Quick Sips: His boss told him the work was drying up, so he built a brewery instead. | JR Heaps | South County Brewery

Ready To Drink Podcast · Apr 20, 2026 · 3m

Send us Fan MailThe 2008 housing crash didn't end JR Heaps' career - it started one.JR was doing historic restoration and timber frame design-build work when his boss pulled him aside and basically said: the projects are drying up, you might want to chase that beer thing.So he did.He built his own version of the Brutus 10 homebrew system - pumps, temperature controllers, a 10-gallon setup he'd been dialing in for years. Then he went hunting for affordable commercial equipment and found four Grundy tanks from an old pub in Virginia, originally imported from England. Cut two of them apart to…