Published by Leonardo Calcagno
Who are you and your current job?
I am Fred Karm, the Founder, President, and Brewmaster of Hoppin’ Frog Brewery.
What was the inspiration behind your brewery?
Our concept is; we make flavorful beers in the most flavorful styles, with an uncompromising focus on detail and quality, from the ingredient selection to the brewing process.
Can you give us a tour of your beer scene?
The craft beer scene is rapidly growing in our area, some good, some bad, with both good and bad breweries opening faster and faster all the time. We now have far more production breweries than needed here, it is flooded. But there is plenty of room for brewpubs – breweries that sell their beer in-house. That’s the obvious future of the craft beer scene’s expansion. When we opened 10-1/2 years ago, we were the 40th brewery in Ohio. In the last 4 years, that has grown rapidly to over 200 breweries in Ohio. That’s 5X growth, and even faster growth is coming in the future.
What advice would you give to someone who wants to start a brewery?
Advise for people who want to start a brewery is 3-fold; STAY AWAY FROM PRODUCTION BREWING, TEST THE WATER FIRST, AND PAY YOUR DUES FIRST! We make it look easy, but it certainly is not. So, before you start a brewpub, work in the section of the craft beer industry that you want to enter. Just like being a chef, it seems glamorous until you do it.
