Today we’d like to introduce you to Ryan Fogelgren and Jamey Adams.
Ryan and Jamey, please share your story with us. How did you get to where you are today?
Arches Brewing is a craft brewery located just south of Atlanta, near the Hartsfield-Jackson International Airport. We focus on bringing the best of old-world tradition and modern brewing practices together to offer many traditional lagers, Euro-inspired ales, and creatively brewed small batch beers. Our biochemist-brewmaster brewed our first batch in 2005 with the idea that beer could be made better through chemistry.
Over the years we’ve developed over 50 distinct recipes, many of which are brewed commercially today and served in our Tasting Room. We have a strong emphasis on classic lagers, but also brew many American styles along with several Euro-inspired ales. We believe that doing things the old way, while it may take longer, makes for a cleaner, more complex and delicious end result.
We offer and distribute four packaged year-round styles along with many seasonal lagers and experimental beers from our Lager Lab and 3Barrel Small-Batch Project. The name Arches Brewing celebrates our long history as home brewers on the Southside.
Over the past decade, each recipe has been carefully developed, refined, and brewed under the four brick arches of our brewmaster’s 1920 Colonial-style home in East Point, GA. Our logo was inspired by two of our core values – simplicity and quality. Each pillar represents one of our five founders of Arches Brewing.
Has it been a smooth road?
As with most businesses, there are a variety of ways to start a brewery. We started as homebrewers in 2005 and in 2014, we assembled our founding team to start Arches. We wanted to stay focused on producing world-class beer with high levels of authenticity and quality.
We personally funded the business startup costs without banks loans or investors. We wanted to retain ownership and be true to ourselves as we grew. Over the last two years, we’ve grown from tiny, to small, to small-to-medium type of brewery. At this point, we only produce 3,000 barrels per year, which by brewery standards, is still pretty small.. but we are growing fast.
The biggest challenges is managing growth, bringing the right people, and making sure the beer in the market meets our quality standards. The other challenge is keeping up with demand and managing cash flow to do so. We only have so many vessels so we are challenged by physical constraints in that respect. From a cash flow standpoint, it’s a challenge as we are a lager-focused brewery.
Lagers take nearly twice the time as ales, so we see longer turns on our cash flow which can be difficult. We set out to produce lagers so we built our model around these timeframes, but it is still difficult to manage as we increase production volumes.
So let’s switch gears a bit and go into the Arches Brewing story. Tell us more about the business.
We are best known for our lagers. Lagers are cold-fermented styles that are typically produced in Europe. Before we started, we fell in love with the cleanliness and drinkability of all lagers, so we tend to focus on these refined traditional lager styles.
We produce two year-round lagers (Southside Lager & Mexican Empire) that are packaged in cans, and many seasonals that are available at the brewery and in the market. We also brew many ales with a European flare and small-batch American styles that are released in our Tasting Room.
We also have a strong focus on water chemistry. It’s something that we are very intentional about. So much so that we drilled a well behind the brewery that extracts water from an underground aquifer 450ft below the surface. We alter all of our water to mirror the country, city, or region of origin for the specific beer we are brewing with the goal of creating a very authentic product.
How do you think the industry will change over the next decade?
Craft beer is a continuously shifting industry. The biggest thing right now is the focus on local beer. Larger regional and national breweries are being challenged by smaller and more local brands. Much like food and other products, beer localizing. People don’t want products produced across the country, or from another state, or sometimes another town. They want the local beer from their town.
The other major trend right now is the shift to lighter, less aggressive styles — like lagers. Some people are calling them ‘dad beers’, others are brewing pilsners.
Many IPA houses are beginning to make softer IPAs and entering the world of pilsners and other light lagers. The consumer is starting to ask for a cleaner, easy-drinkers that don’t wreck your pallet like IPAs. We talk to thousands of people in our Tasting Room and an increasing number of people are starting to ask for non-IPA styles.
Contact Info:
- Address: 3361 Dogwood Drive Hapeville, GA 30354
- Website: www.archesbrewing.com
- Phone: 6786532739
- Email: info@archesbrewing.com
- Instagram: instagram.com/archesbrewing
- Facebook: facebook.com/archesbrewing
- Twitter: twitter.com/archesbrewing
- Yelp: https://www.yelp.com/biz/arches-brewing-hapeville
Getting in touch: VoyageATL is built on recommendations from the community; it’s how we uncover hidden gems, so if you know someone who deserves recognition please let us know here.
