overview

Before Blockhead Beerworks, owner Cory Muro opened a very successful string of restaurants called Tomato Bar Pizza Bakery. Michael Golden, head of operations at Blockhead, who helped Muro open all three stores, says Muro eventually started homebrewing and things spiraled from there.

Originally, Muro wanted to buy his own brewery to brew beer he could sell at his Tomato Bar Pizza Bakery locations. But for the past five years, Blockhead Beerworks has been the only production brewery in Valparaiso, Indiana, and has taken on a life of its own. The first location, opened in a historic site, is what Golden calls “a beautiful building,” featuring tons of windows, a huge patio, and an equally large brewhouse.

Calling themselves a brewstillery, Blockhead makes way more than just beer. With a distillery on site, Blockhead produces small batches of vodka, gin, rum, and, once a year, bourbon. A part of the plan from the start, the distillery had to wait a year before becoming fully operational, according to Indiana state law. Led by award-winning distiller Raven Colón, Blockhead’s distillery follows the mantra “Small Batch, Big Flavors,” anchored by its Tokyo Morning ready-to-drink cocktail, featuring Blockhead Stillworks Gin, lavender earl grey tea, ube syrup, and lemon.

To pair with its creative beers and spirits, Blockhead runs a robust food menu. “We have an insane kitchen product,” says Golden. “Breweries that are now succeeding probably have something else besides just good-a** beer because everyone makes good-a** beer,” he adds. “We provide an experience.” With an Asian-fusion flair, Blockhead’s menu includes ramen, steamed buns, and even a sushi bar. On Sundays and Tuesdays, the kitchen flips to smashburgers paired with $5 beers. “That just blew up for us in downtown Valpo,” says Golden.

As the only brewery in the county and town, Blockhead has experienced a lot of success. “We’ve just been growing,” says Golden, mentioning the brewery recently announced a second opening set for the beginning of June. Golden believes that, when it comes down to it, the brewery’s popularity comes down to the fact that they do three things very well. “We’re a restaurant; we’re a brewery; we’re a distillery,” he says. “Well, we call it a brewstillery!”

challenge

As a restaurant, brewery, and distillery, with a second location on the way, Blockhead has a lot of hot irons on the fire.

For Golden, who has worked with Muro for eleven years and held pretty much every position in the brewery, including general manager, sales rep, delivery driver, and even brewer, time is money.

“I’m the jack of all trades, master of none!” he says. So when it came to managing the brewery’s production calendar, logistical operations, sales and delivery schedule, and more, Golden knew he needed something that would make his and his brewing team’s lives easier.

After looking at other options, including Brew Ninja, Golden settled on Ekos. And he’s never looked back.

results

Implementing Ekos from the beginning, Golden uses the all-in-one comprehensive brewery management platform to manage his production inventory in the brewhouse, complete invoicing, and track deliveries.

“It’s just been very easy to use,” he says. “I definitely use the invoices; that’s been beautiful, and delivering has been that much easier.”

mobile app

Golden loves how he can pull up the Ekos app no matter where he is to print out invoices on the run, send digital ones, or even check recipes. “The app is the best; it’s one of my favorite things,” he explains. “Having that app on hand as a delivery driver and the sales rep helped me in every aspect.” He adds, “I can find whatever I need.” And even if he can’t, Golden mentions the Ekos support team is always on call to promptly and efficiently lend a hand.

world-class support

When he asks a question of the support team, Golden says, “They get back to me that day, and they’ve not only fixed [the issue], but they also send me screenshots of the steps they took and explain it to me.” Golden says this will help him learn how to use the platform properly, so he won’t keep making the same mistake over and over. “Anything that I don’t know how to do, Ekos has an answer for whenever I reach out.”

brewers love it

And it’s not just Blockhead’s head of operations. According to Golden, Blockhead Head Brewer Rich Mendoza loves Ekos. “I know that my head brewer doesn’t have a dang thing to say because Ekos has only made his life easier,” laughs Golden, whose boss also finds the reporting and accounting features very helpful. “I know he loves how easy it is just to pull the information that he needs from the backend,” explains Golden.

With Blockhead’s full team on board with Ekos, Golden couldn’t be happier that the brewstillery has been with the all-in-one platform from the very start and will continue to be as the brewery expands. “You guys have a lot of things locked down that are awesome for ease of use,” he says. “I know that we’re going to be here for a long time with you guys.”