Flyover Brewing Company in downtown Scottsbluff recently celebrated its one-year anniversary. Owners say their first year in business was highly successful, and they’re looking forward to building on their success and expanding their operations in the coming years.
JEFF FIELDER Editor
SCOTTSBLUFF – It was 5 p.m. on a recent Friday, and parking spots were hard to find around Flyover Brewing Company in downtown Scottsbluff.
Not surprisingly, Flyover’s outdoor seating area, a popular spot throughout the warmer months, filled up first. By 5:30 p.m, the indoor seating area was nearly full as well.
The kitchen and wait staff moved around swiftly, taking orders and bringing customers their food and drinks. The aroma of pizza filled the room, and craft beer – the trademark item at this business – dotted the numerous tables.
It was easy to see that people, younger and older, were having a good time on this near perfect evening. A mixture of families, couples, friends and business people made the noise level quite high, as their conversations and laughter filled the air.
This was the scene that Joe and Andrea Margheim and their business partner, Peter Meyer, envisioned when they thought about opening a brewery about four years ago.
“It’s really fun on a night like this, when the business is super full and it’s loud and everyone is smiling,” Andrea said. “It’s fun to see people enjoying it. It’s fun to see our business succeed.”
It took two years of planning, followed by a year of construction, but the Margheims and Meyer saw their dream turn into a reality Labor Day weekend 2018, when Flyover Brewing Company opened its doors for the first time.
The business was an immediate hit, attracting customers not only from Scottsbluff and Gering but also from areas throughout the WyoBraska region. As the months went on and more people became aware of the brewery’s positive reviews, they began to attract not only locals but also tourists from different parts of the country.
“There’s a lot more tourism to this area than I realized,” said Joe, a 1995 Scottsbluff High School graduate. “During the spring and summer, we’ve had a lot of people – from all over the country – visit us. That’s been pretty cool to see, too.”
The Margheims and Meyer celebrated a memorable, exciting milestone on Wednesday, Aug. 28, a date that marked the one-year anniversary of the Flyover Brewing Company.
“We started off with a bang, and it continued to go well after that,” Joe said. “I would say our first year in business was highly successful. I couldn’t be happier.”
Among the three owners, Andrea had the most experience in the food and beverage business. As a former restaurant manager, Andrea knew there would be some challenges in Flyover’s first year of business. However, Flyover Brewing Company has avoided many of the pitfalls and frustrations that some new businesses experience.
“You hear horror stories of people barely surviving their first year,” said Andrea, who’s from Michigan. “I knew a brewery that opened in Michigan, and their first year they thought they were going to lose their house. Things never got scary for us, though. Business has been steady. We appreciate everyone who has been supporting us.”
The Margheims and Meyer had a good feeling their business would fit in well in the Panhandle. They had seen other breweries experience success in other areas of the country. One brewery in particular that caught their attention was Kinkaider Brewing Company, which opened its doors in Broken Bow, a town that’s smaller than Scottsbluff, about four years ago.
Joe and Peter, who are both physicians at Regional West Medical Center, started tossing around the idea of opening a brewery in Scottsbluff not long after Kinkaider opened.
“It was actually Peter Meyer’s dream to do this,” Joe said. “He’s not a home brewer, but he thought it would be cool to have a brewery in town. We had talked about it off and on when we worked together for a few years, and then when Kinkaider opened in Broken Bow, we thought, ‘Well, if Broken Bow can have a brewery, then Scottsbluff can have one, too.’”
Joe talked to his wife about the idea. He was eager to hear her opinion since she had experience working in that type of industry.
“I was on board with the idea,” Andrea said. “I had a pretty good idea of how it might go here. All of us felt comfortable because we felt like there was a hole in the market here for a brewery, so we felt if we opened one, it would meet a lot of needs for a lot of different groups of people. We’ve happily seen all those different groups here. Everybody we thought we would attract we have. So, that’s been great.”
Although it was Meyer’s dream to open a brewery in Scottsbluff, the business venture was also an exciting one for Joe since he had been a home brewer for many years.
“I brewed beer in my basement,” he said, smiling. “I brewed my own beer for several years. I stopped doing it for a while when I was away from Scottsbluff, but I started to get interested in it again when I moved back here.”
Derek Ordway is Flyover Brewing Company’s brewmaster. However, Joe would like to become a little more involved in that side of the business, too.
“I’m going to try brewing a beer or two this year because that’s one of the reasons we opened this place — I like to brew,” he said. “I had gotten away from that, so I think it will be fun for me to do a little more of that.”
As expected, the craft beer at Flyover Brewing Company has been quite popular. Andrea said a lot of credit goes to Ordway.
“We’ve had really great feedback as far as the beer goes,” she said. “Derek has medaled in multiple competitions already, so it’s fun for the community to see that. With a brand new system, sometimes there’s a learning curve — learning the new equipment. But Derek came out and started making really great beer right away.”
Andrea said the top two craft beers at Flyover have been Helles, a light lager, and (NE)braska Pale Ale, which she said is a spin on the New England IPA.
Customers, though, also respond well to Flyover Brewing Company’s seasonal releases, Andrea said.
“He’s done a couple fruit-flavored ones that really go quickly,” she said.
Joe and Andrea said they enjoy introducing new craft beers to customers every now and then.
“We’ll come out with new ones for special events, like for the one-year anniversary of our business,” Joe said.
Andrea said it’s important to keep things exciting in the craft beer industry.
“You have to keep changing,” she said. “It’s kind of like the food menu. You need to keep it fresh or else it becomes stagnant. We always see a boost in traffic when Derek has a release on a weekend. We like to have something new coming out at least every other month.”
