by entrepreneurs, for entrepreneurs

• Join - It's Free!
• Log in

Market Locally, Grow Nationally: Nancy Rigberg and George Hummel

Nancy Rigberg and George Hummel’s Story: When it comes to environmental and civic-mindedness, the old adage is “think nationally, act locally.” The same could be said for growing a homebrewing supply business. It was how Nancy Rigberg, 50, and her husband George Hummel, 52, expanded their Philadelphia-based Home Sweet HomeBrew.

They bought the business from a friend in the early ’90s. “We liked homebrewing and were challenged by it,” Nancy says. “We knew the hobby was really growing so we bought it and took it to a fulltime operation.”

Homebrewing is rising in popularity. The Colorado-based Brewers Association reports that in 2005, the craft-beer segment grew by 9 percent on top of 7 percent growth in ’04, faster than any other segment of the beverage-alcohol business, including wine, spirits and imported beer.

Home Sweet Homebrew is in Philly’s Center City, and Nancy says they’re lucky to be in an urban environment with tremendous growth.

When they started, she and George began networking with local brewers. “We worked on local customer relations because we knew we couldn’t compete with national companies,” she says. “If you take care of your home base, everything else grows from there.”

There are 1.25 million home brewers in North America, according to Brew Your Own magazine, and around 9 million six-packs of beer are homebrewed annually. To make beer, these homebrewers need such supplies as malts, yeasts, grains, hops and specialty sugars – the basic ingredients used by breweries all over the world. Home Sweet Homebrew sells them, as well as recipe kits.

Nancy and George took advantage of their proximity to several colleges and universities and established mutually beneficial relationships. George taught courses on beer and brewing at Temple and Drexel universities, and hosted “tutored tastings” and seminars on the brewer’s art. “Many of our first customers happened to come from the academic world,” Nancy says, adding that the clientele is now very diverse.

Drexel has a culinary school, and with the support of Home Sweet Homebrew, microbrewing is now a career option for students. The company participates in a busy schedule of tastings, pub crawls and customer classes, as well as the Philadelphia homebrewers association, HOPS, and in “Best of Philly Homebrew” competitions.

All of those students and guests have added up over the years and led to a regional spread in Home Sweet Homebrew’s customer base. “If there’s one thing that good beer lovers/brewers do, it’s travel for beer,” Nancy says.

As the homebrew retailer in the heart of Center City Philly, Home Sweet Homebrew tends to have a broad knowledge of the “beer happenings” around town. George is the master of ceremonies for monthly beer dinners at the renowned Monk's Cafe in the city, and featured speaker at many events. He also does beverage consulting for restaurants.

“The homebrew and craft-beer community, especially in the online age, is very well connected,” Nancy says. “By establishing a local reputation, we became the ‘go-to’ people for information regarding the local scene when queried by visiting brewers.”

Although sales don’t always directly result from this interaction, national recognition does, Nancy says. “Our customer base is a regional one, and because of the global nature of business these days, we get many referrals from local customers introducing either visitors or transferees or visiting relatives to the hobby.

“It all goes back to customer service – if you can get what you want from just about anywhere, and order from anywhere in the country, why shouldn’t you order from someone with whom you’ve had great personal interaction?”

Home Sweet Homebrew is Philly’s original homebrew supply shop. “In fact, most of the brewers at the Philadelphia area's micros and brewpubs brewed their first batch with our help and ingredients,” Nancy says.

Her theory has led to long-term success and happy customers, shown by what one of them wrote on a homebrewing blog:

“The proprietors George and Nancy are always willing to help out with a recipe and will tell you when you are going wrong and won’t try to sell you something that you don’t really need. A first- class homebrew shop all around and a must-stop for any homebrewer in the Philadelphia or even the tri-state area.”