A Conversation With
Two longtime friends with a passion for beer see a ready market in Washington County for craft beers, so they’re starting a craft brewery that will be housed in Washington.
Brian Hughes and Mike Holives recently launched New Prosperity Brewing Co., and their goal is to have the brewery up and running sometime next fall.
Hughes, who works in advertising, has lived in craft brew hot spots including Seattle, Wash., and Holives, a businessman, lived in Europe, home to some of the world’s best small breweries.
They are working on getting approvals to open, which can take about a year.
The pair is not alone: About 900 breweries across the country are in the licensing process with the Federal Tax and Trade Bureau.
“We like to call ourselves an upstart brewery. We’ve thrown enough money at this thing to graduate from the title of home brewers,” said Hughes, who served as New Prosperity spokesman for the interview while Holives was in Europe.
They make a variety of beers, including a brown ale called Brown Eyed Girl and an apricot wheat named Toot Suite.
Q. How did you get started as a home brewer?
A. I started home brewing beer about eight or nine years ago. I was living in Seattle at the time, and in Seattle, craft beers and microbreweries are huge. I grew up in the Pittsburgh area, and when I got there it was like I had all of these choices. I experimented with what I liked and didn’t. I found out there were people like me with ideas of what beer could be. My wife got me a home brewer’s kit for Christmas one year, and I fell in love with the process that went into it. I like to build and make things and cook, so it was a natural process for me. Mike’s been doing it for a long time, too.
Q. How did you come up with the name New Prosperity Brewing Co.?
A. It’s partially because my partner and I are from Greene County near Prosperity. But also, Mike and I are working professionals, and we came to a point in our careers where we reached a certain level of success where more success wouldn’t mean much to us. We were looking for something new, something we could be proud of and that would bring us satisfaction.
Q. Have craft beers found a place in Washington County?
A. We’re aware of the surge of popularity of craft beer here. There are so many more options now for younger beer drinkers who are coming into a relationship with beer in a different way than other generations. A young person today goes into a store and has 30 choices. I had a choice between Bud and Miller. This area is so primed and ready for it. It’s still relatively new here, but there are microbreweries and brew pubs popping up everywhere.
Q. Where can craft beer aficionados find New Prosperity beers?
A. We envision we’ll be a production brewery and sell to local bars and restaurants on tap. Until we get a license, we’re hosting tasting parties.
Q. What beers do you offer?
A. We make several different beers – light, dark and seasonal. We’ve got a formula for the brews we create. Our light is an amber ale, not overly carbonated. It pairs well with spicy hot wings and blackened fish. It’s a great summertime beer, relatively low in alcohol. Porter, our dark beer, is more suitable for wintertime, with hearty soups and red meats. And we do a lot of seasonal beers. But the nice thing about craft beer is that there’s something to appeal to everyone.
Q. It’s tough to start a successful craft brewery. What will beer drinkers like about New Prosperity Brewing Co.?
A. People appreciate well-balanced beer. We strive to make ours extremely approachable and drinkable, so those who are new to beers find ours enjoyable, a craft beer made with excellent ingredients and with love and care.
Q. Are you glad you’ve ventured into brewing?
A. It’s a lot of fun. There are a lot of late nights, but we enjoy it immensely. We’ve been brewing for years, and we learn something new every batch. Wasn’t it Confucius who said the man who loves what he does never works a day in his life? Hopefully, we’ll be able to do it for money.
New Prosperity Brewing Co. can be found on Facebook.