NDM Interview Series | Nathaniel and Cory of Gravely Brewing Co.
A talk with the head brewer and owner/manager of Gravely Brewing about building a company at the intersection of food, music, and beer.
Non-Desk Matters had the privilege of talking to the founders of Gravely Brewing Company about opening the first ever ‘music brewery’ — a concept coined by owner Nathaniel Gravely to describe the music venue + beer brewing + food concept they have opened.
In the interest of full disclosure, Nathaniel was a Red e App employee before he decided to open Gravely Brewing Company. He has moved from a position of trying to help the non-desk workforce to a position of managing them himself, giving him a unique perspective on the workforce and the hardships restaurant owners face when communicating with their employees.
Topics we discuss include:
- How Gravely Brewing got started
- Challenges faced when opening a brewery
- What beers are on the “to make” list at Gravely Brewing
- How Gravely communicates with its uniquely segmented non-desk staff
- Deathbed beers list
Ryson: I’m here with Nathaniel Gravely and Cory they work at Gravely Brewing Company. They are the Owner/Managers and Head Brewer of Gravely Brewing Company, respectively. Let’s start with the first question that we ask everybody: what was your first non-desk/hourly job and how long were you there?
Cory: I’ve never had a desk job. Every job I’ve had has been a non-desk job. My first one was the paper route I got when I was 12, and then working at a Sub Shop when I was 16, then a homebrew shop. There have been no desk jobs.
Nathaniel: Value City Furniture, I was a Customer Service Rep. And then I worked at Blockbuster when it was still a thing. Gamestop too for a hot second. Those were my first hourly jobs.
Ryson: I briefly and ineloquently stated your roles as at Gravely. Can you guys restate them, tell me what you do and what your general roles are here?
Cory: I’m the brewer so its pretty straightforward. I make the beer. Anything you do with the beer.
Nathaniel: Everything that is not the beer is me.
Ryson: Simple enough. How did your career progress to get you to this position? When did you start with beer?
Cory: I graduated from college in 1995. I got a little bit jaded in the biology field; that is what I was going to do. At the time I was homebrewing a lot and I worked at a homebrew shop. Then I got a job offer to work at a brewery. So since 1992 or 1993 I have been working in the beer industry.
Nathaniel: Well on the music side since we are the world’s first ‘Music Brewery’ — my focus is more on music & marketing. I started a music website when I was a freshman in college that was a music blog before blogs became a thing. The site gained some popularity and that led to a desk job at Viacom working with MTV, VH1, and CMT for five years. I kept the website on the side, too, and that plunged me deeper into the depths of the music industry. So, marketing and music have been two passions of mine, and of course in college when I had that first Sierra Nevada Pale Ale, that really turned my taste buds on to craft beer, and craft beer slowly became a second love outside of music. So through that the idea of creating a music venue evolved over time to become a Brewery as well. But I don’t brew the beer, as Cory has stated; I think on the flip side beer is kind of his first passion and music his second. So, we compliment each other well. It was an evolution over a lot of desk and non-desk jobs that led to this.
Ryson: What was the biggest challenge you guys faced when opening the brewery?
Cory: The brewing of the beer was not too difficult compared to the rest of it for sure. Getting the place open, and the financing.
Ryson: The red tape?
Cory: Yeah, it was a lot more challenging than the actual beer making.
Nathaniel: Pre-Development was really the hardest part, but once we got that taken care of… I don’t want to say it’s been easy because it hasn’t been easy… but it’s definitely been more manageable. There’s a day-to-day, you kind of have your own schedule whether it is a brew schedule or staffing schedule. I think from a non-desk perspective, the biggest ongoing challenge that we are hoping to solve here soon is being on the same page with our hourly staff, and we are using Red e App to solve that problem for us because there is not really a way to get with everyone collectively. Beers are constantly changing every week or two, and then we have different flavor profiles associated with each and different price points, and then people have questions like ‘what kind of hops are in it, how strong is it, when did you brew it?’ etc. It’s really hard to disseminate that information through 20+ people so we are trying to find the right system to get that in order. That is the current challenge. In terms of the rest of it, the brews went pretty smooth besides some rusty mistakes.
Ryson: Do you want to talk about those?
Nathaniel: Well, it’s like riding a bike. You’re gonna wobble a bit when you get on for the first time after a while, but then you start going and you’re like ‘oh yea I can ride this.’ Same with the marketing side, I hadn’t been hands-on with social stuff for a while from a brand perspective so I had to get back into that rhythm of having to monitor like 20 different pages and stay on message with what we are trying to do, while staying relevant to what is occurring in the space, whether it is beer or music or something local to Louisville. It is kind of a three headed beast. I’ve found typos in printed menus, so there is still that kind of stuff that needs to be worked out. More checks and balances, having more eyes on stuff. It is just me doing that and then with the beer if something goes wrong with a brew it just Cory doing that. So there is a lot on our plates and you have to put out fires yourself.
Ryson: What are some of the most satisfying aspects of your work right now? What do you enjoy the most?
Cory: I get to come in and make beer every day.
Ryson: Simple enough.
Nathaniel: I like to come in and watch him make beers. No, I mean, I think the operational side is pretty fun. I think it is fun having a staff, there are definitely people working here that are super passionate. It’s fun to see the stuff that Cory is brewing or the place we have built from a physical standpoint inspire people. On the customer side, it’s awesome to watch people come in and gawk at the sound wall behind the bar, or recognize the lyrics for the neon sign that is in the lounge, or go crazy about the photobooth. There are so many different elements here, it is fun to create a place that caters to people in that way and see their reactions. You sit back and you’re like “Yea, I did it.”
