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Work Space: Couple brews up new business |
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Written by Erin Frustaci
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Wednesday, 21 June 2006 |
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Page 1 of 2
 LITTLE DID COLIN Westcott know that a birthday present of his dad’s would filter into a golden career for him. When Colin was 19, his father tore wrapping paper off of a home-brewing kit.
“He didn’t use it so I took it,” Colin said.
The first taste made him thirsty for more knowledge on home-brewing. Once he was legal, he got a job at a brewery.
Now at 31, with nine years of commercial brewing experience in his mug, Colin and his wife Shannon opened a home-brew and wine making supply store in Fort Collins.
“We were shocked there wasn’t one here,” Shannon said.
Business at Hops & Berries at 125 Remington St. has been on tap for 6 months and is exceeding the couple’s expectations.
“We are doing a lot better than we expected and hope it will keep growing,” Shannon said. “People are really interested.”
Shannon didn’t know much about beer before meeting Colin.
“You can’t help but learn more than you could have ever asked when you are with him, but it is paying off now,” she said.
The two take turns running the store while the other one watches their 21-month-old son Elias.
“We actually see each other less than we used to,” Shannon said.
The family moved to Fort Collins from Alaska to be closer to family, and they love their new home.
In an effort to get connected to the community, Shannon and Colin offer home-brewing classes twice a month for $10.
They are also active members of a home-brew club and help organize home-brew competitions.
So what do these pros brew at their home?
Colin said he usually has some sort of pale ale and Belgian Wit beer is Shannon’s favorite.
“We are pretty active home-brewers,” Shannon said.
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VITAL STATS
Name: Colin and Shannon Westcott
Company: Hops & Berries, 125 Remington St., Fort Collins
Title: Co-owners
How long have you worked there? Six months
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IN THEIR WORDS
What is it about this job that makes it challenging?
Shannon: I would say just learning how to run a business.
Colin: Neither one of us has any business prior to this, so that is the real challenge.
Shannon: I have a degree in business so that helps a little bit. It’s a learning process.
Makes you get out of bed in the morning?
Shannon: That’s easy.
Colin: Our son.
Shannon: We have a 21-month-old. We really don’t have a choice.
Things that impress you?
Shannon: We look younger than we are and I appreciate when other people respect us, respect us as business owners, respect us as customers in their store, things like that.
Colin: That’s good. I’ve been really impressed by the reception we’ve received in Fort Collins by other local business, particularly the local microbreweries. They’ve all been really supportive.
Things that don’t.
Colin: When people park in our parking spaces.
Did you ever think in a million years you’d work here?
Colin: We’ve always had it in the back of our minds that someday we would own our own business. We weren’t sure how that would manifest itself. We kind of lucked into this. The opportunity was there and so we jumped on it.
Shannon: I agree. We talked about owning our own brewery someday. This was a surprise that this opportunity was here. We really wanted to stay in the brewing community.
If you weren’t doing this, what would you do?
Shannon: I did Web development prior to this so I’d be doing that.
Colin: I’ve been brewing commercially for the last nine years, so I would probably be working at a microbrewery somewhere.
What’s the stupidest thing you’ve ever done while at work?
Colin: I ripped the handles out of a malt drum when it was full of malt. Twice. It made a big mess.
Shannon: I’ve made a pretty sticky mess with that malt too.
Collin: She’s never done anything stupid.
Smartest?
Colin: I didn’t rip the handle out of the malt drum.
Shannon: If somebody asks a question and I can come up with a brilliant informative answer, I feel pretty good.
What’s the most unusual thing you’ve ever done to make money?
Shannon: I always had pretty normal jobs. My very first job in high school was at this fast-food chicken place and I had to stir this huge bucket of coleslaw with my hands. I was thinking, why are people eating this? That was pretty weird.
Colin: My last job brewing, I got to dangle upside down inside a 900 gallon tank with a grinder grinding at the top of it. It was interesting.
Any interesting anecdotes?
Colin: There’s nothing to it but to do it.
