CBB In a broader sense, how did your vision for the brewery change from pre-launch through the first few years?
JC When Esther and I first started the brewery, we had a super-vague notion of what it even meant to operate a brewery. Never having done it before, we had this romantic notion of what Trillium might grow up to be, which is a New England farmhouse brewery. Early days, getting started in a 2,300-square-foot-space in the middle of the city, you can’t really get much farther away from what that vague notion would be. The path that might eventually lead to that was still just a hope at that point, and there wasn’t a plan to get there. It was one foot in front of the other, staring at the ground, hope to live another day. We still had our full-time jobs and two young kids and barely had our heads above water.
CBB Why do that, then, at that point in your life? Why jump into that kind of risk?