The Two Brothers Story
The Concise Story
Two Brothers Brewing Company was founded by Jim and Jason Ebel in late 1996. The business was envisioned by the brothers based on their entry into entrepreneurship with The Brewer’s Coop, a retail store catering to home beer and wine making. In 1993 The Brewer’s Coop opened its doors in Naperville, IL selling retail ingredients and equipment for the homebrewing community. The more they were surrounded by brewing, the more passionate they became about opening their own microbrewery. In early 1996 they decided to take the plunge and start writing a business plan. Several months later their dream became reality. Two Brothers Brewing Company is still 100% family owned.
The Long Version
Both Jim and Jason had spent time as ex-pats in Europe and learned the diversity and culture of European beers. Upon returning their options in flavor oriented craft beers was virtually non-existent, so Jim began homebrewing to replicate the beer styles he had come to love. He shared some of his brews with Jason and they decided to brew a batch together. This was the catalyst for Jason to start in on the hobby. In the coming years, much of their time together, Jim and Jason did little except talk of beer and brewing.
During this time, Jim was accepted to DePaul University’s College of Law and Jason moved to Colorado and started his professional brewing career. Jim continued to run The Brewer's Coop with the help of his wife and mother. As The Brewer's Coop got busier, Jason moved back to Chicago and started working at the store too.
It didn’t take long for them to begin dreaming of running their own brewery. After a while the constant talk of having a brewery started to drive the families crazy until they said "open a brewery or shut-up". And so the planning started for Two Brothers Brewing Company. Initially the thought was to open a Pub, but with little financing and no knowledge of restaurant management, they quickly decided on a production facility.
As planning began, Jason went for his degree in brewing at the Siebel Institute of Technology. The planning proceeded, Jim graduated from Law School and Jason received his diploma in Brewing and Fermentation Sciences. Jim’s knowledge of the Law and running a business, with Jason’s expertise in brewing they finalized the business plan in early 1996. Armed with desire, determination and the plan, they set-out to find financing. After months of bank interviews and hounding every family member they could think of, they had the modest budget they need to begin their adventure.
The brewery was designed around the brewhouse, a custom design produced in Vancouver and planned by Jason based on the traditional 3-vessel brewhouse’s of Germany. Jim and Jason were both passionate about Hefeweizen style beers, and the brewery’s design was intended to aid in the brewing of this world class beer. The rest of the brewery equipment was mostly donated! The Ebel brother’s grandfather, a retired dairy farmer, donated his bulk milk tanks, which were quickly converted to fermenters. The aging tanks were dairy cream tanks. There was no bottling line, Two Brothers Brewing Company began as a draft only brewery.
Today, the only thing left of the original brewery is the brewhouse itself. In 1998 Two Brothers secured an 8-head bottling line which had a capacity of about 16 bottles per minute. Due to increased sales and demand, Two Brothers replaced their 8 head bottle filler in 2003, with a state of the art 20 head machine that has a capacity of 140 bottles per minute. Two Brothers Brewing Company continues to update the brewery with the goal of delivering the highest quality beer to the marketplace.
Two Brothers’ family of great beers are currently available in Illinois, Wisconsin, Indiana, Ohio, Pennsylvania and Massachusetts.