Good Neighbor Podcast: Tri-Cities
Bringing together local businesses and neighbor of Tri-Cities. Good Neighbor Podcast hosted by Skip Mauney helps residents discover and connect with your local business owners in and around Tri-Cities, Tennessee.
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Good Neighbor Podcast: Tri-Cities
EP# 35: Creating Community with Craft Beer: Dan Cheevers and Elijah Ellis of Bays Mountain Brewing Company
What makes Dan Cheevers and Elijah Ellis with Bays Mountain Brewing Company good neighbors?
Ever wondered how a local brewery can become the heart and soul of a community? In this episode, we promise you'll discover the inspiring journey of Dan Cheevers and Elijah Ellis, the minds behind Bays Mountain Brewing Company in Kingsport. From Elijah's evolution from a loyal customer to co-owner, starting as a bartender and eventually becoming head brewer, to Dan's deep-rooted family passion for brewery culture, this episode is packed with compelling stories. Listen as they reveal how they took over the brewery from the original owners and their unwavering dedication to maintaining its welcoming, communal atmosphere.
Get ready to be charmed by the unique appeal of Bays Mountain Brewing Company. You'll learn how they debunk common myths about breweries being just like bars by creating an inclusive, family-friendly environment. Discover the wide range of activities they offer, from run clubs to trivia nights and live music bingo, that bring the community together. Plus, we share a bit about our lives outside the brewery, including fostering children and supporting local businesses. Don't miss out on how you can stay updated on everything happening at Bays Mountain through social media.
To learn more about Bays Mountain Brewing Company
go to:
https://www.baysmountainbrewing.com/
Bays Mountain Brewing Company
(423) 530-7761
This is the Good Neighbor Podcast, the place where local businesses and neighbors come together. Here's your host, Skip Monty.
Speaker 2:Well, hello everyone and welcome to the Good Neighbor Podcast. So if you're like me and you love beer that you love all kinds of beer, but particularly craft beer, love all kinds of beer, but particularly craft beer, local craft beer then you are in great luck. Today we have the pleasure of introducing your neighbors, mr Dan Chevers and Elijah Ellis, who are co-owners of Bayes Mountain Brewing Company. Guys, welcome to the show.
Speaker 3:Thanks for having us.
Speaker 2:Glad to have you, glad to have you. I know, if our listeners are like me and their love for beer is as strong as it is, that they're very excited to learn all about you guys and Bayes Mountain Brewing Company. So, if you don't mind, why don't you tell us a little bit about your company?
Speaker 3:Yeah, Bay's Mountain Brewing Company. We've been around for a little over five years now here in downtown Kingsport. We're on Commerce Street and kind of have the motto, the mantra of we envision a place where craft beer brings people together, helps foster community, gives people a place to go and spend time with friends or even meet new friends. We've had a lot of people that have come in, be new to the area and have kind of gotten grafted in to a new friend group and this kind of becomes their sort of, you know, like cheers. They're the place where everyone knows their name, their local gathering place, and so we just we enjoy being a part of the community, and that's part of our vision for why we exist.
Speaker 2:Very good, very good. Elijah, do you concur?
Speaker 4:Exactly everything Dan said. I mean that's why we're here. I mean we, like I said, started five years ago with that same mindset then and seeing downtown grow the way it has in those five years has been astounding.
Speaker 2:Well, I'm sure the presence of your brewery has had a huge impact on Kingsport.
Speaker 1:I'm sure so how did you guys?
Speaker 2:get into this business.
Speaker 4:So I originally kind of moved back to the area back in 2016. And the brewery again opened up in 2019. It came in as a customer, started out as, and then the ownership at the time. They were needing some help and offered a bartending job, so took that to make a little extra money on the side and fast forward a couple years. I started brewing for them I'd been home brewing prior to that since for about five years at that time but just took over all the brewing here in June of 2021. And then again fast forward to April this year and again the ownership at that time wanted to step down and hand it over. You know we're ready to take it.
Speaker 2:Go ahead. I'm sorry.
Speaker 3:Yeah, no, that's, that's exactly it they were. The business has been here for five years. We've been the owners since April, which April 1st is is our anniversary as a business, and so the start of our sixth year of business as a company is when Elijah and I took over, and it was just sort of the sort of feel good story, the local story of owners sold to the employees, and so my wife and I came in after Elijah had already been here around 2021, just as bartenders and getting to know the responsibilities kind of the blood, sweat and tears that go into running this place. We took on, little by little, more responsibilities as the owners were willing to kind of teach us the ropes, but, in particular, just fell in love with the vision, fell in love with the people that were here, and you know, my path is not quite as technical as Elijah's. Like he said, he was home brewing for quite a while and I had just been drinking beer for quite a while.
Speaker 2:You're like me.
