“I started brewing at home in 2011, five gallons at a time. Friends and family would try the beer and after a while, they started saying, ‘Hey, can you make that again?’
One night, my wife and two of my sons were in our basement having a beer, and the conversation shifted to opening a brewery. Shortly after that conversation, we were sitting at a traffic light and noticed a big, brick, two-story building was for sale in our hometown of McConnelsville. I said to my wife, ‘That would make a great brewery’, and that’s all it took for her to grab the reins and take off.
Next thing I know, we bought the building and started the renovation.
We both recognized that it was a big leap. We knew that we would need some training in order to make that leap, so my wife and I went to a beer training course in Brighton, Colorado. It was an immersion training course, where we spent a week working at a brewery. We made beer, we carbonated the beer, cleaned kegs, and did all the paperwork. It gave us exposure on what to expect, as well as a lot of files and forms that we could use in our business. It was lots of very, very helpful information.
We were the first brewery in town, so everybody was waiting on pins and needles for us to open. It was very exciting for a lot of people, us included. We opened in June of 2020, and the community here was fantastic.
The excitement was quashed a little because we opened right in the thick of 2020, but the people came. In fact, I remember one afternoon when some people that I didn’t recognize from the community came by to join our Pint Club and ordered two memberships. They said that they probably wouldn’t be back, but they wanted to support us. That’s the kind of reception that we got.”
“Besides being a brewery, we wanted a place where people could come to kick back and relax, because there wasn’t really any place like that around here. That became a driving force for us, and I think we’ve succeeded with that, for sure. Along with that, we wanted to be a place where people could come and have informal meetings, so we created our Event Room and now several companies come in and utilize it for their meetings. They’ll come here and sit down during the day, even when we’re not open, and that’s great.
In communities everywhere, we’re seeing a trend where a brewery comes in and inspires other businesses to come into the area or to renovate. I’m not saying that we’re necessarily responsible for this, but we’re seeing momentum here in McConnelsville: now there’s a great little coffee shop by us, a restaurant that has been a staple for years reopened, gift and craft shops that recently opened as well as the fantastic, historic bed and breakfast, and there are a couple of new entertainment spots offering activities like virtual golf or pool.
The key is to work together as a group. The goal of a business is to make money, of course, but more importantly, a goal for a lot of us here is to help build the community up. I think we’re working together to do that.
It’s a great town. It’s beautiful, too. I ride my bike a lot, and people will travel hundreds of miles to ride their bikes in beautiful places, and all I have to do is walk out my door and I’m there. So it’s worth it to me to keep that and share that, so everybody can see what a great place this is.
I grew up here, and raised my kids here. Hopefully my grandkids will live and work here, too. What do I want to leave behind for them?”
“My brewing philosophy is ‘Brew what people like to drink.’ We’re a business, and if we’re going to succeed as a business, I can’t have 15 different IPAs on tap, because that’s not what everybody wants to drink. Some breweries are IPA heavy and have a lot of business, and that’s good. But I knew that wouldn’t succeed here. Myself, I lean towards English style ales, but I also brew several lagers: I have light lagers, Munich lagers and Vienna lagers. Something you hear a lot is ‘I don’t like dark beer’, which doesn’t really mean anything. But that’s what people think, so if I can get somebody in because we have a light lager and maybe get them to try something new, like an Irish Stout or an English Mild, then I’ve succeeded.”
–Dean Ponchak, Old Bridge Brewing Company
McConnelsville, Morgan County
#WeAreOhioSE
