From Hobby to Business: The Journey of Track 94 Brewing with Jared Whitehead

Speaker 1: 0:00

Hey everyone, what's going on? It's the Beard Bro, and welcome back to another episode here on the Brew House. For this episode I got to sit down with Jared Whitehead, a guy who has been in IT before. He's owned several businesses, he's moved around the country a lot and now he actually owns and operates Track 94 Brewing up in Seneca, missouri.

Speaker 1: 0:19

I had the chance to stop by and visit with Jared this last week and so you know there's way too much as you could expect to be packed in just one episode here. So you're going to want to go up and visit these guys at Track 94. Talk to Jared, hang out with them there, because the space is really cool. It's a very train-themed brewery right next to the tracks there in Seneca. Surprisingly, track 94 is not the number of track that they sit next to, so you'll have to find out that in the episode. But here you go and enjoy the conversation with Jared Whitehead. Thanks, all right. Well, welcome back to episode five here on the Brew House and joining me today. I actually headed north just a little bit over to Seneca, missouri, and man, I'm here with Jared, owner of Track 94 Brewing here in Seneca.

Speaker 3: 1:46

So how you doing, man, I'm good how are you?

Speaker 1: 1:48

Thanks for making time for me today. I know we don't know each other, so that was kind of. I was joking around with him beforehand that this is the first episode that it's a cold episode here, man, so this is good. Yeah, so that's okay. You like being guinea pig, right you?

Speaker 2: 2:02

like trying new things. That's why you got in the brewing.

Speaker 1: 2:05

But yeah. So where are we Tell me a little bit about you know? Let's start out with just the location of the brewery. Where is Track 94 located? I know I already said the city, but like, give me some context here.

Speaker 3: 2:19

Well, we're obviously right on the railroad tracks just off Main Street, little ways, not too far, basically nothing around us besides houses. But if you come into town off Main Street, find the first Baptist church and take a left out if you're coming out of the job and you'll run into us.

Speaker 1: 2:36

Okay, all right, we're going to have a train coming by here speaking of Track 94. So you're probably going to hear that in the background.

Speaker 3: 2:41

Our trains are dollar off beers, so if you ever hear, the lights will flash and you get a dollar off.

Speaker 1: 2:45

I'm like galley, let's do it. So so Track 94,. You may hear it in the background, that's totally okay. So Track 94, is there. That's just the track, that's here.

Speaker 3: 2:56

What's the no? That's a common theory, but so originally our name was going to be Trackside Brewing, okay, or beside the track. And there was some brewery in New York I don't know where it was at this point, but they already had the name. So I thought, okay, what can I do? So I'm sitting around with my buddies drinking beer, and we all graduated in 1994. Track 94, it is. So that's why we're here.

Speaker 1: 3:16

I like that. I like that. It's a little personal history plus a little local lore here, so that's cool. So how, when did you get into brewing and did you? I'm guessing you homebrewed before, is that? Oh yeah.

Speaker 3: 3:28

I started with the extract kits in my kitchen on the stove. So that was my exposure and grew from there, obviously.

Speaker 1: 3:35

Do you remember what your first beer was?

Speaker 3: 3:37

Yeah, I actually still have the kit right there as a Belgian width Very nice yeah, and still have an actual bottle that's not been cracked open.

Speaker 1: 3:45

But he literally has the box here in the brewery, right here in the rafters. So that's pretty awesome, man. I don't think I can easily say that I don't have the same box that I brewed from my very first time, but I do still have the same kit. So I've got all the carboy and everything like that Right. Well, very cool. So what kind of beers do you, what kind of beers do you specialize in here?

Speaker 3: 4:09

Hopefully good tasting beers. We don't have a style. I'm not a beard engine, which I love does more English style stuff, so some breweries focus on that. I just, if I get a hankering for whatever beer, we'll buckle down and try to find a good mixture of something we like, versus putting our own twist on it and go from there. So there's not a style. I would say I do, we just. I like to try all new stuff. That's. The excitement for me is coming up with new recipes, new styles for other people, because down here we're bushlight and ultra drinkers so we're trying to expose people to more craft, more styles, different kinds.