Colin: When we were living in Montana for a while, there was a roofing company that had an advertisement on TV. Their slogan was there’s nothing to it but to do it. It seems like a pretty obvious statement to me. And then, of course, there is the universal home-brewing one which is “relax, don’t worry, have a home brew.”
What do you do during your breaks?
Shannon: We try to hang out with our kid on the weekend.
Colin: Typically if I have a break, I eat lunch as fast as I can, grab some water and try to get things cleaned up before the next customer comes in.
What’s one thing about your job you would do, even if you weren’t paid to do it?
Colin: That’s funny because we are really not paid to do it. Our business is so young so everything we do is to build the business to get it to the point where it is successful. But in general, I really love brewing beer. So I’ve been teaching a class in the evening every couple weeks. We brew a batch of beer. I really enjoy it, so that is one thing I would do no matter what.
Shannon: I do a lot of the Web stuff and I do some of that for fun.
Name one thing in your life that really prepared you for your job.
Shannon: My degree in business has helped us some. I’ve also worked in retail before.
Colin: I’ve worked in small businesses for as long as I can remember, I’ve seen what owners would go throw to keep the business open, so it prepared me for the fact that things aren’t always easy. You don’t just open a business.
Pets?
Colin: Two dogs, one is a black lab mix, Tupelo, the other is a husky German shepherd boarder collie named Bosco.
Shannon: And a cat named Barley.
Family?
Shannon: We have one son, Elias, who will be 2 in August.
Favorite TV shows?
Colin: “Sopranos.”
Shannon: Yeah, we’ve been watching “Sopranos” since the beginning of “Soprano” time. We don’t have a lot of time to watch TV.
Books?
Shannon: I don’t have time to read books. I usually keep up by reading Time and The New Yorker.
Colin: Yeah, it’s really sad. I actually have a degree in English Literature and don’t get time to read ever. I really like the book “Gravity’s Rainbow” by Thomas Pynchon. It took me three tries and a year and a half to do it, but it was a great book.
Shannon: You know, I read a lot of books now, but they are by Dr. Seuss.
Movies?
Colin: We watch a lot of children’s movies these days. “True Stories”, is really good.
What Web sites do you have bookmarked?
Colin: Google News and www.liquidpoets.com.
Shannon: Craigslist. I’m hooked on Craigslist. weatherunderground.com.
Where do you play?
Colin: Parks. We just went camping in Vedauwoo, Wyo.
Shannon: We like to get out on bike trails.
Go out to eat?
Shannon: Rio. It’s good food.
Colin: It’s a block from our shop.
Favorite spot?
Colin: There’s this little Lake just outside Anchorage, Alaska called Rabbit Lake and we had so much fun so many times there. We just moved here from Alaska.
Shannon: It was a five minute drive, four minute drive. We went up there a lot. We haven’t found our spot here yet, but we’re still looking.
How do young/new employees get ahead?
Collin: We don’t have any employees, so I guess getting hired would be a good way to get ahead.
Shannon: We’re just not there yet. Eventually we’d like to hire someone and the biggest thing we will be looking for is a good knowledge of home-brewing and home wine making, plus a good work ethic and willingness to learn.
What’s the biggest payoff in your job?
Shannon: Owning your own business.
Colin: Knowing you don’t work for someone else.
Shannon: You get to do things the way you want to do them. We get to be really laid back.
Are you the boss? Do you think you should be?
Shannon: I think I’m the boss.
Colin: We are co-bosses.
Shannon: Yeah I know.
Colin: We both have certain areas where we do the decision making and don’t question each other.
What do you do when you’re not at work?
Colin: Hang out with our son. Play with our dogs.
Shannon: Try to talk about something other than work.
Colin: Ultimately at this point the business is occupying the majority of our time.
Shannon: We haven’t figured out how to take vacations yet.
What’s the one thing you wish you could do on the job that you can’t right now?
Shannon: Relax. There’s always something to do, whether there are customers or not. I don’t think we expected it to be quite so busy.
Colin: We can’t complain about that.
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