Today we’d like to introduce you to Ira Gerhart.
Hi Ira, it’s an honor to have you on the platform. Thanks for taking the time to share your story with us – to start maybe you can share some of your backstory with our readers?
I first got into craft beer in college living near a local farm brewery. One of my college professors then got me into home-brewing and I was instantly hooked on brewing and knew I wanted to open a brewery one day. While both being originally from Pennsylvania, I met my now wife and co-owner of Noble Creature while she was attending YSU and living in Youngstown. We both fell in love with the people and community here and decided to plant our roots and start our brewery after. We were drawn to the number of available and affordable properties at the time, but ultimately our decision came from the love of the people we had met in Youngstown.
Alright, so let’s dig a little deeper into the story – has it been an easy path overall and if not, what were the challenges you’ve had to overcome?
Starting out definitely wasn’t easy. From finding a property, to writing a business plan and securing funding, there was a lot of time put into planning and executing this business. My wife and I both went to school for Fine Arts, so the paperwork and business end of things wasn’t really our strength. The craft beer industry had already become pretty saturated by then, but not so much in Youngstown yet. Still, it was a lot of competition. We pieced it all together ourselves from the bottom up with a really small budget. We had a lot of long days in the beginning, but thats really any small business. We finally got things moving in tan upward direction when COVID hit and that was a whole new struggle at a hard time in any new businesses trajectory. After that the City decided to start a huge ongoing road construction project for two years that pretty much shut down the main downtown area, and then one of our major landmark buildings suffered an explosion as a result which was tragic on many levels. All of that has posed many unforeseen struggles but we hope that is behind us now as things seem to be getting back to some kind of new normal. One of the benefits of being a smaller scale brewery/ business is the fact we can be more nimble and pivot when we need to, though it requires a lot more creativity, effort, and uncertainty. We will always put quality and craftsmanship first no matter what, but we’re also not afraid to test out new products on the market and take feedback from the community on what they want to see at their local brewery and taproom. We have the ability to keep things fresh and have close ties to our costumers, which is not just an advantage but a great joy.
As you know, we’re big fans of you and your work. For our readers who might not be as familiar what can you tell them about what you do?
I’ve always been a tinkerer and brewing seems to be the perfect blend of art and science. I went to school for sculpture and enjoyed the processes behind foundry work, welding, metalsmithing and the functional arts. I got to use those skills to build our brewhouse from scratch and renovate the taproom space. I’m always excited when art and engineering can co-exist and theres never a dull moment at the brewery whether its coming up with new recipes, tweaking current recipes, new construction projects, or inevitably fixing and problem solving working within our small little space that was a former church built in the 1800’s.
Any advice for finding a mentor or networking in general?
Just get out there, if you’re passionate about something, talk to as many people as you can who’ve been doing it for a while. Don’t be afraid to just put yourself out there, there’s a lot of people that are just as passionate and the whole world is so connected now you never know where it might lead. You’ll be surprised to find how many professionals are just as excited to willing to nerd out on some obscure topic that you’ve been mulling around for a while. Social media is cool and all but if you’re really into it, hands on experience is the best way to really figure out if a gig is for you.
Contact Info:
- Website: https://noblecreaturebeer.com
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/noblecreaturebeer/
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/noblecreaturebeer/
