STAR SPANGLED BREWING COMPANY

The Star Spangled Brewing Co.

Star Spangled Brewing Co is an entire vibe. The warm lighting, open space, bubbling brew, and friendly faces are the perfect combination for an amazing night, every night. The warehouse space is both functional, and completely cool. Sitting at one of the big wooden spool tables, with the big garage bay doors open, sipping on a seasonal fave is the best way to spend a summer evening. Star Spangled Brewing Co. has taken over the Clarksville scene, and is expanding even further. We recently got the chance to catch up with owner, Joshua Romaker.

First, could you tell us a little bit about you, your background, and your career in the military?

Finishing up my career in the 5th Special Forces Group, Ft. Campbell Ky. I had given 22 years of service, 13 of which were in Special Forces as a Green Beret, including 7 combat deployments and countless other foreign travel. I decided to go all in financially on a brewery, using my own money and cashing in everything I had to purchase a small 3-barrel system (93 gallons), ordering and coordinating delivery of the equipment through limited connectivity while deployed overseas. Retiring from Active duty, I had already created The Star Spangled Brewing Co. a family oriented, unapologetically patriotic, upscale microbrewery. My sense of family, community and my passion for brewing had brought me into creating great American Made Craft Beer, leaving the military and bringing my carefully crafted beer to Clarksville and the State of Tennessee.

How did you get into brewing?

I actually began my career brewing as a Distiller. I would make different distilled spirits at my house, Then I was given a Mister Beer all extract brewing kit for my birthday. I made it the next day and a few weeks later I tasted it, it was horrible. I bought another and it was a little better. I then switched to all grain brewing and that’s when my creative side took off. I was creating recipes and learning the grains and yeasts and how they paired with each other. Ya see, I have a personality fault where I want to be the best at whatever I do, and brewing beer has limitless possibilities. This naturally keeps me intrigued and wanting to constantly learn more from whoever I can. All of this to try to be the best brewer I can. Needless to say, I began purchasing bigger and better equipment as I went. I remember thinking how awesome it was when I purchased my first stainless steel kettle! No more brewing in plastic Home Depot buckets for this guy!

Over several years I had pieced together a 1bbl brew system in my garage which is 31 gallons. I would brew once or twice a week to fill my fermenters which were kept in a temperaturecontrolled room that I had created in my garage by using a window A/C unit and a piece of equipment called a Coolbot which allows you to hack and override the internal thermostat on A/C units and let you run them down to 34 degrees if you wanted. This was ideal for my fermentation room.

You’re probably thinking, what’d you do with all of that beer? Well, I taught myself how to keg and how to carbonate my own beer and how different styles of beer react to carbonation at different temperatures. Pretty soon I had made so much beer that I started attending local craft beer events, giving out my free samples to anyone who would stop by my little tent and tell my story of being ready to retire from the Army after 22 years to pursue my passion of brewing beer.

The reaction was overwhelming! I was getting calls and Facebook messages asking where they could get more and what I was going to brew next so I came up with a plan to begin showing up in the parking lot of my local grocery store on the weekends with a pickup truck full of kegs and growlers. I would post online where I was going to be and they would come to refill or grab a growler, they also began donating cash in exchange for the beer. Over several months I had enough money saved up to put a down payment on a commercial brew system. This was huge for me! From that point on, I knew what I was going to spend the rest of my life doing. Learning, brewing, and trying my best to put smiles on the faces of everyone who walks through my doors.

The Brewery has taken off in Clarksville, and is a local favorite. Your expansion into Downtown Clarksville is going to be amazing, and even more recently, you announced a location on Broadway in Nashville! What’s the story behind your expansion and partnership with Leatherwood Distillery and your unapologetically patriotic social club?

It makes me feel good to hear that The Star Spangled Brewing Co. is a favorite with families. Everything we do and plan on doing revolves around the community and families that come out to the brewery. If we get ideas for future events, musicians, or causes to support we always make sure that they will be family friendly and support the local community in some way. We like to see everyone benefit.

We have a very unique board within our taproom called “Beer it Forward” this is a place where the community comes in to pre-purchase pints of beer for others. There’s around 540 free pints on the board now, each one has been purchased for a person, Military Unit, First Responder, Police officer, Firefighter, Nurse or you name it! It’s a complete honor system. We trust ya. If you feel like you need a pint, come on in and take one from the board or buy one for someone else. It makes you feel good to do something for someone or to know that others whom you may not know have bought you a pint! Our expansion into downtown Clarksville was a huge but, needed step for us. we were running at full capacity with our first brew system because it was a small 3 Barrel system. We were doing everything we could to keep the beer flowing and not run out by the weekend. I had to upgrade to a larger building and a larger brew system. Our new brewery is Downtown on Spring St. We are not open to the public yet but we are brewing there now to facilitate and meet the demand. We have begun canning now and have limited distribution around town. I still personally service those accounts, it’s important for the local businesses who carry our products to know how much we appreciate them and will go the extra mile for them when needed.

We did just come to an agreement with a person in Nashville who loves the Patriotic feel of the brewery and my friend Andy Lang’s distillery, Leatherwood which is located in Pleasant View, TN. We both retired at the same time from 5th Special Forces Group and will now be the only two Green Berets to run an unapologetically patriotic place in downtown Nashville. It’s called The Freedom Social. We will only be serving Star Spangled brews and Leatherwoods spirits. This place was created, by design, to give back to patriotic causes and nonprofits who serve America.

We will support a new cause each month, giving one dollar from each drink sold to the chosen organization at the end of each month. You can go through a LOT of drinks down there in a month and we are happy to start giving back! We plan on having a rotating wall of fame featuring local heroes and first responders with their story and items associated with them on display for everyone to see and recognize their efforts and personal sacrifice for the country. We are very excited for this opportunity to continue to grow The Freedom Social and The Star Spangled Brewing Co. in Nashville and possibly other cities too!

What are you most looking forward to in the upcoming months?

I have a lot coming at me in the upcoming months and I’m looking forward to every bit of it! I think I’m most excited to continue to learn and grow as a brewery and as an entrepreneur. With every new opportunity comes a group of lessons and a firehose of knowledge that cannot be taught in any school or read in any book. It all comes with stress, worry, sleepless nights and headaches but what worth having doesn’t? Growing a business and new ventures are very uncomfortable to be honest but, I think that I’ve become very good at being uncomfortable and do my best work with the pressure. The Veteran Owned Chamber of Commerce Business Spotlight is sponsored by Waterdogs Scuba & Safety, LLC