Behind the Scenes at Family Business Beer Company, Plus FBBC Art Contest!

Have you wondered what it’s like to work at a brewery associated with a famous person? How do you balance fandom with growing your beer drinking audience? These are questions Gino Graul, CEO of Family Business Beer Company (FBBC), has had to grapple with since setting up shop in the Hill Country of Texas. I spoke with Gino about his experiences for my podcast, In Defense of Fandom. Since our conversation lasted well over an hour, this is an abbreviated version of the full conversation, lightly edited for clarity. This version covers aspects of the operation that the podcast didn’t get to, while the podcast contains snippets of our conversation not repeated here. Make sure you read to the end to learn the details about an art competition for the brewery!

Sadie Witkowski

Let’s start [with introductions]…

Gino Graul

Okay, my name is Gino Graul. I’m the CEO of Family Business Beer Company.

Sadie Witkowski

When did you decide to start a brewery and why did you choose Dripping Springs, Texas? I mean, that’s my hometown! I was born and raised in Dripping Springs, like, we went to Hamilton Pool [a local park that lends its name to FBBC’s Pale Ale] when I was five years old.

Gino Graul

Well, I’m sure it doesn’t look anything like it did whenever you were growing up, right?

Sadie Witkowski

No, it was a one stop-light town. That is not the case anymore.

Gino Graul

I also grew up in a one light town in Southwest Louisiana. Whenever they put in a second traffic light, it made the front page! So I get that.

The original idea to open a brewery started really after I got out of the Navy. I’d say that was around 2005. I was working at a craft beer bar in Baton Rouge, Louisiana called The Chimes and being a country boy from Southwest Louisiana, the only beer that I knew was Bud Light, Miller Lite, Coors Light, all the big macro brands. I started working there and they put me behind the bar, just bar backing: moving cases, shucking oysters, all the stuff that you do behind the bar in Louisiana. And I realized I didn’t know anything about all the beer that they had. They had about 40 or 48 beers on draft and they had at least 120 in bottles from all over the world! The patrons would constantly ask, ‘Hey, excuse me, what’s the difference between a quarter and a stout?’ So I started trying to learn as much as I could about craft beer and it progressed from there. So that was 2005.

If we fast forward to 2014, I moved out to California to go meet up with Danneel and Jensen, who are my sister and brother-in-law. At that point, I was already committed to opening a brewery; just needed to figure out the who, what, when, where, and how I was gonna get funded, basically. We started with homebrew. At the time, I started figuring things out on my own. I read every book I could get my hands on. And you know Jensen, he’s a curious cat. I had all the homebrew setup in the backyard and Danneel was like, ‘Do not burn my house down.’ [laughs] So Jensen would sneak out from time to time and ask, ‘Hey, what you got going on out here, buddy?’ I was going through the different steps in the process and different ingredients being used and why we would use this and what our end goal would be. Did we always hit that goal? Maybe not. But we drank a lot of beer, we had plenty of opportunities to kind of talk about the idea, and we ended up making some pretty good beer, actually. Then one night after dinner and you know, maybe a little too much wine, somebody threw out the idea of, “Well, hey, you know, none of us are from California…” We’re Southerners. We’re from Louisiana. We’re from Texas. Jensen is from Richardson just outside of Dallas. My Dad’s from Dallas. So our family is half-Louisiana, half-Texas. We said ‘Well, we can take the show on the road and head down to Texas.’ And just with who we are and our vib, really there’s only one city that would work for us. That was Austin, Texas. So, in about two weeks, all my stuff was loaded up in a pod and I was officially moved down here.

Sadie Witkowski

What was the inspiration for the name of the brewery?

