Jeremy Eubanks’ decade of brewing has nearly reached a crossroads.
Eubanks opened Kirkland’s first microbrewery in May 2014 on Northeast 124th Street, and has enjoyed success in the first two years of his latest business venture — enough success, he says, that Flycaster Brewing is looking at a season of change.
“We’ve grown this year and hit demand again, so we’ll either have to keep going and build out this location to get bigger brew systems in, or sell it off and go into the next big thing,” said Eubanks of the tiny Totem Lake brewery, which boasts about 30 beers and a rotating tap with seven or eight house drafts.
Eubanks worked as a program manager at Microsoft for 16 years before leaving the tech giant in January, devoting his full attention to Flycaster’s growing demand and the hunt for larger clients.
But there’s a problem: Eubanks recently began working for Expedia to help offset the costs of running a microbrewery. Flycaster has four employees, but Eubanks is still busy after hours and on weekends.
“If I have a full-time job and I’m here a lot, how do I get out and hit all the bars and restaurants in the area?” he said. “I’m wanting to grow in that phase now, and I can’t just go out and hire a bunch of sales guys. I’m financing this myself; I didn’t take investors on.”
Eubanks said he is focusing on Kirkland, rather than driving up and down the Eastside looking for takers, but getting in — despite being one of two local breweries — isn’t easy.
The tasting room and beer club have both been successful. Eubanks started with four beers, a red, a blonde, a pale ale and an IPA, all of which he still carries.
The next Flycaster standard is likely the Extra Special Bitter, which won the Bitters division at the Washington Father’s Day Beer Festival in June.
“It was kind of cool for us,” Eubanks said. “I grew up drinking Redhook ESB, so being able to beat them in a competition was cool. There were some other big ESBs out there that we beat that have won national competitions, so I’m excited for next year to enter that one in more categories.”
The beer club, which Eubanks has had to cap at 75 members, has been a popular option. Eubanks is planning a flyfishing trip — riding the idea that the brewery was founded on — for October.
The business combines his love of beer with his love of flyfishing, the latter of which Eubanks says he’s been doing since he was a kid. As he got older, he began to plan flyfishing trips in locations with good microbreweries.
“I haven’t made a penny in two and a half years, but that was the plan,” Eubanks said. “That wasn’t what it was about. It was about, ‘Can we get people in,’ and ‘can we make some beer people drink.'”