Speaker 1: 4:46

That's kind of an interesting thing for a craft brewery to do is to try and I've seen it done very well a few times that like trying to make it more traditional style loggers and the corn forward loggers, things like that. Do you do that here at some?

Speaker 3: 5:03

Well, I mean, like I said, we've got our six beers that we keep on tap all the time, just kind of a variety, and then just depending on what I've drank out other places lately, we'll say, hey, let's make a coleslaw, let's make whatever, because I enjoyed it somewhere else, so let's see what we can do with it. So, like I said, don't really have a set style, we just kind of go with whatever we feel like drinking at the time and exposing people to that.

Speaker 1: 5:27

They say you make the beers you like, right, if you're not going to enjoy it yourself, probably nobody else will either.

Speaker 3: 5:34

And that's what some people hate. Certain beers you make. But I'm like you know what, I liked it, but I may hate another beer you love. So then that's the fun of it, you know, is getting people to try new things, whether they love it, hate it, whatever. It's fun to experience, very cool.

Speaker 1: 5:47

Well, so we're here. How big is this place that we're in right now, like, how big is the brewery?

Speaker 3: 5:51

Well, the whole building is probably 900 square feet roughly. Okay. Well, we added on a room already, so it may be a thousand at this point.

Speaker 1: 5:58

Okay.

Speaker 3: 5:59

It's pretty small.

Speaker 1: 6:00

And what's your brewing capacity at Like, what do you guys? What's your?

Speaker 3: 6:04

We're a one barrel system and then we have six fermenters. So we've got a backlog a lot of times, but we try to make it work with the space we've got.

Speaker 1: 6:12

So that's really cool. So tell me about your history. You know you said you started out in home brewing. But then what's your? What's your profession? Did you always grow up saying, hey, I want to do a brewery or no, I've. Where'd you come from?

Speaker 3: 6:25

I've done lots of things. I was in IT for years with Whole Foods Market, traveled the country doing that. I owned a cell phone repair store. We've owned a gym. I've owned a subway. I've owned a simple Simon's Pizza. You know, we've been all over the place.

Speaker 3: 6:38

But wife and I just got to traveling when I was just tinkering with, you know, making my own beer and trying out different breweries and different micro brews throughout the country. I'm like man, I like this, I need to do this. So you know, we got into all grain and then I got kicked out of the house because it was too big and too messy. So we went to a brewing in our pool house and I really, just when we traveled and got into it, I just realized that man, I like doing this, this is fun, it's something creative you can do. I can't draw or do anything else like that creative. So you know, here's Maybe this is my creative side, but so, yeah, we just got into that, got to doing more and more and I drove my wife absolutely crazy every time we'd go somewhere. I tell her I think I could do this. You know, my beer is this good, or I can brew this beer, or whatever. And finally she told me to shut up and go do it. So here we are.

Speaker 1: 7:29

You got to actually make moves, right, you can talk about it for a while, but after a while it's like hey, let's make this happen. Very cool. So where did the dream start for this specific location? I mean, it didn't.

Speaker 3: 7:42

I mean we look for buildings in Joplin, we look for buildings all over, and you know you always have those excuses when you don't want to commit to something. You know it's too big, too small, too expensive, too whatever. And so this was a karate studio that my kid was going to. It was just this one room and he would do karate here. The guy wanted a bigger karate studio. I had a building downtown Seneca, so we did some swapping and then one of the times my wife told me to either do it or shut up. She's like. I was like, but I don't have a building. She says, yes, you do, it's right down there, go put it in that building. So yeah, we didn't plan this, this was a junk storage building for us. Oh wow, we did some. We do flip houses and so we kept tools and just junk in here and she said go do it there. So here we are.

Speaker 1: 8:26

Yeah, I'll tell you what man I mean. Wife sounds like a smart lady.

Speaker 3: 8:29

She just gets tired of my complaining. I think it's okay it happens.

Speaker 1: 8:34

So you said your very first beer you did was the Belgian Whit. Now, was that the first one that you brewed here? Then, professionally, did you try to kind of recreate that, or what was the one you made here?

