Today we’d like to introduce you to John and Kristin Gawthrop.
John and Kristin, can you briefly walk us through your story – how you started and how you got to where you are today.
Kristin and I moved out here to Colorado from Wilmington, NC in 2016 to be closer to her sisters. We were interested in making a life change at the time and the opportunity presented itself for us to uproot.
We were already avid homebrewers and had experience beer tending in our friend’s brewery. We immediately started homebrewing again when we arrived in Loveland and soon found there were lots of local ingredients, grown and produced in northern Colorado, that were not available to homebrewers. So, we got the idea to open a homebrew shop that focused on brewing locally. We reached out to Root Shoot Malting in Loveland, Troubadour Maltings in Fort Collins, Colorado Hop Company in Longmont, and Inland Island Yeast Laboratories in Denver. Soon after we opened we added malts from Wyoming Malting Company in Pine Bluffs, WY and spices from Old Town Spice Shop in Fort Collins.
Once we made the commitment to local, the store really started to evolve. Now we carry brew systems from Ruby Street Brewing in Fort Collins, all-natural deodorant from Pit Liquor in Loveland, beer and wine-themed art from a myriad of local artists and even wine-themed jewelry from NOCO Beads in Loveland.
Even for the items that aren’t locally produced we try to support Colorado jobs by ordering as much as possible from our distributors in Denver like BSG and Country Malt Group, Five Star Chemicals, Shirron Inc., and Fox Equipment Company. It makes it nice when we can load up the kids and run to Denver to pick up our orders and shake the hands of the people we’re dealing with instead of nameless, faceless people in Ohio or California.
There are so many great small businesses we collaborate with and it feels good to be able to help each other out.
Has it been a smooth road?
This is a very niche market and people typically only google “homebrew store” once and they commit to that local shop and don’t seek it out again. So a lot of our customers stumble upon us while doing other things or hear about us from friends and neighbors. Local brick and mortar stores also face the struggle of competing with online giants in all aspects of retail. It doesn’t help that in our business much of our online competition is owned by AB/Inbev. So, they have a lot of money to throw around.
We succeed because we offer what online can’t and that’s local products and customer service. When we opened some people told us it wasn’t a good idea. Local products can be more expensive than larger, mass-produced ones. But we believed that our customers would pay a little more to support local, and we were right. But it’s not just that these products are local, they’re also superior. Fresher is always better. And it’s great to see our friends, like Root Shoot Malting, get recognized on the national stage winning a gold medal for best pale malt in North America. That’s saying something.
We also spend a lot of time with our customers, helping them troubleshoot issues with their recipes, or processes, giving them feedback on their beers, answering their questions. That’s something you can’t get from the big online retailers. Our customers become our friends. We help link them up with other homebrewers, homebrew clubs, and competitions, and in turn, their lives are more enriched.
We’d love to hear more about your business.
Local, local, local. And customer service. I can’t emphasize that enough.
In this day and age, people have so many choices from where to purchase whatever they want. So, we believe we have to offer other reasons to buy from us. Offering grains and hops and yeast that are grown/produced in this are is a no brainer. There are very few places in the US that are as blessed as we are in Colorado. Most homebrewers have very little choice as to the ingredients they use and even fewer, if any, local options. Most grains they’re using are grown somewhere in the midwest and have sat in warehouses somewhere for who knows how long before it even shows up to their local shop. Our customers are using malts that were grown this or last season and malted last week. Freshness makes a huge difference. But it’s an option very few people have. Our customers understand that and appreciate it. It makes me so happy when they come in and hand me a recipe and say, “how do I brew this local?” They know they make better beer when they use better ingredients.
We have an amazing brewing community here in Loveland. There were six Pro/Am beers at last year’s Great American Beer Festival from Loveland homebrewers. Six out of about a hundred from across the country were from little old Loveland. That’s saying something.
We also try to offer quality feedback every time. Kristin and I are both gold-medal winning homebrewers. I’m also a Certified BJCP judge and a Certified Cicerone. But that doesn’t mean we know everything. Far from it. But we will work very hard to get you the answer you need. I can’t tell you how many nights we’ve spent researching something because we didn’t know the answer. So, it works out well for both of us. We both learn something.
Is our city a good place to do what you do?
Loveland has done a great job supporting small businesses. If you walk downtown you don’t come across a bunch of national chains. There are a lot of thriving small businesses. So, they’re definitely doing something right. There’s a focus on arts, which helps as well. People want to be out in the community.
Now, is it for everyone? No. Property is not cheap. Rent is not cheap, either for housing or business. So, you have to be realistic about your cost versus sales expectations. But the city was very helpful to us offering incentives to locate on the west side of town due to the impact of the highway 34 closure up the Big Thompson Canyon.
Contact Info:
- Address: 2245 W Eisenhower Blvd. Loveland, CO 80537
- Website: www.elevatedfermentations.com
- Phone: 970-308-7888
- Email: elevatedfermentations@gmail.com
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/elevatedfermentations/
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/ElevatedFermentations/
- Twitter: https://twitter.com/ElevatedFerment
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