Today we’d like to introduce you to Derrin Williams and Brad Mall.
Brad and Derrin began as home brewers individually and then began to brew together about 9 years ago. After entering numerous contests and winning awards, we saw the wave of breweries opening in the DFW market and believed that we could and wanted to do the same. After writing a business plan, raising capital, finding a facility, and construction, we opened the doors on July 16, 2015.
Currently, they offer six year around beers, five seasonal beers, and five barrel aged beers. They are also nearing their second fermenter expansion to keep up with demand.
We’re always bombarded by how great it is to pursue your passion, etc – but we’ve spoken with enough people to know that it’s not always easy. Overall, would you say things have been easy for you?
It has been a relatively smooth road with potholes along the way. The hardest part was getting the doors open. Not raising the capital, but going through the construction permit and CO process. There are hurdles you cross the whole way, but getting the construction permit was probably the largest and one of the most rewarding.
As always, hind sight is 20/20 and there are definitely some small things we would have done differently.
So let’s switch gears a bit and go into the Oak Highlands Brewery story. Tell us more about the business.
We make beer, and beer makes people happy. So, we are in the business of making people happy.
Has luck played a meaningful role in your life and business?
We would like to think none, but there is always some luck involved. The one good stroke of luck we can think of is a city employee telling us not to lease a space that we were going to because of the building zoning. It would have delayed us at least six months and cost us tens of thousands of dollars.
Contact Info:
- Address: 10484 Brockwood Road, Dallas, TX 75238
- Taproom hours: Thurs/Fri 4-8, Sat 12-6.
- Website: oakhighlandsbrewery.com
- Phone: 4698029455
- Email: derrin@ohbrewery.com
- Instagram: @oakhighlandsbrewery
- Facebook: facebook.com/oakhighlands.brewery
- Twitter: @oakhighlands
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