Speaker 3: 8:44

No, actually my wife is a hop head so with all her influence you know, ipa has got to be pretty popular in my brewing rotation. So actually the first one we brewed was for her. It was called Track 94 IPA. It got our name since it was our first one, so that's kind of our first beer.

Speaker 1: 9:02

That's really cool. That's really cool. And you still have that one on track.

Speaker 3: 9:04

It's still here, so if I got rid of it I'd be in trouble.

Speaker 1: 9:07

I bet, I bet, man that's, yeah, name it after her and that's a way to make sure that she wants you to keep it around forever. So now you start out with you. Do you employ people? Do you have friends, family that come around Well?

Speaker 3: 9:20

to get this place going. I had lots of friends that pitched in. I mean kind of done it without friends and family helping out, but we do have an assistant brewer, slash bartender, slash dishwasher slash. You know, when you're in a small brewer you do everything. So him and I kind of do all the work throughout the week. We've got another lady that comes in on the weekends to help bartend, and then we just opened a kitchen. So my wife again pushed for the kitchen. So she actually is taking over and in her spare time which she doesn't have much, but she comes in on Fridays or Saturdays and helps cook in the kitchen.

Speaker 1: 9:51

So Very cool. What kind of food?

Speaker 3: 9:53

You know, typical bar food. We got wings, we've got clubs, burgers, chicken sandwiches, pizzas, just a little bit of everything to again try to catch whoever's eating off something they can, you know, get and enjoy.

Speaker 1: 10:05

So now you said you, you had actually gone. You've done quite a few different things over life. You've owned several different businesses. You said you worked a whole good market. You worked at IT. What was what was kind of the thing? Did that come to an end by choice or by force? What was that?

Speaker 3: 10:20

Oh, just life decisions, you know, you know. So yeah, I was with Whole Foods for like 10 years and moved back home because of kids and school and family. You know the so were you located?

Speaker 1: 10:30

You were located elsewhere. You said, you moved back here.

Speaker 3: 10:32

Yeah, so I started with them in Philadelphia, moved outside Miami, florida with them, moved to Dallas, moved to Austin and then back home.

Speaker 1: 10:40

So what would you say? Is there anything that you learned in that time that you brought directly into this? It's just like, maybe it's a work ethic thing, maybe it's a.

Speaker 3: 10:48

I think the biggest thing would be, especially in Austin. I mean, you got to be open to new things. Yeah, you know it's it's kind of a crazy town. It's great town, loved it. But if you're not open to new things and new experiences, then it's not for you. So really the traveling, you got to be flexible, you got to be open to the new cultures, new styles. I think that's what I brought here the most is just like I said, don't focus on one thing. We try to be flexible and do different types and styles of beer and just have fun.

Speaker 1: 11:13

So were there any any hard lessons you learned along the way before coming into brewing that? What would you say would be something that stood out to you? It was just like, hey, you know, maybe maybe you tried something and it didn't work out the way you that you initially thought.

Speaker 3: 11:28

Uh, you hear it all the time. It's just, you know something doesn't work out. You just got to get back up and try again. You can't. You know can't stay there and Powder dwell or anything like that. You know, just get up, yeah, dust off head out. Just like you know beer doesn't work out, knock it down the sink, go on. You know you can't sit there for forever and dwell on it. So that's probably the biggest lesson. You know we've had. We've had lots of businesses, um. Some worked, some didn't, um, so that that's probably the biggest lesson. Just get back up and keep going.

Speaker 1: 11:53

Let's talk about the, the decor and your stuff. You got tap handles everywhere. You got it's pretty much just, I would imagine, just things that you like, yeah.

Speaker 3: 12:01

So you're, you're basically looking at my man cave when I was brewing at home. So I just collected. Every time we go to a brewery I'd grab a tap handle, or if we were out of flea market I'd find the old tap handle I liked, or, um, you can't see now, but on the backside of the wall there's all kinds of glasses from different breweries and and uh, koozies or whatever you know. So, yeah, it was just when we traveled I grabbed stuff that I liked and put it in my brew room and you know, that was kind of my inspiration. You know, maybe I liked a beer from whoever, so I'd grab something others or remind me down the road. Let's look at you know brewing something like these guys or something. So yeah, that's the inspiration. I mean it's just and of course, train theme figured in a lot. Um, we wanted to kind of tie that in with our, our name and our location, so we got a lot of train stuff going on.