Ryson: For those that are reading along, Nathaniel has created a really beautiful space here in Louisville, Kentucky. Really aesthetically was well laid out. Good themes, etc. in a good area and people are enjoying it a lot. So, I have a couple of questions for you guys from Red e App people: Cory how do you decide what beers to make?
Cory: The yeast that I have determines a little bit; I’m trying to juggle a few different strains. It is easiest not to try to store the strains for very long. So, if I have a yeast that is ready to go and it’s a lager then I think of a lager that I want to brew. Right now it has been easy because there are so many beers in my mind that I want to make, and we have only been open for such short a time, the list of beers I want to make is much larger than the amount of time I have to make them. In a few years? I might start to struggle to figure out what I want to make, and I am just figuring out what the people here like to drink. Fortunately for me, the patrons have really taken to the IPAs, the Hefeweizen, and the La Bamba (Mexican style beer) which are all beers that I really enjoy making.
Ryson: What’s at the top of your unmade list? Do you want to drop any hints?
Cory: Well I am making like three different sour beers. I am making a peach saison. I want to make more IPAs even though I have already made like five or six. There are different new hop combinations that I have floating around in my head that I want to make. I haven’t made any Belgian beers yet, so there are some Belgians I want to make. Bock, Porter, Imperial Stout.
Ryson: You’re staying busy. You’ve got your work cut out for you. When you guys are drinking beer, what is your beverage of choice?
Nathaniel: Outside of water?
Ryson: Yes — alcoholic beverage of choice, it can be a cocktail.
Cory: Margarita is my favorite, and I have lately developed a taste for bourbon and water.
Ryson: Is that a symptom of moving here (to Kentucky)?
Cory: It’s a symptom of moving here and it’s also a symptom of getting home and not having any beer in my fridge, but wanting something that is not just pure bourbon. I’ve always drank it neat in the past. But sometimes you wanna drink something for a while and not just sip on something so I just add water to it to dilute it to the strength of beer and then just crush it like a beer.
Nathaniel: I like Rye Bourbon. It’s a little spicier. I like Scotch too, but there is a time and place for Scotch, it’s not every day. But yeah, we have a really good margarita here that I like a lot. I also like Bloody Marys — the brunch game is definitely something I like to play. The margarita here actually has our La Bamba Mexican lager in it, so it’s more of a beerita. It has a nice effervescence. But we are in Kentucky, so yeah, it is kind of hard to avoid drinking bourbon.
Ryson: Does Gravely plan to ever bottle/can and sell commercially, or do you just want to stick to this scale?
Nathaniel: I think this scale is great.
Cory: I want to stick to this scale, I have a feeling Nathaniel wants to bottle and can.
Nathaniel: No, I mean, I feel like bottling and canning to a certain extent is just physical marketing that actually pays for itself or makes you a little money. I like this size, I’d like to brew more here, and we are distributing kegs around town, we just started this week. I think if we ever did any kind of bottling or canning, it would not be on a mass produced “get into Kroger” type scale. It would be more niche, small limited runs, and sold on-site, or to 6–12 retailers around town.
Ryson: Who has picked up Gravley kegs so far?
Cory: Drakes.
Nathaniel: Magbar.
Ryson: Didn’t expect that.
Nathaniel: Old Louisville Tavern.
Cory: Louvino expressed interest.
Nathaniel: We haven’t done any sort of launch event to let people know we are out on the market yet, but things are trickling out slowly but surely.
Ryson: You guys have a kind of a unique partnership with local restaurant Mayan Cafe that provides food for you, but it’s not necessarily a part of Gravely Brewing. How does communication work with them? Do you collaborate with them on food offerings, or is it just kind of hands-off on your part?
Nathaniel: Our staff is basically their staff to some degree because they are pushing food, they are trying to upsell from guacamole to tacos, so there is the partnership like “what is everyone ordering, what is the feedback on the food, etc.” But Mayan Streetfood being a part of Mayan Cafe has been around for a decade, with a head chef that has 20 years in the industry. There’s nothing that I would say to influence their sphere of the world, just like they wouldn’t come in here and tell Cory how to make beer. So, creatively we are pretty hands-off. We do share a POS system, though, so we are pretty much full on partners in terms of knowing what each other's business is in terms of revenue and being pretty private but transparent with that. Our success is their success and vice versa. People are coming here making this a dinner spot, so we benefit by selling pints with dinner, and vice versa. When people come in here to drink, they are gonna wanna stay longer if they have food to eat. So for them it’s really easy because they are a food truck, a self-contained unit, versus being in the building and needing to worry about a grease trap and coding violations. The codes with a food truck are similar but a little more flexible. And when they close they just shut the windows down — it’s off. With a kitchen, it is always here, it is part of the building. So far it has been great. They’re happy, we’re happy. We just announced today that we are expanding to brunch on Saturdays, and here soon we will expand to brunch on Sundays, but maybe not with Mayan, maybe a food truck takeover type deal.
Ryson: Two closing questions that are kind of fun: if you could swap jobs with anyone in the world for a month who would it be?
Cory: Is Jacque Cousteau still alive?
Ryson: I don’t know but you can go for it.
Cory: Jacque Cousteau.
Nathaniel: Steve Zissou is what he meant to say. Ok, being Jordan Speith would be pretty cool.
Cory: Any of those NBA guys would be sick.
Nathaniel: Yes. Nondescript professional athlete of some sort. A PGA golfer or an NBA player just to know what it is like to be that good at something, and to be that in shape and focused.
Ryson: Last question. What is your deathbed beer of choice? Non-Gravely. You can’t plug your own beer.
Cory: Augustiner Edelstoff.
Nathaniel: That is a tough one. Do I wanna get drunk before I die or just have a session situation? You know, because it is so rare and I had it one time and it was delicious and have a great memory associated with it, I will say Pliny the Younger. Overhyped, but I would gladly drink it and die afterwards.