Gino Graul

Well, so originally, the idea for the California brewery was going to be an ocean/surf themed brewery. In central Texas, we’re landlocked. There’s no ocean for hundreds of miles. I just decided to start new with a new name. But yeah, the name Family Business is twofold. Originally, the founding members were Danneel and Jensen Ackles, my parents, and then myself. Those were the original family members. And you know, we battled it out on all these different names. You always love your suggestion. Then you pitch it to somebody else, thinking everybody’s gonna be like, ‘Oh my God, that’s it,’ and it doesn’t really work that way. We pitched out ideas for at least a year, while we were looking for the building. [At that time], we were referring to it as ‘our family business’, ‘the family business’, those kinds of things. Then Jensen mentioned, ‘Well, you realize that’s like a tagline in the show that I’ve been on? I don’t know if you’ve heard of it, called Supernatural. You know, I feel like there could be something that resonates with the fan base that we already have.’ So it was a forehead slap moment. So here we are: Family Business Beer Company.

Sadie Witkowski

How much did y’all discuss or think about how much you wanted to lean into the Supernatural fandom? Because, I don’t think that’s particularly big in Dripping Springs necessarily…

Gino Graul

It was a pretty serious conversation that we had early on. Jensen and I were definitely eye to eye on that one. From people that aren’t in the fandom, it could be viewed as, it’s just a gimmick brewery. But our passion about beer was rock solid. Making real high quality beer was always the utmost importance. We do have that element of celebrity status with Jensen. But moving into a city that’s known for its craft beer industry, we wanted to make sure that it was understood right out of the gate that the beer was the rock star. If you knew about Jensen, and all that kind of stuff, then awesome. We wanted to make sure that there was a clear definition between what the brewery does as far as making high quality beers, and having that that built in fan base.

Sadie Witkowski

I totally understand needing to stand on your own feet in a competitive craft market. When you first opened to your first group of customers, how many of them were fans?

Gino Graul

100% of it. When we got the space finished out as best we could, we decided we were going to do a soft, semi quiet opening. I think with maybe two or three days notice, we whispered out on the internet: ‘Hey, we’re gonna open our doors on this day for a soft opening.’ We were still running around trying to put the finishing touches on the tap room and get everything organized. Before we opened the door, we could see that there were a few people out there. We had no idea there were 1000 people standing outside the door on day one! We opened the doors and we’re like, ‘Oh my God, it was like four or five across and then went all the way down about a 40 foot, handicap ramp and staircase, and then all the way down the driveway to Hamilton Pool Road! It was bananas! It was absolutely insane. And we were wildly unprepared. I think we had maybe six people that were here ready to work, Danneel included. We had two little iPads that we were going to ring people up. Of course, one of the computers goes down immediately because something in some big technical tower in the back office got unplugged. So 30 minutes into being open, one of the registers goes down and Danneel and I are looking at each other and looking at the sea of people ready to get a beer. We’re like, ‘Ah…. okay, we’ll do a cash bar.’ But who has cash these days? So we had a small group of people that got to cut the line but it was absolute, utter chaos. To this day when I meet people that say ‘I was there for your opening week,’ I’m like, ‘I am so freaking sorry.’

Sadie Witkowski

Thankfully, it seems to have settled into a more consistent number of visitors.

Gino Graul

Yeah, and now we built our base of regulars that live out here and people that have moved out to the area that come out. It’s funny, every once in a while when Jensen’s here, he might be out in the grove, and he’s got sunglasses and hat and all that kind of stuff. And somebody’s like, ‘I think that’s him.’ So they walk over, ‘Excuse me, Mr. Ackles?’ Then when one person sees that, okay, contact has been made. Somebody’s initiating contact, then two or three people, and then all of a sudden, you’ve got this line of people waiting to talk to this one guy. And the regulars are like, ‘What the hell is going on here?’ You know, so there are two different groups here at all times – the ones that are part of the fandom that understand and like, ‘Oh, man, that’s him. He’s actually here’, and then those people like, ‘What the hell is happening?’

Sadie Witkowski

I heard y’all used to have a hand-painted yard sign, but it was stolen off of Hamilton Pool Road, and you had to stop putting up the fancier signs or something. Is that true? Or is that apocryphal?

Gino Graul

We did have a few walk off. We had to start bolting them down to the ground and concrete blocks and that kind of stuff. So [to] a few people out there that might be listening right now ‘We’d love that sign back!’ So lesson learned on that.

