Life & Work with Joel Stickrod

Today we’d like to introduce you to Joel Stickrod. 

Hi Joel, thanks for sharing your story with us. To start, maybe you can tell our readers some of your backstories.
Barrique Brewing was started out of my love for sour beers. After discovering the style in Europe, upon returning to the United States sour beers at the time were very hard to find and very expensive. With a decent amount of homebrewing experience and knowledge, I decided to start making sour beers myself. This quickly turned into a basement full of small oak barrels and an obsession. I realized it may be time to turn this hobby into a profession, and got my foot in the door by interning at a local brewery in Franklin TN. This internship turned into employment and the resident “sour guy”. After a few years, I felt ready to start my own project and Barrique was formed. Brewing in general has (and still is) a side project, as I tour full time with Darius Rucker and Hootie and the Blowfish as a sound engineer. 

Barrique was formed in 2018 the warehouse that houses Darius Ruckers sound equipment, by me sectioning off a 576 sqft corner of extra space and licensing it as a brewery. The first year I started with 48 wine barrels and brewed 7 different batches. After the first summer and watching the beers be on track for what I expected, I decided to double down and moved to 100 casks. In early 2019 I sold the first Barrique bottles, selling about 3000 bottles that year. With great feedback and good success in the original launch, I decided to double down again for 2020 and expanded to 1500 sqft and 300 wine barrels. In 2020, through curb-side pickup and direct-to-customer sales, I sold about 10,000 bottles. When 2021 came around, and my 1500 sqft strategically full to the brim, I was presented the opportunity to expand into the current facility at 30 Oldham St (which previously help little Harpeth brewing), purchase their brewing equipment, and expand yet again to now 600 wine barrels. This also led to the hiring of Barrique’s first employees, and in May 2021 finally opening a public tasting room. 

Alright, so let’s dig a little deeper into the story – has it been an easy path overall, and if not, what were the challenges you’ve had to overcome?
The first years of barrique were a one-man operation, usually burning the midnight oil, which can be a challenge in its self. As a self-funded entity, and a business model of beers which age for 18-24+ months, there was a lot of creativity during the first few years. 2020 and the pandemic obviously provided its own challenge, however being solely packaged in bottles and self-distributed helped, as well as local legislation providing DTC sales and curbside pickup opportunities. 

As you know, we’re big fans of you and your work. For our readers who might not be as familiar what can you tell them about what you do?
As one side, I am a touring sound engineer for Darius Rucker and Hootie and the Blowfish. I have worked with them for 13 years and still do to this day. We typically work only weekends Labor Day through Memorial Day and take most of the winter off. 

This allowed me to start Barrique in a unique way. With barrel-aged sour beers, there is a flexibility that doesn’t exist with traditional brewing. This allowed me to go out of town on tour and come back to Nashville to work on the barrels and beers during the downtime. 

Barrique in general specializes in all oak fermented and aged beers at this point. Everything we make goes through oak, which is very unique and uncommon. At this point, we specialize in aged wild (sour) ales and German-inspired lagerbier. 

So, before we go, how can our readers or others connect or collaborate with you? How can they support you?
We have done a handful of collaborations with other breweries, both from Nashville as well as from around the country. These are great opportunities to not only hang out with friends, but to learn and grow from different people’s concepts, ideals, visions, passions, and experiences. Locally, we have collaborated with different liquor stores and restaurants by either utilizing store pick barrels and curating custom blends unique to these or by inventing chef’s and restaurant teams into our facility to curate blends unique for their restaurant, then paired with food. 

Contact Info:

• Email: [email protected]
• Website: www.barriquebrewing.com
• Instagram: @barriquebrewing
• Facebook: @barriquebrewing