Speaker 1: 12:44

But what is there? Is there one thing in here that you would say is just kind of like one? Uh, one of your pride points of like, hey, this item came from a certain place or from, uh, you know, was given to you by a certain person that you're just like man, this is, this is just super cool. I mean, I'm seeing signed helmets over here.

Speaker 3: 12:58

I'm seeing yeah, I mean we've got a cynical wall. I mean that stuff's pretty special. We were born and raised here. For most of my life, you know I was gone, but uh, you know our cynical wall definitely stands out. Some of the decor is from like 1898 and 1899. So, um, and then a lot of us just ties back into the, the group of guys I grew up with. We all graduated 94. There's about eight of us that we still see each other very often, we talk about every day. So just a lot of the 94 stuff was just kind of tight and it's cool to me personally. You know, maybe not anybody else, but you know so.

Speaker 1: 13:29

I think that's really cool, but especially, uh, you know you keep talking the 94, going back to the roots, going back to uh, what made you who you are today, and that group of friends that you said you talk daily, right, or you talk nearly daily at least you know, and uh, I think that's especially in today's world, that's something that a lot of people don't have.

Speaker 1: 13:47

And so what, what would you say has been a really cool thing for you, uh, coming out of keeping those contacts, keeping those friendships, I mean the support is the big thing.

Speaker 3: 13:59

I mean, that's, you know, when you've got some guys that got your back and can support you, and you know they had a lot of support in this thing here.

Speaker 3: 14:05

So you know, just knowing that you've got somebody that can you can fall back on or that you can ask for help or can find in, whatever it is. You know I told you the story about kind of how we got into this and we we just launched a website last week, track94brewcom. But um, you know that story is on there. It was something we. We made a shutter fly book. You know, just to share the experience. I've opened in this place. It's got story and it shows all the pictures of us building this thing. So if anybody wants to see the the raw pictures of what this looked like before, you know it's on there. We have a blog going so we also list anything going on. I know we do live music Wednesdays, thursdays and Saturdays. Yeah, friday nights we do game nights. All those events are listed on the website. You can go on and check it out. Food trucks we try to bring in if they'll show up.

Speaker 1: 14:52

Well, I was going to say, you got a really nice patio space out here too, so when did you guys, did you guys add that on, I would imagine? Or Well, we?

Speaker 3: 14:58

started with the patio because one of the things I really wanted, because we take our kids to Brewery with us. This is a very kid friendly brewery. Some nights you may have more kids and you've got adults, you know, in here, but that's what we love. We would take our kids. That's where my kid played battleship the first time, where we just sit down, you can put the electronics down, you can relax with your family, yep, have a good time. So we added the patio. We had Cornhole and all the games outside for the kids to be able to play and enjoy in. The adults Got a big area out there so we just covered it recently, trying to help if it's raining.

Speaker 1: 15:29

We can still be outside in the spring and fall, so Living in the time we're living in, you can't really go without talking about the last couple of years. I mean, what were some of the shifts that you saw? You know positive, negative or just kind of learning experiences that you saw over the last couple of years?

Speaker 3: 15:46

Well, we just opened a year next weekend It'll be wonderful. So we missed a lot of the COVID stuff. We never did the mandates max, any of that kind of stuff. We kind of missed the majority of it. But you know we took that time is actually how I got the place done, because you know everything slowed down in the world and I was able to spend more focus on getting this place ready and going. So I mean we're respectful of anybody that wants to wear a mask. You know they were welcome to you. Just again you fall back to be flexible and to let people be themselves and respect what they want to do. So you know, if you want to wear a mask, wear one. But we missed the majority of it and just never had to deal with a lot of that.

Speaker 1: 16:25

But I'm excited to see where we're headed now. What's kind of the future of this place look like? Are you staying here for a while? I would imagine.

Speaker 3: 16:33

Yeah, we need to. We just put that roof on, so we've got to pay that off. Yeah, no, I mean we're planning on staying here. You know, our biggest challenge where we're at is parking, so we've got to figure that out. It's probably our next step is to figure out where can we park all these cars on the weekend.

