How Night Shift Brewing came into existence is not a unique story among independent breweries. Stop me if you’ve heard it: Three homebrewing buddies start their own brewery. What’s happened since then, however, is anything but common. The story of Night Shift is one of constant testing and branching out into new realms.
What began not quite nine years ago in Boston’s north suburbs as a 3.5-barrel kit in an industrial park has blossomed into a wide-ranging drinks company, including a distribution business that now moves more than 1 million cases per year. Visitors to the Night Shift website don’t see “Our Beers” out front; they see “Our Products,” and the drop-down includes coffee, hard seltzer, hard cider, wine, and coffee. Coming soon: hard tea.
Here’s how it works for them: They get an idea—maybe it comes from the founders, maybe it comes from the team. They try it out on a small scale, with a leading role for innovation brewer Anna Jobe. If it doesn’t work, they keep tweaking until it does, or they move on.
If it does work, they embrace it and go big.