Want To Help A Small Business Get Off The Ground?

Home brewing runs in the family. My cousins Joel and Matt have been home brewing beer for many years now. They planted hops over 6 years ago so they had their own fresh hops to brew with. You know, I never asked them, but I bet they planted hops in 2007 because of the hop shortage, maybe one of them will chime in on the topic in the comment section. If you are a home brewer you will remember 2007 as, "the year of the global hop shortage". Do to a flood of hops on the market in the years leading up to 2007, farmers got out of the hop business bringing the amount of hops on the market down. If that wasn't enough, a large warehouse in Washington full of hops burned to the ground in October of 2006. This made for a perfect storm, and sent hop prices through the roof if you could even get any. I remember my brew store had a 3 ounce limit on buying hops and you had to buy at least 10 pounds of grain to get them.

At any rate, 2007 saw the genesis of  "Ocean State Hops". The OSH crew consists of my cousins Joel, Matt and Kara with help from their friend Abe. Ocean State Hops is a small business in Exeter RI that is, in their words; "fueled by a passion to cram as many hops into each batch of beer as humanly possible". I, being a fan of this style of brewing, applaud their efforts at making beer that tastes like beer. I make a batch of beer that consists of me cleaning out the freezer at the end of the year and throwing every ounce of hops I have into one batch of IPA. I named this super-hopped beer "I Pee Hops."

Over the years the business picked up, they started selling to local breweries and kept adding more and more hops to the farm. This season they got really smart and went to a pick-your-own hops model. You come to the farm, pick a vine, cut it down and take it home. Fast, easy and smart. Well what could be next in the natural progressing of things? Starting a brewery of course. Matt and Kara recently purchased some brewing equipment from a brewery doing an upgrade and they already own the property where the brewery will be located. What they need help with is a 100 year old barn they want to retrofit with plumbing, a bar, a viewing area, refrigeration, everything you need to have a tour-able brewery.

So this is the barn in question. I grew up coming to this property almost every summer and have many memories playing in and around this barn. I am so happy Matt and Kara have decided to make this property their home and give this old barn a new life. I can't wait to see the operation in full working order. They have decided to name the brewery "Tilted Barn Brewery". I will cheers to that!

So please consider helping my family realize their dream of opening up a brewery on a piece of land that has been in our family for over 50 years. If you want to help out, here is a link to their Indiegogo campaign. Anything helps and they have a bunch of incentives at different backing levels. I can't wait to get my TBB shirt! All pictures in the post courtesy of Tilted Barn Brewery.