Speaker 3:Yeah, brewery culture and really just it's sort of a family thing my wife's family, my family, it's just kind of something we do for general recreation and it's where we go to spend time with friends and family. And so, yeah, it just felt very natural and seamless to continue on this upward trajectory that we were both on when, when the offer was presented to us about a year ago, to start considering whether we'd want to jump into ownership.
Speaker 2:Did you guys know each other prior to?
Speaker 3:Prior to ownership, just as employees, but prior to being employees. No, no.
Speaker 2:So you weren't hanging out in Elijah's garage drinking his homebrew.
Speaker 3:No, no, that was probably more of our previous ownership. They had the vision. We kind of stumbled upon it fortuitously.
Speaker 2:Okay, okay. Well, elijah, do you still make any of your recipes from when you were doing homebrew?
Speaker 4:We do have a few of those scaled up to this size now, Probably five or six of those original ones we've actually scaled up and, fortunately enough, one of my early ones was a jalapeno IPA. That again the previous ownership. Let me scale up a few years back and that's one of them that we keep in rotation now all the time.
Speaker 3:Yeah, he has the ones that people start chomping at the bit to say when is that one coming back? A lot of those are the ones that started as his homebrew. This past summer, Kingsport has their Racks by the Tracks Festival over at the Farmer's Market and we, on the day of the festival, both in the tap room and at the festival which we attended, we debuted a Helles Lager, which was one that Elijah had come up with and was voted by a lot of the people that were in attendance as as the preferred beer of the festival, and that was just really cool to see his hard work recognized for that, and one that really became the favorite beer of the summer. And yeah, the jalapeno IPA might sound a little weird to people if that's not something they're used to, but but it's one people go crazy for around here.
Speaker 2:Jalapeno. Well, let me ask you this, cause I'm an amber guy and and and it's tough Sometimes most restaurants I can't tell you how many times I'm in a restaurant and I say what ambers do you have on tap and this? Well, we don't have any ambers right now. You guys have ambers.
Speaker 3:I would say we would have amber adjacent, amber adjacent.
Speaker 4:Amber adjacent.
Speaker 3:Yeah, I mean we our red ale. We actually revamped a few months ago and it's become one of our top sellers. And just in a few days here, mid September, we'll be releasing our Oktoberfest, which you know is in a similar category, not quite the Amber style, but no, we won't have a new Belgium fat tire or anything like that, but we have something. We'll always have something close to it.
Speaker 2:Amber adjacent. I love that term. So from now on, when I'm in a restaurant I'm going to ask if you have an amber. They say no, did you have amber adjacent? Yeah.
Speaker 3:That's a technical term.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah, so well, I'm excited. What are there any myths or or misconceptions about the brewing industry?
Speaker 4:breweries- I think a lot of it. It comes down to education. There are definitely some where people I will say especially in smaller towns don't necessarily know what craft beer is still. I mean, of course, it's been around for decades now, but you still get the occasional comment and what's the supposed thing to a domestic that there isn't Again. There's nothing wrong with that, it's just a lack of education a lot of times and stuff like that. That's one of the priorities of why we're here too is to educate people on that. I love coming in people asking questions talking about craft beer.
Speaker 4:And especially when people say I don't like beer, I don't like craft and started you haven't drank the right one, yet there's so many different styles you're eventually going to find one.
Speaker 2:Yeah, so you like to make converts?
Speaker 3:yeah, exactly, yeah, I mean, that was that was a question that we were both asked in the interview process when, uh, well, he, he had a a very uh helpful set of skills in terms of being able to brew, so I don't know if he was actually ever interviewed. I was interviewed, uh, and, and one of the questions was if someone comes in and says I only drink, you know, fill in the name of a domestic beer, what would you give me? And you know, having looked at the menu, we have 15 or 16 different things on tap at any given different time, and so sort of saying like, all right, that's a question we keep when we talk to people to say what would you recommend to the person that doesn't have their go to style? I would say another myth or misconception against small town. You know, here we are kind of in a more southern culture as well.
Speaker 3:A place that maybe has some taboos around drinking in certain generations is the idea that a brewery is just another bar, and nothing against bars, necessarily, but but it is. It's a different atmosphere. We kind of pride ourself on being family friendly. You know, you don't have the smoke clouds and the neon signs hanging over everything, and it's, it's definitely, it's not a place. You know, obviously when alcohol is involved people can get to have too much. Obviously, when alcohol is involved people can get to have too much. We try to limit that, of course. But it's not a place people come to to like forget all their troubles and drown their sorrows and then do the next thing the next day. It's much more if I can use the term kind of an upper scale, high scale kind of place where community is why you come.
Speaker 3:A place that is a positive place to hang out with your family. You know we have food trucks so we support other local businesses. You know any given day is a different food truck and so it's great to have. They all have kids options. Or you know, if you're out walking your dog, you just need to take a quick break somewhere. I mean, that's something that we just like. It's not your token bar, that people that maybe had that stigma, that taboo, a few decades ago. It's a completely different atmosphere than what a lot of people may think.
