USA, IN: Logansport Brewing Co. looking for new owner

The owner of Logansport Brewing Co. is determined that it will reopen soon. However, Brandon Barron said he will no longer be part of it, even as partial owner, pharostribune.com reported on September 14.

He’s moving downstate for a new job, but he’s talking to interested people about purchasing the brewery.

He wants to make sure the brewery continues — even without him — and to set the new owners up to succeed.

“It’s my baby. I’m not going to let it go by the wayside,” he said.

Barron had incorporated two of the original recipes for beer from the original Logansport Brewing Co., the first brewery in the city.

As a historian, he also planned to incorporate parts of the Columbia Brewing Co. and K.D. Schmidt breweries, which were the subsequent buyers of the original brewery.

However, whether the next owners go with his vision is up to them, he said.

“The direction is going to be significantly improved from where I had it,” he said.

The brewery is also in arbitration for location and may be in a new venue or still at 27 S. 3rd St. — the former Firestone Tire building on the south side of Third Street Bridge.

“They’d like to stay as downtown as possible,” Barron said.

The brewery closed on Aug. 13 with a sign on the door that said the closure was temporary.

Barron declined to discuss details but acknowledged the rumors he’d been in jail were true, adding that the misdemeanor charge would be taken care of soon. Court records indicate that Barron was arrested on a misdemeanor charge of invasion of privacy on July 31. A bench trial is currently scheduled for Oct. 8.

But as the sole owner and manager, he was unable to run the business while indisposed.

Barron opened the brewery on June 3 after marketing it for more than a year.

One of the changes for the new owners will be that they will have a stronger start than he did.

He believes it hurt his business to start slow with two on tap at a time.

“I should’ve opened with a lot more beers,” he said.

Although there’s a niche for a brewery in Logansport, limiting the beers likely lessened the business’s appeal. Many people here like franchises and name brand beers, he said. Others may not have been used to the idea of craft beers or beers made locally.

“Logansport hasn’t had a brewery in recent memory,” he said.

However, people did like much of what he had done.

“I think I nailed the historical aspect pretty well. Everyone loved the beers and food,” he said.

It wasn’t just people from Logansport.

Though aggressive online marketing, Barron had made the business known on the craft brewery circuit, and people came not only from across the state but from places like Wisconsin, Florida and Louisville.

“We had a pretty good amount of following from a regional perspective,” he said.

If the sale that Barron is negotiating doesn’t go through, he will look for another buyer.

“My goal is to make Logansport Brewing stay,” he said.

17 September, 2019