Similarly, we had branded glassware. We wanted, when people came in, they could see the Family Business logo on the glassware. Not realizing that with about eight people working and everybody running around in the tap room, taking care of busing the tables…I think it was 1100 pieces of glassware just happened to walk off the property! Ok, bad idea. We needed to switch to non-branded [glassware]. So we still have the branded stuff like in our merchandise room and for sale online and that kind of stuff. But live and learn!

Sadie Witkowski

So now there’s an even mix of fans and regulars who come in. Do you get people traveling a crazy distances or who have never been to Texas, but now come out to Dripping Springs to drink beer?

Gino Graul

Absolutely. We normally say that they’ve made a pilgrimage from wherever they come from. We’ve had people from New Zealand, Australia, India, Pakistan, all over the UK. Let’s see… Switzerland, Ireland, Scotland, Germany, France. I mean, you name it and we probably had somebody here. We’re talking about maybe putting up a big map on the wall where people can put push pins of where they’re from, but we get all different types of people from all over the world, all different types of walks of life.

Sadie Witkowski

That’s so cool. That’s amazing. Meanwhile, I just stumbled into your brewery from basically my backyard.

Gino Graul

Yeah, and we still have a ton of people that live in Dripping Springs that have never heard of us. We’re almost like an undiscovered gem for a lot locals, but are sought out by others.

Sadie Witkowski

So have there been any dark side experiences to having a brewery so strongly associated with a fandom?

Gino Graul

We’ve had tons of positive interactions! And then, as far as some of the weird stuff… we’ve had people leave some questionable things on the property. One time we were really busy. The whole grove was packed and my tap room manager came over to me. He’s like, ‘Hey, there’s this thing hanging in one of the trees…’ I asked, ‘Did you take it down?’ He said, ‘I think you just need to look at it.’ Okay, so we go to the back of the grove, and it is just a severed doll head, like one of these creepy looking dolls, just the head hanging from a tree. We walk up and it’s facing us and I’m like, ‘Boy, that’s disturbing.’ It’s right by the playground, and families are looking at it, thinking, ‘What the hell’s going on?’ So I said, ‘Let’s get this thing down.’ When I grabbed it and turned it, it had ‘Jensen’ written on the back of it. [Gino paused for dramatic effect] ‘Yeah, let’s get this out of here.’ I said, ‘Sorry, folks!’ and did a three-point shot into the trashcan. [Sadie and Gino laugh]

Then we’ve definitely gotten some odd things sent to us in the mail. Obviously, I’m willing to take one for the team. So if Jensen gets a package, I open it to make sure it’s nothing too weird or scary. But sometimes, I open [the package] up and I have discovered some interesting photo albums that people will put together. Or they’ll draw a picture or paint a picture or something like that. And I’m like, ‘Ah, this is cool!’ For a long, long time, the real odd things we had we had hung up in our [staff] bathroom, so [when] Jensen would come in, it was like a weird art gallery.

Sadie Witkowski

What an amazing running joke! I would make a hallway of weird. I would just collect all the weirdest things I’ve ever seen, that’s so fun!

Gino Graul

And all [of the] staff knew it was in there, you know? So they would go in and spend 20 minutes just looking around at all the new crazy weird stuff. Anytime Jensen would come in, he’s like, ‘Oh, is there anything new?’ But then we’d have delivery guys that were dropping off ingredients and that kind of stuff – the UPS guy or somebody like that – and they would ask, ‘Hey man, do you have a bathroom I can use?’ Yes… but we have to at least explain what’s going on in there, and they normally come out with their eyes huge. Like, ‘Wow, yeah, you might want to stop [to use the bathroom] elsewhere.’ [laughs] But yeah, it’s funny nonetheless.

Sadie Witkowski

That’s amazing. I very much appreciate that. You’re like, ‘We won’t throw it away. We’ll collect it in the weirdest [way] possible.’

