working at top capacity and had become an excellent brewer and our resident coffee guru.

He was also my best friend, my sounding board, and one of the most loyal human beings on earth.

The thought that he might lose his job, a job he loved, because I couldn’t get my shit together made me feel even worse.

I smiled at Trent. How could he be so chipper so early? He looked me up and down. “Rough night, Liam?” He winked at me and then his face fell, taking in my disheveled appearance. “I see. Someone hasn’t had their coffee yet. I’ll get started, boss.”

I clap him on the shoulder. “Good man, Trent.” I needed to get some coffee and start thinking about how I was going to right this ship.

Now, coffee was not just coffee. We were beer guys, which means we geeked out over the science of brewing and crafting beer.

Same went for coffee. Because we brewed and canned in shifts 24/7, a lot of coffee was consumed.

And because we were all science nerds at heart, we got extremely technical about the beans, roast, and grind of our coffee.

We even had competitions to see who could make the best coffee.

Trent was the reigning champion, which was just one of the reasons his schedule always seemed to match up with mine.

A bit later, Karl walked in rubbing his back.

Karl was a retired brewmaster and chemist from Vermont who’d moved to Havenport with his wife a few years back to enjoy his retirement.

He previously worked for a large national brand and ran an entire brewing and distribution plant.

He was old and cranky, but he was an incredible mentor.

His wife got sick of him hanging around the house and told him to get a hobby.

Since the man couldn’t stay away from beer, he instead came here and convinced me to hire him.

His wife was an amazing baker and always sent him in with delicious treats.

It’s like she knew we needed to be bribed to keep him around.

Today he was carrying two enormous trays of muffins.

I secretly thanked her for thinking of me and grabbed two before heading back to my office.

“Karl,” shouted Trent, who was carrying two Yetis filled with strong black coffee across the brewing floor. “Can I get you some coffee, freshly made?”

Karl gave Trent a look. He liked to pretend to be annoyed by Trent’s boundless optimism, but I knew deep down he adored him. “Okay, kid. But skim milk for me. My wife says no more cream.”

“Roger that,” Trent said, handing me my mug. I rolled my eyes at him and headed to my desk to continue the workday that had started sometime around four a.m.

Today was one of those days where I had to take a minute and be proud of what I had built.

After years of dreaming and saving and some serious catastrophes along the way, I had done it.

I had achieved my dream. And it had thoroughly kicked my ass, but I had loved every single day.

I just hoped I could keep things going. Because as stressed as I was, and as much as the pressure felt crushing sometimes, I was still proud and happy to be here every day.

Working with my friends and making something amazing that people all over New England would enjoy was a privilege.

So it was more important than ever to come up with a plan and quick.

Crunching the numbers with Callum, I knew I needed to increase revenue significantly in the next few months.

The fastest way to do this would be to leverage what we already had, which was the taproom and event space.

I just needed to find someone, a perfect unicorn employee who was creative and energetic and could help us increase revenue, to see the potential in this place.

If things didn’t improve in the next few months, my dream would be over.