EDMONDS — Dennis Gallagher had just lost his job as a cook on a Puget Sound tugboat in 1994 when he watched a television segment about people making their own beer.
The piece focused on a Canadian equipment and supplies provider and how an unemployed man the same age as Gallagher started a U-Brew business.
Gallagher and his wife Sandy did some research, contacted the company and found a storefront in Edmonds close to their home.
And that’s how they started Gallaghers’ Where-U-Brew 20 years ago.
“I never wanted my own business,” Dennis Gallagher said.
“We opened at a good time,” Sandy Gallagher said. “U-Brew was exploding.”
Gallagher’s Where-U-Brew offers guests the opportunity to brew beer or make wine with all the proprietary recipes and supplies provided.
Guests can also quaff a pint of beer, fill a growler or have a party among the steam-fired, copper brewing kettles.
It has become an Edmonds institution with the Gallaghers fostering a friendly pub-like feel for their customers.
“People have made friends, prospered in life and shared their successes,” Dennis Gallagher said. “It’s not just about making beer. It’s about the importance of life and making a social connection.”
Customers bring in friends and groups, sharing their enthusiasm for the process. One group has been returning regularly since 1997.
The family feel reflected back on the Gallaghers as demonstrated in December 2010 when the operation moved from the original downtown location to a larger facility by the Port of Edmonds. A group of 40 customers descended on the store to pack and move equipment, including the large kettles.
After the Gallaghers moved into their new location, American Brewing Company opened in an adjacent spot and Salish Sea Brewing opened across the street.
“It is not about keeping people brewing batches of beer for years,” Dennis Gallagher said. “It is about creating a memory that customers tell their friends about. That is how to build a business. It is slow and arduous, but it works.”
Now the business is changing hands. Marcie and Tom Kretzler had such good memories of Gallaghers’ that they bought the business in October from the Gallaghers.
The Kretzlers — Marcie, an optician, and Tom, who works in technology — were looking for something different that they could do together. The couple have been married for a year. They plan to keep the name, Gallaghers’ Where-U-Brew.
“We are planning to keep that sense of community,” Marcie Kretzler said.
“It’s like coming home,” said Tom Kretzler, whose grandfather was a longtime Edmonds resident and physician.
The business created 20 years of memories, fun and sometimes headaches for the Gallaghers.
“When things go wrong, you have to fix it,” Dennis Gallagher said.
He recalled coming close to running out of bottles.
He got on the phone and found three pallets in Utah. Another time the strong Euro caused most of the Washington hop crop to be shipped to Europe. Relationships fostered over the years helped Gallaghers’ ingredient supply.
Dennis Gallagher credits his success to showing up every day and paying keen attention to his hiring.
He and his wife emphasize that this work is not suited as a career for all craft beer enthusiasts.
“You have to hire right, and cut early if they don’t work out,” Dennis Gallagher said. “If you don’t like washing fermenters, this may not be a good fit. You have to like being cold and wet. The only glamour is in the end product.”
Once hired and trained in the art of U-Brew, the Gallaghers send their employees to Hopunion, a business in Yakima that offers a Hop &Brew School.
Gallaghers’ has been awarded top honors for their beers at local beer festivals. Former employees have gone on to larger brewers such as Scuttlebutt Brewing, Elysian Brewing and Mac &Jack’s.
In the early years Dennis became a source for U-Brew information while he was struggling to build his own business.
“It was a challenge to get people to stop picking my brain and just brew a batch,” he recalls. “That is the only way to learn this business.”
Gallaghers’ three full-time employees will continue with the new owners.
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