Gino Graul

Absolutely. Yeah, under lock and key where the general public can’t see it. But we can still appreciate it. Then we’ve seen some really, really cool stuff. It gets sent out here or people drop off some really, really cool, well done paintings or woodcarvings, and all kinds of stuff like that. Just some little things that only fans would know. Or they’ll make earrings and all kinds of cool stuff. So the best of the best gets passed along. I would at least say that if it’s quality, we’re willing to take a look at it. But obviously we’re not necessarily a delivery service. And probably not the best way to get something to Jensen.

Sadie Witkowski

I mean, I don’t blame you. I will say in several of the episodes of this podcast [In Defense of Fandom], I have been impressed by the creativity of the fandom. Talking to all the people who do all the different forms of art, while I can’t draw even stick figures. I don’t know how they do it!

Gino Graul

You and me both. I cannot draw a straight line to save my life. Then some of these people come in, saying, ‘Here’s just a little sketch that I did’, and I’m like, ‘God, look at the detail! Are these charcoal drawings, or whatever they’re called?’ There’s a lot of talent in the fandom for sure.

Sadie Witkowski

Yeah, definitely. Speaking of fandom, my experience with the fandom has been that it is predominantly women across a wide age range, and I don’t assume women tend to be beer drinkers. Do you feel like you’re converting more people to being beer nerds?

Gino Graul

That was something that we understood pretty early on. A lot of people that were coming out here, were coming to see Jensen’s brewery and kind of experience it firsthand. A lot of them weren’t really familiar with craft beer. We took that responsibility seriously. That we were going to be that first beer that they try. We wanted to make sure that it was high quality, that we could explain the ingredients and the process, and what they were experiencing. A lot like when you go to a winery, you hear the story about these different wines, then by the time you get to try them, you really appreciate the time and the creativity and the passion that went into them. It’s the exact same thing with beer, although just we’re not on the same level as wine because we haven’t gotten to that level yet. I will say that there are people that much prefer beer over wine, myself included. Although, I appreciate plenty of wine. But beer is still trying to play catch up to wine in that sense. But yeah, we took that responsibility seriously. To make sure that we were going to be good stewards for the craft beer industry, and we have some that don’t really drink beer at all.

As a matter of fact, there was a guy in the tap room the other day, I was picking up a flight [of beers from a customer that left] and almost all the beers were completely full. And the guy’s like, “Oh man, it’s got to be pretty frustrating whenever you see that.” And I said, “Actually, it’s kind of the other way around.” We have people that come in, saying, ‘I don’t like beer. I don’t drink beer at all. But I’m here. I’m going to try Jensen’s beer.’ They’ll go down the line and they will take one sip out of each one [in the flight]. And so very rarely do we ever see a full flight that’s been left behind. But when we do, we know exactly who it was. And we’re thankful that they’re willing to at least try it.

Sadie Witkowski

Yeah, they’re willing to at least come out and support or at least try them. Maybe one of the beers in the flight has half the beer left, and it seems they found one to like.

Gino Graul

Yeah, there’s always one that’s a little bit lower than the rest. It shows, so they’re a stout girl, you know? Whatever it is, but yeah. You know, we mark it on our wall. We converted one more to drink craft beer.

This conversation was recorded in July of this year. To absolutely no one’s surprise, I have visited FBBC since that time to catch up with Gino in person. In fact, when I visited Family Business over Labor Day weekend, I was SO looking forward to seeing the fan art collection in the guest bathroom for myself.

But when I asked Gino about it, he told me they had been on a cleaning spree and had cleared it out. There was a picture of Gino, Danneel and Jensen with googly eyes glued on but none of the other art made it, sadly.

That said… While the staff bathroom is no longer a ‘gallery of the weird,’ that actually presented me with a unique opportunity! After chatting with Gino, he agreed to let me run a little contest!

Send your best, your weirdest, your most creative fanart to the brewery. [The address can be found in the podcast show notes.] You MUST tie the piece back to Family Business Beer Company in some fashion – whether that be using their logo, slogan, or some other elements. Gino and a panel of judges that he selects will be in charge of determining the winner(s). Besides having your art proudly displayed in the new bathroom art gallery, winners will also get a swag prize from the brewery!

Make sure to send your art to the Family Business Beer Company by December 15th to be eligible to win!