Speaker 1: 16:45

Yeah.

Speaker 3: 16:47

But beyond that, it's just, you know, making more good beer. Yeah, we just wanted to expose more people in the area. There's still people in Seneca that don't know over here. So you know, the challenges for us is just getting the word of mouth out, finding some place to park them when they do show up, and we just want to provide a good entertainment for Seneca. There's nothing to do in Seneca unless you want to go to the casino, so Okay.

Speaker 1: 17:07

Hey that's just up the road. I saw it on my way it is, it's not too far away.

Speaker 3: 17:10

But if that's not your scene, you know we're trying to put some entertainment out there some live music, some games, some family time. Family fun we do we back to school bashes, we have bounce houses for kids, we do axe throwing nights, we do all kinds of stuff to just to try to get the community involved, give them something to do. It's been neat to watch people that live two houses away from each other, that didn't know each other. Now they come here and they talk, they get to know their neighbors. They've really grown relationships in town that they wouldn't have done if we hadn't been here. So that's been neat to watch too.

Speaker 1: 17:42

Absolutely and I think that's been a big finding of mine during doing any beer podcasting is the community that it brings, not only as a service but as a gathering place. I mean the pubs in the old times I know where, where stories were shared and where, you know, heritage was passed down and culture was really solidified. So I think it's really cool to see you, you know, here you talk about neighbors who didn't know each other at all and now they'll come here and share a pint whenever they want to.

Speaker 3: 18:12

Yeah, it's been. It's been great to see those relationships build and we've built a lot. I mean we got people come down every single weekend from Joplin or wherever and we've got to know their kids and they've got to know our kids and it's just been. It's been a good experience.

Speaker 1: 18:26

Yeah, what would you say? Do you know where the furthest away that people have come from just to visit y'all?

Speaker 3: 18:32

We've had a few from overseas. I can't even tell you where they where they were, I don't remember at this point, but we have people about every weekend coming up either from Northwest Arkansas, we have Chicago people. We've had people from the Northeast, we've, you know, all over. They'll be just be traveling through for some reason and pull up untapped or pull up Google or whatever and Find us and veer off of. You know 249 coming out of Arkansas or off I-44 coming, you know, through and and swing down and check us out. So it's been great. We've met a lot of interesting, a lot of interesting people no doubt.

Speaker 1: 19:02

And what's what's their response, especially those coming in from from significantly out of the area? What's been their response to your beers here? I mean, I would imagine they're probably pleasantly surprised, yeah.

Speaker 3: 19:12

Yeah, everybody's been real positive. Like we said earlier, there's always gonna be some people that don't like certain beers, whatever, but the overall reactions have been positive. They they are quick to compliment and they'll also give you your critiques, especially those those beer guys from untapped. You know that like to record everything. So yeah, it's interesting to see their comments, or see everybody's different. So see what they've taste in your beer, what you know, what they pick up, what other people don't. So it's been real positive.

Speaker 1: 19:40

Has there been anything that came out of those reviews or the conversations in the critiques that you go hey, actually that's a, that's a really good idea. I should probably incorporate that, or maybe I should take a second look at that most of time it's like oh yeah, that that would be cool.

Speaker 3: 19:54

Let's make a different beer. Okay, with with. You know, make that one of our rotators, or why don't we? You know, they really like the coffee in that that they picked up. There's no coffee in it, but it's a whatever. But let's make a coffee Beer, let's make a whatever. So really, we'll pick up on their comments and then, you know, maybe we'll tweak something, not normally, because it's, you know, our six or pretty set Recipes, so but we'll, we'll spin off of what their comments are and go with a new rotator, come up with a new beer or something.

Speaker 1: 20:21

So yeah, that's really cool, because, yeah, then it gives you the opportunity to say, hey, we're listening and we're not gonna change our staples but, what we're gonna do is we're gonna listen, we're gonna grow. Yeah, that's really neat. Is there a beer on tap right now that you're kind of just really excited for, as far as maybe either either one that's on tap now or that's coming out that you're like I'm excited to see how this one turns out?

