Ratchet Brews

Myself with Mark from Highland Brewery at Thirsty Orange, April 2014

I live, I love, I run, I write, I brew and drink craft beer. Not necessarily in that order.

I’ve had the nickname Ratchet since sometime around 1993. This is way before it was slang for anything else. I kinda sucks how I’ve been known for the last 21 years has morphed into a term of derision in “pop culture”, but you kids can go ahead and get the hell off my lawn.

My “real name” is Jason and I love beer. Not in the “I want to get drunk all the time” kinda way, either. I love craft beer. The time, energy, science and art that goes in to it. I’ve been part of the craft beer scene since before we had a name for it. Anyone remember the term microbrew? I am blessed to have a life that where I work in the in something I love dearly, the beer industry. Over the last couple of years I have worked in various aspects of the industry. I was the marketing guy and beer purchaser at Bluetick Brewery, and  a part time assistant brewer at Blackberry Farm Brewery. There was a brief 6 month stint as an assistant brewer at Nanatahala Brewing in Bryson City, NC. A brief stint as a cellarman at Saw Works. I’ve done collaboration brews with Asheville Brewing Company and Open Brewing. For 5 years I’ve been working with Superfly Fabulous Events, I’m their social media manager. Currently I’m running my small company on that builds websites  and does social media and websites for bars, bottleshops, bier gardens, breweries and other places in the craft beer industry.

This is an old blog and I no longer maintain it. On this blog, I tried to keep stuff about my personal life to a minimum.
This blog wasn’t about that. I strived to keep this focused on beer.

And sometimes I drink the finest of malt liquors.

I also happen to consider myself a beer tourist. I plan my vacations around where the cool brew pubs, nano & micro-breweries are. This is why I LOVE Asheville, NC.

Myself with my homie Jimie B. My guess is that we are checking out a rather nice…

This blog was about navigating the craft beer scene, my experiences in brewing and my “beercations” to other cities. I’m trying to be a better writer but you should still expect spelling errors, bad sentence structure, syntax errors and inane subject matter. If you want to read a well put together, professional lookin’ blog, this ain’t the one. For me, this website is mainly just for fun. If you learn something, or are entertained by reading it, that’s a bonus.

Myself with my good friend Aaron Carson of Superfly Fabulous Events.

Anyway, you can catch me on Twitter @jasonknowsbeer.
I am also on untappd, and you should be too.
If you’d like to email me, you can do so by clicking here (It’s Ratchet (at) RatchetBrews.com) I really enjoy trading beer, and often send out boxes. I also always up for offering brewing advice or getting together to enjoy a beer, sometimes I just need to schedule it weeks in advance due to my work and fatherly obligations. Thanks for checking out my page. Cheers, Jason