KWWL.com - News & Weather for Waterloo, Dubuque, Cedar Rapids & Iowa City, Iowa | Local man's beer formula is brewed for eastern Iowans

Local man's beer formula is brewed for eastern Iowans

by Danielle Wagner

JANESVILLE (IOWA) John Greenley of Janesville is the creator of Briar Creek Brewery.

Greenley began selling his brew about a month ago in eastern Iowa. Roots Market in Cedar Falls is one of 58 locations where his Towhead Ale is sold.

Greenley said the recipe came through practice, experimentation and book reading.

"I tried it out with family and friends and brewed more batches and found it was something I could recreate," said John Greenley.

But business grew so quickly, Greenley no longer brews all his beer at his home. Instead, he does contract brewing.

"In contract brewing you find a brewery, in this case a brewery up in Wisconsin, and we contract one batch of beer through them with my recipe. We buy the entire batch and then we have our beer," said Greenley.

Greenley said he wanted to create a beer for people to drink at barbecues and picnics.

"It wasn't our goal to have a beer to open a brewery. Our goal was to have a beer that was good, and then I  just wanted to go one step farther and sell it and I found the only way you can do that is to be a brewery," he said.

The ultimate goal is to build a brewery in the Janesville area as well as expand the product line. But for the time being, Greenley is focusing his goals on the community in which he lives.

"We could take money from our brewery and put it right back to the community here in the Cedar Valley. We don't want to be a brewery that just gets people drunk. I don't think that's an honorable goal," he said. 

Greenley distributes the beer himself because he said it's his way of staying connected to the the sellers and the buyers.

For more information on Briar Creek Brewery, click here.

Reporter: Danielle Wagner