Trent Fargher never imagined leaving tech and finance for the world of brewing. But in 2008 he did just that, launching Shades Brewing in Salt Lake City, Utah.
But Shades Brewing serves much more than pints and flights. The beverage venture, according to Fargher, was created to “bring uncommon flavors to a common world, while delighting palettes and uniting communities. Its mission is to promote inclusivity for humankind, while celebrating creative expression in all forms.”
Fargher makes this mission clear across his new business website, ShadesBrewing.Beer. “Craft beer is all about passion,” says Fargher. “Whatever your reasoning is to set up a domain, it should have heart and soul just like beer.”
He keeps an eye on quantity to ensure quality with each pour. “Stay a home brewer and keep having fun,” he says, and advises other aspiring brewers to steer clear of the costly mass production route. So far, Fargher’s small-batch approach has paid off. This year, Shades Brewing won three World Cup Beer medals.
“That was pretty spectacular to win such awards on an international stage. At least we are doing something right,” he continues. To date, Shades Brewing employs four people in the production and sales side, and another four in the taproom. Over the past two years, he hired an additional 21 employees as their second taproom thrived and morphed into a lively nightclub, mostly beloved by local university students.
As for the future of Shades, Fargher aims to transform the taproom into a space for weddings, corporate functions and other events. He’s also focusing on micro-batches, as his team is eager to explore unconventional ways to brew and connect with beer lovers across the country. Here, he gives us a sneak peek into his founding story and what it’s like to run a brewery. The entrepreneur also candidly shares the highs and lows of building a team, and what it takes to create award-winning craft beer.
What was your career before starting your beer company and what made you want to launch Shades?
I started with an accounting degree from Kent State University and my wife with a finance degree from Santa Clara. Around 2000, I left accounting and took a job with Oracle doing software implementations. My wife meanwhile was working for Morgan Stanley. During the IT crash in 2008 I was let go. I was ready to retire but my wife convinced me to start the brewery.
From Pleasantly Pickled Sour Ale to Tropic Like it's Hot, your beer company is certainly creative. How do you come up with flavors and limited edition releases? Is it a team brainstorm or a single brewmaster working with recipes? Give us a behind the scenes!
It started with Covid, where we had full tanks of beer with nowhere to go and bills to pay. During a production meeting we were trying to figure out what to do with all the beer now that the country was closed for business. We decided to split the tanks up and do different things with the base beer. We released them in small batches adding fruit; then we created a simple quarantine kit which offered 24 different beers in a flat for $50 bucks. It took a life of its own.
Had it not been for Covid I'm not sure where we would be; it was certainly a stressful time but working as a team we came out with a differentiator that won three world cup medals along with many others. We got creative but more than half of our cooler is traditional beer with 42 styles on the shelf.
We just installed a small pilot system to do ultra-small batches, of about 40 to 50 cases or about 8 half kegs. Sort of like home brewing but better. The production team agreed that the one pilot tank we use for fermentation should never be empty, allowing us to put out two to three ales a month or one lager. People will have to hurry to get a taste because it won't last long, and it seems like people are always looking for something new to experience these days. I appreciate the craft brewing industry for this reason. In the 70s and 80s, there were no craft brews, only a handful of industrial-sized breweries produced much of the beer in the U.S.
What was the biggest obstacle you faced as an entrepreneur?
Geez, the list is long. Starting out with no money in a place too small to produce the quantity required to fulfill our first order. Packaging in the driveway in below zero temperatures. Outgrowing the location before we opened. Moving into a larger facility that took three months to set up when it should have been up and running in three weeks. Hiring a manager who lost all our shelf space in the grocery store and took our .com domain after being fired. Don't even get me started on Covid and now soaring inflation. It is a constant battle to keep making payroll every month. Oh well, you only live once and I wouldn't trade it for anything.
How were you able to take back ownership of your digital presence?
With the .com domain no longer accessible we launched a new site about a year ago with the .beer domain. By using a combination of social and website strategies we recovered our online sales. The new .beer website quickly became the new destination for our customers, and the .com eventually went away. The person who took the domain thought they would hurt our business by doing this but in reality it worked out better with .beer because that is what we do. Had it not been for the .com blunder, we would not be using .beer today. There is always an upside to the downside.
If owning a business is so difficult, then what keeps you going as an entrepreneur?
Our customers. We get continual requests for us to ship to new locations. In fact, we had a couple in the other day who came to the brewery from New Orleans who said they’ve tasted our beer in their hometown. I was shocked because we don't have a distribution partner in Louisiana. With online and social media tech today the word gets around, and when you make world class beer, the message travels fast.