Inside Business & Brews: A Local Brewery Owner Shares His Story | Springfield MO

Kicking off January 2026 with our first event, Business & Brews gathered inside a local brewery with a room full of local business owners. No stage. No slides. No pressure to perform.

Just conversation.

At one point in the evening, Jeff Birchler, one of the owners of Wire Road Brewery located just out side of Springfield in Battlefield Missouri, took a few minutes to speak to the group. What followed wasn’t a pitch or a presentation. It was a behind-the-scenes look at how the brewery came to be, why it exists, and what it means to open your space to community.

This moment captures what Business & Brews is really about.

Jeff shared the story behind the brewery, from the early decision to open a place together with his business partner and their families, to the reality of learning an entirely new industry after careers in education.

What stood out wasn’t just the journey. It was the intention.

From the beginning, the space was designed to be welcoming. Familiar. A place where people could show up, be known by name, and feel comfortable staying awhile. That intention has shaped the culture inside the brewery and the way it connects with the local business community.

For many people in the room, the story hit close to home.

Starting something new almost always comes with a crash course in skills you didn’t expect to learn. Operations. Regulations. Construction. People management. Problem-solving on the fly.

Hearing that reality spoken out loud, without polish, creates a different kind of connection. It reminds us that behind every successful local business is a series of decisions, risks, and lessons learned the hard way.

That shared understanding is what makes these gatherings feel different.

One theme that surfaced naturally was community. Not as a buzzword, but as something built over time.

A space becomes a hub because people feel welcome there. Because conversations happen organically. Because relationships form without being forced.

That’s the environment Business & Brews is intentionally creating by hosting gatherings inside local breweries. The setting matters. The people matter more.

Business & Brews isn’t about creating content for the sake of content.

It’s about capturing real moments as they happen and preserving the conversations that often disappear once the night is over.

These are the kinds of exchanges that shape local business culture.

They’re worth revisiting, sharing, and building on.

More conversations like this are coming.

Subscribe to our email list if you want to be kept up to date on when and where we are meeting next as well as even more Behind the Scenes content you won't find anywhere else.