Courtesy / Fogtown Brewing Co.
Shown in pre-COVID days, Fogtown Brewing has been a popular spot for locals and tourists since opening in January 2018..
Updated: December 1, 2020
Q&A: Fogtown Brewing expands in Ellsworth and Bar Harbor, wins Downeast pitch-off
Courtesy / Fogtown Brewing Co.
Jon Stein, left, and Ian Heyse use Maine ingredients in their brews, in this case malt from Blue Ox Malthouse in Lisbon Falls.
Fogtown Brewing Co. opened in January 2018 as Ellsworth’s first brewery. In one year, owners Jon Stein and Ian Heyse doubled their space and production, added local music and began plans to open a second tasting room in downtown Bar Harbor, at a building that also houses a local movie and live-production theater.
On Nov. 6, Stein and his chef, Carter Light, won the audience and judge’s awards in the inaugural Downeast Business Bootcamp Pitch Off, designed to support small businesses in Washington and Hancock counties. Each award provided $7,000 in cash and in-kind services.
The brewery was set to double production again this year when the pandemic hit. Unable to open in-house seating due to state public health rules, the owners instead built outdoor capacity with a wood-fired pizza oven in their beer garden. Pitch-off winnings will allow them to scale direct sales to consumers by increasing their pizza-making capacity.
Mainebiz asked Stein about his startup journey and what’s on its horizon. Here’s an edited transcript.
Mainebiz: How did you get into brewing?
Jon Stein: My background is in biology and biochemistry. I was pre-med at Colorado College, where I met Ian Heyse. Throughout college, I did dorm room brewing, selling that to pay for more ingredients to brew more beer.
MB: Your friends must have enjoyed your hobby.
JS: Yes. There’s a picture of me getting my friends together and getting a production line going. It was fascinating and I’d use some of my science training to get better.
MB: What happened next?
JS: I graduated in 2012 and worked a bunch of jobs. I was in the Dominican Republic, doing cross-cultural youth diabetes management education for a small nonprofit.
Then I got a job timber framing in Montana and connected again with Ian, who was working as a dogsled instructor in Montana. We roomed together and I started making beer again. That was around 2015. I started thinking about what I’d really love to do. One idea was brewing.
I traveled and ended up in New Zealand, where I worked in a small brewery. After several months I was shadowing their brewer and learning what commercial brewing was about.
MB: How did you end up in Maine?
JS: Ian is from the Ellsworth-Lamoine area, so I started helping him with projects. I knew what kind of business I wanted to start and this seemed like the right area. I wanted a year-round community. It was also appealing to be the first and only brewery in the area.
MB: You leased space in a building owned by Linda and Ken Perrin, who own and operate Atlantic Art Glass and the community arts nonprofit Artsworth Studios there. How did you find the location?
JS: We wanted to be downtown. There weren’t many places that had the infrastructure we needed, like a large opening to get deliveries and a stable cement floor for heavy equipment. We met Ken and Linda and they mentioned they had space. The biggest thing was they were warm, lovely people who wanted to see us and see their town succeed.
We leased half the basement floor when we first moved in, about 1,500 square feet. Last year we doubled that, taking over the entire floor.
MB: How did you get financing?
JS: We didn’t have much to spend, so I thought, ‘What’s the smallest set-up I could have that would still make money?’ I got loans from friends and family for the most part. A lot of breweries talked with me about minimal requirements for equipment.
MB: What did set-up look like?
JS: It took about a year of hard work. The half we were leasing didn’t have electric or plumbing. So we cut a hole in the floor to put in sewer drains and a trench drain and another slab on top of that. We brought in plumbers and electricians willing to get creative: a lot of brewery plumbing and equipment is specific to brewing. The majority of carpentry — building new walls and infrastructure — we did ourselves. Some friends built the bar for us.
It was a lot of doing it ourselves and getting friends to help. That saved a lot of money.
MB: What about business advice?
JS: I had no trouble asking anything that came to mind. Bankers, accountants, lawyers — what do you suggest I do? What should be included in a business plan? People in the area were very helpful.
Courtesy / Fogtown Brewing Co.
Fogtown built an outdoor pizza oven to generate business during the pandemic.
MB: How was your opening?
JS: Big turnout. We had a band, lights, smoke machine, disco ball, five or six beers on tap. A lot of friends and neighbors and people who live downtown showed up. That continued through the winter. We wanted to start in the winter because it was a good opportunity to figure out how to run the taproom before the high tourist season.
MB: What happened when tourists came along?
JS: It wasn’t our regulars and locals anymore. It was sort of beer tourism. We depend on both — tourists and locals.
MB: Do you have niche beers?
JS: We use as much local grain and other local ingredients as possible. We collaborate with Maine Coast Sea Vegetables to make a brew that uses their seaweed for a briny flavor. We partner with Downeast Salmon Federation, which has organic blueberry fields, and make a sparkling blueberry wine. We’re interested in collaborations with nonprofits and other small businesses.
MB: Production numbers?
JS: One hundred fifty barrels our first year and double that our second year. We were on track to double again, but COVID slowed us down.
MB: How did you cope with the shutdown?
JS: Most of our revenue depends on our taproom. Without that, we didn’t have a great way to make money. I furloughed most of my employees for about two months while I waited for the PPP loan. When we got the loan, I brought them back. As many as possible worked from home, but we still weren’t able to open up the taproom.
We turned the Bar Harbor location into pick-up-window only. That opened the end of September. We did home delivery and created an e-commerce site. We shifted everything to wholesale. I recently partnered with a distributor. We’ve made more connections with local retail and restaurants to try to push more beer out.
We created a nice outdoor space in our outdoor garden and had flowers and herbs growing all summer to make it a pleasant place to be. We built a wood-fire brick oven in the beer garden, so we can have more of a reason for people to come and try our beer. Now it’s about getting a delicious wood-fire pizza, and get a pint while you’re at it.
MB: What’s on the horizon?
JS: The hope is things normalize by next summer and we take advantage of our new Bar Harbor space and our beer garden.
MB: Has Ellsworth changed during your time here?
JS: I hear a lot from people who went off and then returned. They almost always say that Ellsworth is much cooler now. They’ll point to businesses and organizations and events. I think there’s a lot of excitement. There are more younger people who are either back from moving away or moving off MDI because it’s too expensive. I think it’s a pivotal point for Ellsworth.
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