Speaker 3: 20:42

Well, one of our newest we're bringing out. For Cinco de Mayo we're gonna do a. There's a guy out of think. He's in the company. It's called Johnny Oh's, out of Grove, oklahoma. He makes hot sauces.

Speaker 3: 20:51

Okay so we paired up with him to make a Chipotle having Yaro Chocolate stout. So I'm excited to see how that comes out. You know how to blend those, those. We've not done a hot pepper beer before, so, yeah, it could be one we dump down the sink. It could be one that we we really like. But I'm excited. That's what excites me is the new stuff I've never done before. So, yeah, we've also got a Beer coming out. That it's. It's made with tootsie rolls, which sounds odd, but we've tried it once and it was really good. Okay, just on a small batch. We didn't put it out, and so we're gonna brew that up and try it out. But you know those weird concoctions, that and that, and that was inspired by the leftover Halloween candy.

Speaker 3: 21:34

So awesome yeah so everybody was like, man, you got a lot of tootsie rolls. I was like, yeah, what could I do those like make a beer make a beer.

Speaker 3: 21:40

They're not the same tootsie rolls were using in the beer, but we did buy fresh ones. But but yeah, so that's I mean that's the fun part is just inspired by Whatever but that that habanero Chipotle beers yeah, it's got my attention going so well, and the cool thing is you know you mentioned dumping it, but if it turns out to peppery, then you can just make it a challenge.

Speaker 1: 21:59

Beer right, you know you just make it like, hey, can you handle it?

Speaker 3: 22:02

and I say dummy. No, we put some of our mistakes out that we think are mistakes. Yeah, and actually I'm bringing one. Next week's our one-year anniversary and I'm bringing back a beer we called pink lady long story behind the name, but anyway, we we kind of didn't like it.

Speaker 3: 22:17

It was a mistake, one of our first challenges. We had it when we opened and it was like I needed to fill the taps, let's put it out there. See, it was a raspberry wheat. Okay, I had brewed with way too much chamomile and and didn't mean to be raspberry, it was gonna be just a wheat beer and or like man that's. I just don't like that. But Somebody may, and I had some friends that drank it and tried it like, yeah, I don't mind that. So we put it out and actually it's such a big hit that people want us to bring it back For a one-year anniversary or bringing back a lot of the first beers, and so here you know. So you never know. You know, like you said, we'll put it out there if people don't like it. Yeah, you know, we'll take it off eventually. But some people may find us their favorite beer ever.

Speaker 1: 22:57

You never know absolutely yeah, and you have a lot of different variety and palates today because of because of all the breweries that are out there Micro breweries, you know, small. Some of the larger craft breweries are getting into some crazy flavors. So I think, I think you might be onto something there.

Speaker 3: 23:11

Yeah, you just never know what people will enjoy.

Speaker 1: 23:13

Yeah, absolutely so. I'm seeing a behind the bar. I'm seeing a big wall of mugs now. Are those for sale or is there like a mug club here?

Speaker 3: 23:20

That's our mug club. Yeah, we started that when we opened up. We have 50 ish. We've had to expand so because we made some mistakes. But anyway, about 50, 52 mugs, yeah, it's a renews in January and you know you get really feet yearly fees. Okay, you get, you know, 20 ounces of beer when normally you would get 16. Same price type stuff, discounts, free mug at the end of the year. You get your mug shirt free beers throughout the years. So yeah, it's just kind of a fun thing.

Speaker 1: 23:48

So is there? Is there? You said so. This will be your second year going into it now, so you got. How many people did you start out with? We started with just the 50 people, 50.

Speaker 3: 23:58

Okay. Yeah and then each year each mug will be different colors. So, like the blue mugs are one year members, the brownish mugs are your second year members, that's you. Next year's will be announced shortly.

Speaker 1: 24:08

I hope a lot of second years up there. That's good.

Speaker 3: 24:10

Yeah, we, we had a lot of people that renewed. Of course, you always get those that, oh yeah, I want to do that, and then they move away or whatever. We had some of that happens, so but yeah, that's been fun.