Flyover Brewing Company is quickly becoming well known, too, for its seasonal beers. For example, “Campaign!” recently was brewed so it could be released to customers in October during sugar beet harvest. Campaign! is an amber, malty, full bodied lager, brewed with local sugar beets from Western Sugar.
“There are seasonal flavors that have become really popular in this area,” Andrea said. “Campaign! sold out super quickly last year, so we’re doing a double batch this year.”
Added Joe, “I experimented with brewing [Campaign!] at home for a few years. I really like it. It captures the good molasses smell that’s around here in late fall from the sugar beet harvest.”
Because of his experience as a home brewer and the number of years he’s lived in this area, Joe said he had a pretty good idea what people in the WyoBraska area would like and not like.
“So far, it’s proven to be very correct,” he said. “Most people around here want light lagers, and they want not bitter but hoppy IPAs.”
As for the food at Flyover Brewing Company, well, that, too, has been a hit with customers. In fact, their food, which includes wood fired pizzas, wings, salads, appetizers, and desserts, have been even more popular than the owners expected it to be.
“Before we opened, I expected this to be more of a taproom with food,” he said. “I figured people would come here mainly to visit and enjoy our beer, and there would be heavy appetizers to eat while you’re here. However, it’s turned into more of a restaurant/brewery. A big percentage of our sales is from food.”
Interestingly, at one point Joe said he and the other owners had talked about not even having a kitchen at the business.
“We thought about inviting food trucks, but at the time, there weren’t enough food trucks around here, I didn’t think, to fill the need. So, we decided to build a kitchen,” Joe said. “But when we built the kitchen, I figured a lot of that space would never be used. I thought it would be an oversized kitchen for what we need. As it’s turned out, our kitchen is a little on the small side for the volume. It’s just a different model than I thought we would have. Instead of this being mainly a taproom for our brewery, it’s now more of a restaurant with a taproom.”
Joe said he’s OK with that shift in business model.
“I think I would like to promote our beer a little more than we have been to remind people that our business is a brewery,” he said. “But whether people come here to have a beer or a pizza and a beer, I don’t really care. In fact, it’s probably a good thing that the food has been really popular here because I never wanted this place to be bar where people came here just to drink and get intoxicated. So, with people coming here to eat and enjoy the beer, that’s probably much better for our image. I like the positive feedback we hear about our beer, but it’s also encouraging when you hear people talk about how good the food is, like our pizza and wings. It’s all fresh. Everything is homemade, like the sauces, dough and desserts.”
Because the food has been more popular than what the owners had expected, the building had to change a bit to accommodate the number of people going there to eat and drink beer. When Flyover first opened, part of the building featured a lounge area with small tables where people could enjoy their drinks.
“But within six months, we realized that wasn’t going to work at all,” Andrea said. “We had to quickly re-do that area to put more tables over there so there was room for more people to drink their beer and eat.”
Andrea said she likes the options on their food menu, but the owners are always thinking of new ideas to add to the menu to keep it fresh and exciting.
“Our food doesn’t change drastically, but it is fun to introduce something new every now and then, like with salads and appetizers,” Andrea said. “We like to incorporate local products, too, when we can, like local honey. We also use Colorado peaches. We try to come up with creative combinations.”
The owners also like brainstorming ideas to not just bring more traffic into the business but also provide a fun evening of entertainment for people in the community. For example, Flyover Brewing Company hosts a comedian once a month, and it also has bands perform there about once a month.
“Whenever we have a band here or a comedian, those are always big nights,” Andrea said. “Having entertainment here like that has been a really good fit for our business.”
The design of the building, Andrea said, has also helped attract customers. The owners intentionally designed the brewery to make people feel like they’re in a big-city business.
“When people walk in for the first time, you see the ‘Wow’ look on their faces,” she said. “We get tons of people who tell us that it feels like they’re in Fort Collins. People tell us the atmosphere is really cool here.”
Going into year two of their business, Joe said he would like to put a heavier emphasis on educating the public after the brewing process. Doing that, he said, will help more people understand the unique beers that Flyover Brewing Company offers.
“I’ve thought about making short video clips about the brewing process and posting them on Facebook,” he said. “I think it would be nice to have little 5-minute video clips, for example, where we talk to Derek about recipe development, the water profile, the different steps of the brew day, the different steps of fermentation, and the different steps of packaging. A lot of people have no idea how beer is made. So, for the general public, it might be interesting for them to know what actually happens back here. Educating people about the different beers we offer might also help them expand their palate a little bit.”
Part of the owners’ vision for the near future is to become more involved in distributing its beer to bars, restaurants, and grocery stores outside this area, such as in Lincoln and Omaha. They’ve even talked about potentially building some Flyover Brewing Company satellite locations. Beer would continue to be brewed in Scottsbluff but then would be transported to these satellite locations.
“I don’t see us getting into that real soon, though,” Joe said. “Maybe about five years down the road, once we’re good with the regulatory components and we’re good with the management of our volume of beer. We’re going to focus first on distribution – getting that established well and meeting the demands of that.”
Joe said he and the owners feel no pressure to grow their business at any particular pace. Their number one priority is still on making their business in Scottsbluff as strong as possible because they enjoy serving the people in this area and offering them something that they can’t find nearby.
“That’s been the best part of this whole project, receiving all the positive feedback from people who are excited that we’re here,” Joe said. “We’ve had so many people tell us things like, ‘Thank you so much for doing this’ or ‘It’s awesome for our community.’ Nothing makes you feel better or motivates you more than when people tell you, ‘This is a great place to go.’”
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