By Renee Larr
It all began with a beer. Not many business ventures can make that claim, but two Carmel residents built their budding brew business based on a shared love of suds. Mike Sale and Ryan Coyle took an at home beer tasting into something to be enjoyed by the masses.
“We were sitting around one day and we were both drinking a different Indian Pale Ale. We talked about finding a way to figure out who had the best IPA in town. We went out and got a handful of IPAs, and we hosted our own tournament at home. We thought it worked out well and was pretty awesome. We wondered … can we take this to a big stage? Can we scale this up? That’s when in spring of 2011, we had our first 16 brewer, 400 person event at the fairgrounds,” said Coyle.
Brew Bracket is a tournament style beer tasting competition.
The pair has hosted 10 tournaments so far. The success of the events got them to thinking about what started it all – the in home tasting with the India Pale Ales all those years ago. They wanted to take what they’ve learned in the large tournaments and create a kit for people to use at home.
“We’ve started developing the at home Brew Bracket. The idea is you, the homeowner, get to host your own Brew Bracket in your home. When you purchase the experience kit you get all your tasting glasses, your voting card, a host bracket and host guide. It comes with orange and grey pitchers – everything you need to host a tournament at your own home,” said Coyle.
The kits are $35 with the host providing the beer.
Sale and Coyle are hoping to take the kits locally, nationally and even, potentially, worldwide. Both work full-time jobs and created Brew Bracket has a fun hobby.
For more information or to purchase a Brew Bracket at home kit visit brewbracket.com.