Speaker 1: 24:19

Let's talk about a beer that maybe didn't work out for you so well. Was there one that you just that stands out to you? It's just like, oh yeah, that one's laughable.

Speaker 3: 24:29

Well, um, there was. I don't mean, we didn't even have a name for it and it didn't make it out to the rack.

Speaker 1: 24:34

Hey, it doesn't need a name, it just needs to go away.

Speaker 3: 24:36

I don't even go that far, yeah, yeah. So it got dumped. It got dumped fairly soon. I can't even remember what the, I Can't even remember what the, what the style was, but there was a couple. There's been a couple that we've we've tasted. When it was done, it's like, yeah, that that just didn't come together right, so yeah that's okay.

Speaker 1: 24:54

I mean that's, that's the joys of experimenting, trying the new things.

Speaker 3: 24:58

Benefit of having a small system. You're not wasting that much. You know, if we were, if we were on a five or seven barrel system, that's a lot of money to wash down the drain. But you know, one barrel we can. We can take some risk and dump them when they don't work something that occasionally?

Speaker 1: 25:10

absolutely have you done. You mentioned you're doing the, the collaboration with the hot sauce company. Have you done any collaborations with other breweries in the area yet, or?

Speaker 3: 25:18

no, we've not. You know that that would be fun to be, exciting to do, but we've just not. We've not stepped out there and done that yet.

Speaker 1: 25:26

If there was one brewery doesn't have to even be local, but national, international or just down the street. What what brewery is is? Let's talk first. I guess what's one that you look up to as someone who you think is really making it well and just crushing it with their beers?

Speaker 3: 25:45

Well, that's a hard question. Yeah right, there's some good ones right here in our area. I mean, I Beard engine does a fabulous job. I like to go up see those guys. My wife would want me to do Odell, yeah, our favorite beers out of there. She would. She would like me to be inspired and take some lessons from them, I'm sure. But that's a hard question with all the local guys. One of my, my favorite memories and I don't even know a lot about this brewery I just enjoyed was Smuddy nose up in up in the Northeast. We hit that on one of our trips up to Maine and New Hampshire area and I don't know why, but it stuck with me. They had a great selection of beers. I had a great little location and some might be exciting something that was one of the first. You know ones that piqued my interest in in doing this would. So, yeah, maybe, maybe somebody knows brewing.

Speaker 1: 26:33

That's cool, that's really cool. Yeah, see, I haven't. I haven't experienced them, so I need to check them out, sure.

Speaker 3: 26:38

Yeah, not very big, unless they've grown. Like I said, I don't really keep up with them. It is they stick in my mind for some reason. Yeah, I enjoyed the experience and that's what it's all about. You know is is making a joyable experience for your guests and leaving that hunger or taste or want to come back to them.

Speaker 1: 26:51

So well, stick around here. We're gonna wrap up this this half really quick, cut to commercial really quick, and then we'll be right back with more from Jared here at track 94. So we'll talk to you soon. Hey y'all, it's the beard bro.

Speaker 1: 27:02

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Speaker 1: 27:49

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Speaker 2: 28:20

You're listening to the brew house, the podcast for beer lovers of all types. Now back to the show.

Speaker 1: 28:30

All right, welcome back to episode five now of the brew house. And glad to have you with us, because joining me today is Jared from Track 94, up here in Seneca, missouri. And now comes the fun part of the show, where he has no idea what's coming next because, well, honestly, neither do I. We're gonna ask some fun random questions here and just kind of ask Get your. These are gonna be rapid fire. You can talk as long as about them as you want, short about them as you want, all right, so, all right. So, so what? And you can think current events, you can think the brewery, anything that comes to mind. What are you currently curious about?

Speaker 3: 29:08

Oh well, you know I've been digging into X throwing. Okay, yeah, maybe X.

Speaker 1: 29:13

Yeah, is there like a? I would imagine there's. There's definitely got to be a technique. I've never done it yet, but I've thrown hatchets out in the woods and stuff like that. I'm sure there's a technique.

Speaker 3: 29:21

I'm not mastered that All right, that's all right.

Speaker 1: 29:22

That's all right. What would you say is your most treasured possession?

