On a cold and grey late Fall day, Spotlight on Business spoke to Bare Bones Brewing co- owner Dan Dringoli. He came to the phone a little out of breath and in need of a coffee, as he was out inspecting the new solar panels that were being installed onto the brewery. It set a nice tone for the picture he was about to paint of a sustainable, conscientious business in Oshkosh, Wisconsin, situated directly next to a state bicycle trail. On May 29th, 2015, Bare Bones Brewery opened its doors, bringing the first craft brewery to Oshkosh in 20 years. Just by happenstance, Dringoli was traveling around his home state and stumbled upon a small craft brewery in Eagle River, Wisconsin called “Tribute.” It was a very basic set-up, simple plumbing, sheet-steel building… really, nothing special to look at. But it left a lasting impression on Dringoli for one reason, the beer was fantastic. That snapshot in time resonated enough to plant the seed of possibility into Dringoli’s entrepreneurial mind. A short time later, Bare Bones was brewing beer with Dan Dringoli at the helm. By John Allaire
I guess I started brewing beer back in the 80s, before I was actually of legal age to drink! Me and my high school buddies thought it’d be a good idea to make our own beer. We could legally buy beer-making materials, and at 16 or 17 years old, we started making beer at people’s houses after school. We’d go in the basement and our parents didn’t know about it… Eventually they found out about it because of the weird smells in the house. Eventually, they were kind of supportive. They didn’t think we could pull it off, but they liked the science behind it, so they let us go to it.” Well, low-and- behold, pull it off they did! And this led to Dringoli diving headlong into the home brewing hobby. But along came children, responsibility and less time for the expendables in life. His passion for brewing sat dormant for a few years until that fateful trip to Eagle River and a couple of pints of Tribute’s best. His passion for craft beer had been renewed. The home brew fires had been rekin- dled. And that smell from the basement started emanating through the floor-boards once again. The story turns forlorn and tragic at this point. Dringoli was faced with having to move his current business, a water- and- fire-damage franchise, to another location. During the transition of moving to a larger space, his in-laws were tragically killed in a collision with a logging truck. Fast-forward a few months down the road and the inher- ited insurance money and other savings were sitting there in a bank account, waiting for a good idea. Wishing to turn a tragedy into a legacy, Dan and his wife Patti decided to use the excess space from the franchise business to start a brewery. Being ahead of the craft beer curve, Dringoli had long developed a palette for brews that were significantly differ- ent from the big budget macro-brewed lagers sold in every pub and restaurant in America. In fact, the Bare Bones website has “Fear No Beer” in big lettering directly under their pit-bull emblazoned logo. “That all originated as kind
of a weird thing. And it ties into our logo. It’s an American Stafford Terrier — also known as a pit bull… My wife and I are dog lovers and we always rescue dogs. We saw this cute puppy at the rescue and brought it home thinking it was a hound mix of some kind. Our first vet visit, he told us we have a very cute pit bull! We were shocked!” “Quality beer drinking experience off the beaten path.” This all funnels down to a discussion on perceptions — judging books by their covers, painting with a broad brush, you know, maxims like that. People fear pit bulls as man-eat- ing killers (which is a point for another feature article, not this one!), as they might fear different craft beers that don’t taste like their usual macro-brewed beers. Bare Bones is trying to change that perception and educate some palettes at the same time. “There are a lot of people in the beer world that will say ‘I don’t drink that motor oil stuff… oh this IPA thing, it’s so gross’ and so forth. They’ve got this real fear towards craft beer because they’re used to ‘big beers.’ And I can’t tell you how many people we’ve flipped!” Dringoli says with a chuckle that he often sees people being reluctant- ly dragged into the craft beer scene by someone who is already a convert. They’ll start slow and build their way up. “I’ll say to them ‘Do you want to try the Pilsner?’ And they’ll drink that and say ‘that’s not bad!’ And I joke with them… ‘That’s what we strive for here at Bare Bones. We strive for not bad…’” He explains that once the hesitation and fear over trying something new has been overcome, the result tends to be a greater experimentation with IPAs and heavi- er-tasting brews. Thus the Fear No Beer mantra. Ease them in and soon they’ll be shouting for more hops! Bare Bones location alongside a state bike trail also factors into their sales and marketing efforts. Aside from their website being quick to use descriptive puns like “Bare
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NOVEMBER 2017 • SPOTLIGHT ON BUSINESS MAGAZINE
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