Life & Work with Zack Bigelow

Today we’d like to introduce you to Zack Bigelow. 

Zack, we appreciate you taking the time to share your story with us today. Where does your story begin?
I started homebrewing 15 years ago in my garage. Consistently brewing every week and reading on brewing on my time off. My wife encouraged me to keep trying and really opened up the idea of starting a brewery after we had several friends asking when the next batch was ready and that they would buy it off of me. Being that it is considered bootlegging to sell my homebrew, we decided to start looking into starting our own brewery. Since myself and my wife did not have any business background, we started talking to our community about the best ways to open a business in the area. We contacted the Professional Brewers Alliance to help us with writing our business plan and figuring out finances. We decided to try out the Michigan MILE act, Michigan Invests Locally under Exemption; it was a way for us to crowdfund our business with providing shares to community members. It took a lot of learning, talking, and beer tastings to raise the $200,000 we were requesting. We were able to get 19 investors to follow us on our dream. We stand by being the community brewery by being a part of our community and making sure that everyone in our community feels like a part of us. We wouldn’t be where we are today if we didn’t believe in community; our investors are like family to us now and seen our big picture. We are very grateful for them. It wasn’t easy by any means though, there were several challenges from finding a bank to work with us to helping the community understand what our mission was, to our mason getting bit by a rattlesnake, and lastly Covid-19 striking us before the iron was hot. We strive to continue to do the best we can, and surprising people with great beer, and having an atmosphere that everyone feels welcomed in. 

Would you say it’s been a smooth road, and if not, what are some of the biggest challenges you’ve faced along the way?
I It wasn’t easy by any means though, there were several challenges from finding a bank to work with us to helping the community understand what our mission was, to our mason getting bit by a rattlesnake, and lastly, Covid-19 striking us before the iron was hot. We strive to continue to do the best we can, and surprising people with great beer, and having an atmosphere that everyone feels welcomed in. Let me elaborate. When we first started this plan, the MILE act was still fairly new to Michigan, especially a small farming community like ours. We weren’t allowed to advertise in any way that we had an investment opportunity or use terms such as investment or equity. We had to play around those words and offer “Beer Tasting” events to draw people in. We also just talked to many people in the community we felt would be interested in our project. It took us a little over 2 years to gain enough investors to be able to obtain a loan. While we were crowdfunding, we were pre-approved by a bank for the loan. However, once we achieved our crowdfunding goals, the bank backed out. This delayed us another 6 months as we had to find a bank to take us on. The first bank we approached before the crowdfunding had originally said NO. Once they caught wind that we were looking for a new bank to take on our loan, they reached out to us this time and said let’s work together. We were delayed slightly by the loan underwriters from the small business association due to some issues out of our control, but once we were approved, it was game on. Construction started without a hitch, and we were moving right along. In July of 2018, the mason was to start laying brick right after the July 4th holiday. Much to our demise, he was bitten by a rattle snack that weekend and was unable to start our project. Due to it being the middle of the summer and all other mason contractors were backlogged, we were stuck with no walls. It wasn’t until October of 2018 that we found a mason to help us out, but it was more money than we were expecting, so we moved our budget around and got them to lay the brick. The walls were done, and roof was put on just in time for the snowfall. We finally got the building completed by spring of 2019. Inspections were taking longer than usual to be done, so we were delayed 3 months waiting on our final inspections. We finally opened in July of 2019. Things were going fantastic, we were learning what our community liked/didn’t like and were hitting a good groove. Then Covid-19 shut us down with the rest of the world. With the state unsure of we could be open or not, can shortages, and overall uncertainty of times, we were on a rocky road. We were able to secure a few grants to get us by during that time, but it really hit us hard. Now that things are back open and running almost back to normal, I think we are able to say that we are doing pretty darn good. We are learning something new every day and have a fantastic amount of community support, and we are ever so grateful for opening a brewery and living our dream. 

Thanks for sharing that. So, maybe next you can tell us a bit more about your work?
I am full-time at the brewery. I do everything from brewing the beer to transferring, to sales, to cleaning the bathrooms. I like to call my title the “Beer Gremlin.” I am most proud of the community we have built. There are days I step back and watch as customers enjoy their beer, good conversation, and enjoy the atmosphere we have built. I feel what sets apart from others is we are passionate about what we do. I take pride in my work as a brewer, and I love providing a place that people can enjoy my works of art in a building made of art. We wanted to showcase other people’s art here as well. From the paintings on the wall to the specialty local snacks we provide and the comics and musicians. Everything we have is an art form. We get asked why we don’t provide food, and we tell them because it’s not our art form. Bring food in from one of the local restaurants and enjoy their art form here. Beer is an art; if done right, your passion shows through it. 

What do you think about luck?
The old saying goes, “if it weren’t for bad luck, we wouldn’t have any at all”… That is how it felt at the beginning… maybe now it feels more like dumb luck. Many people have commented to us that they would have gave up going through what we did to build this business. I see it as I’m too stubborn to quit. When you want something bad enough, you figure out a way to get it. Ramshackle is proof of that. I don’t truly believe it was luck, but rather hard work, passion, stubbornness, and perseverance. 

Pricing:

• All full pours are $6.00. Anything about a 10% is served in an 8oz glass for the same $6.00 rather than changing the prices.
• Taxes are included in the price.
• $12.00 for a flight of all 6 beers.
• We try to make it so 2 people can enjoy a couple beers and a snack for under $30.00

Contact Info:

• Website: www.ramshacklebrewing.com
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/ramshackbrewingco/
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/ramshacklebrewing
• Twitter: https://twitter.com/ramshacklebc
• Other: https://untappd.com/RamshackleBrewingCompany

Image Credits
Jessy Bigelow