Brewing beer in his driveway surrounded by combustion equipment and contraptions, Dan Haskins often explained his hobby to confused neighbors who passed by.
That was until he met his neighbor, Eric Hatton, in 2019, who instead of asking, ‘What are you doing?’ asked him, “What are you brewing?”
To Haskins’'s surprise, Hatton had been home-brewing for a decade in his backyard. They soon began collaborating on their shared hobby along with another neighbor, Brett Haaser. From then on, the men met each Saturday, brewing from early morning to late afternoon and tasting beers brewed on previous Saturdays.
After noticing their operation, Roland Reeb, another hophead, eagerly joined the team in 2021.
Come one, come all
After a day of brewing, the men reconvened at night and lit a campfire which became a smoke signal to all their neighbors that it was time to enjoy a home-brewed beer. Word caught on about their Saturday night get-togethers and the men became hyper-local celebrities in their community.
But, for the men, the tradition was never about gaining attention, but bringing people together and enjoying the hoppy, malty fruits of their labor.
“It was more than just us. It was the whole neighborhood,” Reeb says. “We were creating so much that, despite how much we did drink on our own, we had more than we could ever drink. So, we would naturally hand it out, asking for opinions…we kind of became known for handing out free beers as long as you offered up your honest opinion.”
Engineering flavor
While brewing was a leisure activity for the men, they took the quality of their beers seriously, tasting each tap multiple times throughout the brewing process to estimate when it may be ready to pour. Then, they took notes on how the beer matured, helping them create a better product each time.
A love for brewing beer isn’t the only thing the men have in common. All are proud dads with backgrounds in analytics – Hatton, Haaser and Haskins being engineers and Reeb, an accountant. Their inclination to think in numbers and patterns has lent well to their practice.
“We’re really good at keeping close attention to all of the details that go into each specific batch,” Haskins says. “So, we’'re treating it more or less like a science experiment and we’'re tracking all of the data, and that’'s how you get better, you log everything, take notes of everything, and then you do a taste analysis,…”
Each of the men has varying taste preferences in beer, keeping their collective drink list unique and varied.
“Each of us would get to pick the next one that we did. If we got an IPA, the next time we do something like a sour for Roland, and Eric is more like a German beer traditionalist, so you’'ll end up seeing that reflected on the offerings that we bring out because we have grown to appreciate all those different styles too,” Haskins says.
Maisie Fitzmaurice
(left-right) Brett Haaser, Eric Hatton, Dan Haskins, Roland Reeb
Commercial combustion
The weekly campfires often hosted conversations lasting that lasted late into the night, as the men sat around discussing.
Naturally, they’d joke about what it’d be like to sell their beers or own a large-scale brewery.
“It’'s like, ‘Hey, what can pusht this thing to the next level? Yeah, we should do that, we should do that.’ And the next day, you’'re like, ‘That sounds exhausting,’” Haskins says.
Reeb kept dreaming of what could be, and over time his excitement convinced the others to seriously consider the possibilities.
“(Reeb) came on board and was like, ‘Man, you guys make a pretty darn good beer,’ and he’'s like, ‘Why don’'t we do it?’” Haskins says. “Obviously, he’'s going to be kind of the running the numbers guy, and that was the one missing piece that we didn’'t realize, at the time, we were looking for, and it just started coming together.”
So, the men started crunching the numbers, took business courses, sought advice from small business counselors and learned about business structure and staying organized. They connected with established local breweries, including Nocterra Brewing and Hoof Hearted, to visit their facilities.
The last box to check before pulling the trigger was to getting their families on board. They put all their findings together into a presentation to show their wives.
“I think (our wives) see the drive and the passion to want to do this, and at some point, no wife, no spouse who cares about you wants to stand in the way of that,” Reeb says. “We are all four are very lucky that we have loving and supporting wives and family because they’'re kind of the true rock stars here…”
In 2025, the men officially opened their brewery, Campfire Brewing, paying tribute to the days of backyard campfires with the community.
“Now we get to share with hundreds of people and see the same reaction that our friends and family were giving us, that’'s what we aim to recreate here, that neighborhood gathering space centered around our beers, but also still inclusive and full of fun,” Haskins says. “If the community is having fun here, we’'re having fun here.”
Brewing is not only a science, it’s an art. Here are some of the brewers’ most unique and fun creations.
Maisie Fitzmaurice
Smoked IPA: “It’'s a bright sort of IPA, a little similar to a Bell's Two Hearted IPA, with a touch of smoke ale that rounds out the flavor into something really unique, and it goes along with the campfire theme,” Reeb says.
Habanero Stout: “It’'s a milk chocolate stout base, then we throw habaneros in it, and then on top of that, we have another barrel that has raspberries in it, and then you mix and match,” Reeb says. “It’s got a little bit of that sweetness and a little bit of that spicy, and that is just delicious.”
Orange Dreamsicle IPA: “It's a hazy IPA base that is heavy on the orange and with just a little bit of lactose that makes it taste like an orange creamsicle from your childhood,” Reeb says.
Maisie Fitzmaurice is an editor at CityScene Media Group. Feedback welcome at mfitzmaurice@cityscenemediagroup.com.
