ROOBREW > Our Story > How We Got Started

How We Got Started

The 3 owners of ROOBREW, LLC, Barry Rosenbaum, Gordon Schorr and John Myers provide economic development assistance to the University of Akron and entrepreneurship support services to the Northeast Ohio region. We decided to start our business to enhance our experience in start-up businesses. All of us have industry experience, and all have successful track records of innovation within our past companies, but none of us had started a business from scratch.

We have all made our own beer, either at home or through companies that provide the platform for brewing your own. So now we know what business to start. The mascot for the University of Akron is a kangaroo, Zippy, the 2008 Capital One National Mascot of the Year. So, after some brainstorming, we came up with the new corporation's name, ROOBREW. Now we got a name. How hard could it be to start a microbrew brand?

Fortunately, we have Thirsty Dog Brewing located one block behind our offices. The owner, John Najeway, was gracious enough to meet with us to discuss the process of starting a microbrew. He liked our story, has capacity available and offered to brew our beer. John has been absolutely critical to our endeavor, providing guidance on larger scale brewing, recipe, choosing distributors, marketing, packaging, forecasting (almost nonexistent in this business), essentially all aspects of the business. We were newbies after all.

The first challenge was licensing. Our relationship with Thirsty Dog is somewhat unique in the state of Ohio. Most start-ups have the beer brewed outside the state and shipped in. We are actually having the beer "manufacturing" contracted in-state, and selling in-state. We don't fit the 3 primary classes of licenses in Ohio; brewer, distributor, retailer, nor are we a true importer. After some weeks of back and forth with the state, and assistance from the Wholesalers Beer & Wine Association of Ohio, we received special dispensation as an importer, an S-1 license, saving us between $3,000 and 4,000/ year in fees.

Deciding on recipes and names for our first 2 varieties was also fun. Tim Rastetter, TD's Master Brewer, created unique recipes based on our tastes and interests. Litigation Lager, a Munich Helles style is a session beer, easy to drink and full flavored. Kickin' Tail Ale is an American style ale, with a fruity and slightly sweet finish.

As should be expected, the University had some reservations about our corporate name, considering their highly successful and award winning athletic slogans; "Fear the ROO" and "ROOTown". After some successful discussion with their legal folks, we decided to call the first variety Litigation Lager. We do contribute a portion of our profits to the University for scholarships.

Kickin' Tail Ale's name came from targeting the sports market. We hope to be served in the loge and club seat areas of the new University of Akron Football Stadium, as well the Akron Aeros Double A baseball team stadium. And the name is fun to say. We also ran into some label approval issues with the Federal Agency, they objected to the name until we sent a rebuttal explaining we weren't encouraging over-drinking to "get your tail kicked", but are based on a fuzzy kangaroo's tail. Official approval is expected today. I'm sure some of your readers can relate.