The process of brewing beer is an involved one. Water and milled grains are mashed together to make wort, which gets boiled with hops before cooling. From there, the beer ferments with yeast, dry hops and spices and then gets filtered and carbonated. Once that’s over, the newly brewed beer gets bottled and packaged.
“The job gives you an insight into a product that has been a part of human civilization almost from day one,” Jon Powell, the owner and brewer at Hop & Sting Brewery, says. “I’m always amazed to think that people were making beer centuries ago without the aid of the technology we have today.”
A 2003 Carroll grad, Jon’s eyes were opened to brewing while attending Humboldt State University in Northern California.
“There were four or five breweries, and all of them were thriving,” Jon says. “The Pacific Northwest had an amazing brewing and beer culture that showed me the intricacies and variety available.”
That, coupled with his experience at a friend’s house for a “Learn To Homebrew Day,” led Jon to dive into all things brewing.
“The more I learned, the more I was hooked,” Jon says.
After graduating from college, Jon spent three years homebrewing. After that, he decided to go all-in on professional brewing, leaving his job as the oil and gas inspector for the city of Flower Mound. Joining the American Brewers Guild, Jon soon added brewery experience to his resume, working at Rahr and Sons in Fort Worth among other breweries.
But he and his business partner Brian Burton felt the call to go off on their own. So after two years of developing recipes out of Jon’s parents’ barn, the pair started Hop & Sting Brewery, with its first commercial beers hitting the market in 2017.
“We make a wide variety of beers because we want everyone to be able to find a beer they enjoy,” Jon says. “Our flagship brands are Aluminum Cowboy, Miracle Blood Orange Wheat and Northeast Texas IPA.”
Though the taproom is located in Grapevine, Hop & Sting’s brews can be found in local stores all over the Metroplex and statewide in Oklahoma.
“It’s not always a glamorous job,” Jon says. “But we couldn’t see ourselves doing anything else.”