Speaker 3: 29:27

Oh, is it cheesy to say family, I mean you know, you got that you know, family friends mean yeah, I'll throw that out there.

Speaker 1: 29:33

That's absolutely what is the best piece of advice you've ever been given.

Speaker 3: 29:40

That's okay to fail.

Speaker 1: 29:41

Yeah.

Speaker 3: 29:41

Yeah, so try new things, get up, keep going I think you know that's.

Speaker 1: 29:46

That's one of the biggest things you know. I think I mentioned a while ago that I was. I was Been reading more and just you got to fail, you got to fail. But every time you fail you got to keep learning and keep moving on that. So what would you say are the top three skills that you need to be successful in the world of brewing?

Speaker 3: 30:04

Good work, ethics I'm gonna help you a lot flexibility, which we've talked about a few times, and just a sense of adventure. Yeah, you've got to enjoy it or it's just gonna be work.

Speaker 1: 30:16

Yeah, absolutely. See, if you could receive oh, this is a good one, it's a good one, you rife this one you could receive an unrestricted unlimited grant to complete one project. What would that project be?

Speaker 3: 30:30

That's easy for me. I would move offsite to a new location. Okay, we have problems with the railroad company right now, so yeah, Gotcha Can't say too much because of legal problems.

Speaker 1: 30:38

Yeah, I would imagine we would have challenges being this close to the track.

Speaker 3: 30:42

Yeah, just find us a bigger building so you know we're not so cramped some nights. Yeah, that would be an easy one for me to say.

Speaker 1: 30:48

And your parking issues you know and parking issues. You're talking about that one. So we've covered some ground on the basic part of get to know you, because I want people to come here and actually learn who you are and actually get to know. You have a sit down across the bar here and have your own conversations too. Speaking of the bar, the bar actually has got bottle caps all put in there. Now I'm assuming you did you make that, we did.

Speaker 3: 31:11

And we did our best to drink all those beers that had the caps on them, but we didn't quite make it. We had some friends help out and then I had a friend up in Seattle who mailed us a bunch of caps from up that direction. So I would say it's probably 75% us. We got to the point making it that we'd walk into the beer stores I don't care what the beer is Find a good cap.

Speaker 1: 31:30

So it was a fun project, it's funny how that project, how that view kind of shifts a little bit like okay, it needs to be unique means you're different, yeah, so yeah, we built most of it.

Speaker 3: 31:40

It was fun. It was fun to do all these projects.

Speaker 1: 31:42

Absolutely, and during the break awhile ago we stepped over. There's a wall over here. It's actually the big bay door that opens up, and they've actually got stickers out there. What's? What are the stickers on there? Tell folks about that.

Speaker 3: 31:54

Yeah, so customers bring in stickers anywhere they've been. We're always curious about new places out there, so that's our inspiration board. But they can stick their sticker up of what they enjoyed or found in their travels. And then my wife and I have our own personal board where we stick ones we've actually been to on. So it's fun to see where people go and about breweries you've never heard of before.

Speaker 1: 32:12

So yeah, so if you've got a brewery sticker that you think could be unique, bring it by here.

Speaker 3: 32:18

That's right.

Speaker 1: 32:19

Well, very cool. Thanks so much for taking some time to sit down with me here. It's been great getting to know you, getting to chat a little bit about you. I might have to go get me a pint here in a little bit, so you guys stick around, make sure and check out what was the website again, it's just track94brewerycom, perfect, and can they buy the shirts on there?

Speaker 3: 32:34

No, we don't have any shirts online. You got to come here and drink beer and wool, that's right.

Speaker 1: 32:38

Talk shirts All right, show up and then they'll talk. We got marked over here. They got some killer hats too, so enjoy All right. We'll catch you all next time here on the Brew House. Thanks so much for being around and we'll see you next episode. Cheers. Hey, thanks again for listening to this episode of the Brew House. I really appreciate you being here and I want to give you the recognition that you so richly deserve being a follower. So do me a quick favor Leave us a review here, on whatever platform you're listening on right now, and at the end of each new episode I'll be reading one or two of my favorites, so you might be able to hear your own review read soon. Thanks again, cheers, friends.