“We are a veteran-owned and veteran-operated brewery,” he said, noting that master brewer Dan Sartin ’78 who played defensive end for the Army football team and assistant brewer Jeff Hyatt recently retired from the Army, where he was a pilot for the 160th Special Operations Aviation Regiment “Night Stalkers” at Hunter Army Airfield.
“So our name reflects our service and the service of all those who came before us and will come after, but, even though Dan, Jeff and I are all former Army and 92 percent of our investors are former military, we don’t want the term service to be exclusive to the military. Many people choose to serve their country and community in different ways. We have priests, nurses, school teachers, police and firefighters up there along with military,” he said.
While Ryan says he has been a craft beer fan since he was old enough to drink, he didn’t start thinking about brewing until three years ago when girlfriend Meredith Sutton — a graduate of Savannah College of Art and Design and, as Service Brewing’s creative marketing director, the only non-military member of the team — gave him a home brewing kit for Valentine’s Day. Full Story»