Today we’d like to introduce you to Nick VanCourt.
Alright, so thank you so much for sharing your story and insight with our readers. To kick things off, can you tell us a bit about how you got started?
For me it all started with homebrewing. After a few years of that, I thought I was ready to start a brewery! My wife and business partner, Marina, very wisely talked me into the concept of getting some professional experience and maybe even an education, first. So, that is what I did. My first experience was as an intern with the Great Dane Brewpub in Madison Wisconsin, where we lived at the time. After that, I attended and graduated from the World Brewing Academy, which is a partnership between Siebel Institute, in Chicago, and Doemens Academy in Munich. The program culminated in a brewing study tour that took me and my classmates all over Western Europe visiting breweries, equipment manufactures and ingredient producers. Once I returned I stayed on the experience track for a bit, working for Milwaukee Brewing Company, Tyranena Brewing Company and then returning to the UP of Michigan for Ore Dock, where I was head brewer and a partner in the business.
We all face challenges, but looking back would you describe it as a relatively smooth road?
Nope! Overall, it wasn’t a struggle until we started our own brewery, Barrel + Beam.
I think that our story is probably not only similar to other breweries but also to many startup business. We’ve struggled to stay afloat financially many, many times and have had to deal with years of unreliable experience and data, like many did, due to covid. We have, basically, reinvented our entire business around our beers many times. We have been doing events to keep afloat for years and we have even had a decent sized food menu and kitchen for awhile, as a way to bring folks in. Unfortunately, the kitchen wasn’t profitable in the end, due to having inconsistent business in the taproom. When we chose our property we were thinking about the beauty around it and potential inside, not location. Big mistake! Being a few miles from downtown has been a bigger obstacle than we could have ever imagined.
All of this has slowly but surely pushed us toward more and more distribution of our products, which is our main business now. In 2026 we expect that 95% of the products we produce will be sold outside of our taproom. We have been doing self-distribution in Michigan and Wisconsin for the most part until this year. We have now been signing with Wholesalers and ramping up production. With any luck, this year we will also expand our footprint into Illinois and Indiana as well.
Appreciate you sharing that. What else should we know about what you do?
We are a very niche brewery. We produce farmhouse ales, barrel-aged sours, wild ales and European style lagers. We don’t make IPAs of any sort or adjunct stouts or any of what I would describe as recent trends. We stick to traditional products made with either imported ingredients to produce classic representations of styles or Michigan ingredients to highlight local terroir. Roughly 25% of our products are made with 100% Michigan grown and processed ingredients. Also, all of our products are naturally carbonated in the package, as opposed to force carbonated in a tank prior to packaging (today’s standard). This provides a much better integration of CO2 (smoother beer) and allows for almost no oxygen to exist in the package. No oxygen equals much better shelf stability and the true prospect of cellaring for improvement.
We are known, I would say, mostly for our Michigan Sourced Barrel-Soured fruit ales, such as Spooky Kriek, Pawberry and Bog Berry. These are beers that take up to a year to produce and offer the sour beer lover a much smoother, more complex and more aromatic ale than the current method of kettle-souring used by many breweries.
As far as what I am most proud of, I’d say everything above and the fact that we’ve stuck to our standards and never made a cash grab product, as much as we could have used the money many times!
Are there any important lessons you’ve learned that you can share with us?
That the ‘business’ is the whole journey and you have to take the good with the bad every single day.
Contact Info:
- Website: https://barrelandbeam.com/
- Instagram: @barrelandbeam
- Facebook: @barrelandbeam
