Mountain Biking May Have Cost Pennsylvania The Oskar Blues East Coast Brewery

We all know that Oskar Blues Dale Katechis is a big mountain biking enthusiast.  also had heard one of the reasons Dale chose Brevard NC for his east coast brewery location was because it was an area he was familiar with from mountain biking retreats.  Bit now comes word from a cnbc interview that Pennsylvania would have made more sense, were it not for the mountain-bike-factor.  This from CNBC:

That truly is 100 percent the initial reason and the thought behind putting a brewery in Brevard, N.C. It’s not really an epicenter of shipping or on a major thoroughfare. (laughing) It’s a place where I have come to retreat and it is some of the most pristine mountain biking in the country. I thought if I’m going to be away from home, maybe I can bring my kids to a place where I can also get some work done and we’re able to save on the cost of shipping beer to the East Coast.

I wouldn’t call it a sacrifice, but would it have made more sense to put the brewery in some other place like Pennsylvania? Sure it probably would have saved us millions but it’s not really the driving force behind our decisions. I believe that there is a connection that resonates with our customers that our driving force isn’t really 100 percent for the sake of profit. It’s that we’re real guys who like to do real things and we like to have a good time and we’re going to grow a business along the way.