Speaker 2:Very good, very good. Outside of work, what do you guys like to do for fun?
Speaker 3:That's a really interesting question, because just the assumption that there is an outside of work, you can see behind us this very idyllic scene of just bags and bags of grain. There's a lot of stuff that goes on behind the scenes that keeps us here even when we're not open. But no, my wife and I are foster parents in the community as well, and so we do a lot with that, and so we're obviously deeply enmeshed in the school community here in Kingsport. We pastor at a church in the community too, so we got that whole scene that we're deeply involved in. Otherwise, you know, typical stuff, just that tries to make you feel full on life. You know, get out into the outdoors especially in this fall season it's beautiful here Get to spend time with family and friends and you know simple things Gather around for a movie night, maybe go play some disc golf, which I say I don't know the last time I've actually done it, but it's a great idea that I used to like to do a lot. But that would be some of the stuff for me.
Speaker 2:What about you, Elijah?
Speaker 4:Personally for me just staying in downtown Kingsport, I mean on the street that we're on, on Long Commerce Street, there's about four or five different places as far as distilleries and wine bars and cocktail lounges, places like that. Just check those places out, deal with friends hanging out. I said if I'm not at Bay's Mountain you're probably going to find me at a downtown business somewhere.
Speaker 2:Very good, supporting the local business community. Yeah. So what's one thing? If you could pick one thing that you would want our listeners to remember about Bay's Mountain Brewing Company, what would that be our listeners to remember about Bays?
Speaker 3:Mountain Brewing Company. What would that be? I would say, you know, in particular, like if you it's. This is just such a great place to come and hang out, I mean for any occasion. I mean we do stuff, you know, in terms of events. We got a run club that meets on Tuesday nights. We're recording here on a Tuesday and it's they're coming by tonight. We have trivia that's for all ages happening tomorrow. That happens twice a month.
Speaker 3:We do music, bingo. We're open at quieter hours of the day, in the middle of the afternoon or a Saturday at noon. If you just want to come and read a book or get some work done on your laptop, if you're just needing a place kind of out of the elements to come and let your kids play some foosball or, you know, get some coloring done while you catch up with a friend, or if you're just new to the area and you're like I don't know where to start on how to meet people, just come and grab a seat at the bar. I mean, there's, there's. You will absolutely find meaningful connection at this place, and so I hope that's something that people in the community will take advantage of.
Speaker 2:Sounds good to me. Actually, I'm pretty excited about coming to visit you guys. How can our listeners learn more about you guys and the Bays Mountain Brewing Company?
Speaker 3:Social media is the best way. We're still kind of revamping our website. Our website was, as many businesses know, during COVID was super critical to the way that they were able to continue to operate. We're still kind of revamping that for a post-COVID time where things have more or less returned to a new normal. But social media Instagram and Facebook we update just about every day. You're looking to see what food trucks we have any given week. You're looking for what events we have going on at Bay's Mountain Brewing Company. For both Instagram and Facebook is the best place. And then you know we're open Tuesday through Saturday. We actually just started opening kind of later at night on Mondays for Monday night football. We like watching Monday night football. We figure might as well open up the bar and come and have people come and sit with us. So we had a full people sitting in here in the brewery at the bar last night. But yeah, if you can't come by on your way home from work or on a Saturday, just go to social media.
Speaker 2:There we go, there we go. All right, oh, you're right.
Speaker 4:Yeah, sorry. We yeah we just started untapped a couple of weeks ago. Kind of the same thing. Of course, I have all of our all of our beers listed on that, All the events as well. This is their tasting contest there.
Speaker 3:Yeah, if you're not familiar with that, you know for some of us who are kind for craft beer drinkers, so you go and rate the beer that you're drinking and kind of see what people are recommending. And our beer has been on there because our customers have put it on there. But we're officially on there as a business now and so you'll be able to find information about us on there, what we currently have on tap and all of that.
Speaker 2:Untapped Gotcha, I will check that out for sure, all right. Well, dan Elijah, I can't tell you how much I appreciate you being on the show. I know your time is precious. You guys are running a business, so I don't want to get in the way of that, but I do appreciate the time you took to be on our show and I will. I will hopefully be seeing you soon, and if somebody comes in and ask about an Amber adjacent beer.
Speaker 1:you'll know who it is, that's right.
Speaker 3:Thanks for having us.
Speaker 2:Yes, sir, thanks for being here. I hope we wish you and your company nothing but the best moving forward, and I hope that we get to have you back.
Speaker 3:Great Look forward to it. All right, thanks so much.
Speaker 1:Thank you for listening to the Good Neighbor Podcast. To nominate your favorite local businesses to be featured on the show, go to gnptry-citiescom. That's gnptry-citiescom, or call 423-719-5873.