Family of beer lovers bring ranch-style charm to new Spring Branch micro-brewery

Larry and Jennifer Edwards sip 4J Brewing Company beer at a table made from brewing tanks. Larry and Jennifer Edwards sip 4J Brewing Company beer at a table made from brewing tanks. Photo: Submitted Photo Photo: Submitted Photo Image 1 of / 3 Caption Close Family of beer lovers bring ranch-style charm to new Spring Branch micro-brewery 1 / 3 Back to Gallery

This summer promises to be another long and hot one, but by the end of it Spring Branchers will have one more spot to cool off with an icy glass of home-brewed beer from Jennifer Edwards and her family team of micro-brewers.

4J Brewing Company is set to open late summer at 1348 Cedar Post Lane, near Blalock and Westview Drive. After a year and half of wrangling with licensing rules and applications with the state of Texas, they finally secured their permit to operate in January.

The newest addition to the Houston micro-brew scene is a family project named for the four Edwards daughters, Jennifer - the youngest at 25 -, Jessica, Jackie and Joanna.

"I'm the fourth 'J,' I was always 'number four' when my dad would introduce all of us girls," said Jennifer. "My parents have a ranch in Lexington, Texas, and he named it 4J Ranch for his four girls."

Jennifer's mother, Marilyn Edwards, is helping out too.

"It has been great working with Jennifer and starting the business," said Marilyn. "As a real estate broker, I have a lot of flexibility to work at 4J wherever I am needed. Growing up in Spring Branch, it has been great to see the neighborhood and area change over the years. Hopefully, once we open, we will be a positive addition to the community."

For Jennifer, a Memorial High School alum and graduate of University of Alabama in 2013, she was excited to bring her dream home to Spring Branch.

Larry Edwards, Jennifer's father is head brewer but also has an electronics contracting business.

The entrepreneurial streak seems to have passed to Jennifer because she knew early on she wanted to own her own business too, but the micro-brewery idea fermented for a while and it took a layoff from her bank job to finally bring it to a head.

"My dad has home brewed for 20 years," she said. "But he would stop here and there. In the past 10 years he started doing it again. When I was in college we would brew together and it was father-daughter fun time. Saturday and Sunday night we would invite people over and drink what we made. When I moved back from college it started being so much fun. I remember purchasing 30 books on Amazon right away, I dove right in and got obsessed with it and when I got laid-off we started putting things on paper."

The 4J Ranch will be contributing to the brew business too, said Edwards.

"All the grain we use here we take to the ranch and feed cattle, deer, hogs and wildlife to keep it full circle. We have a lot of protein in this grain and we've paid the money for it. It's just cool for us that we get take it to our farm and use it for ourselves," she said.

Even some of the fixtures inside the commercial space, which her parents have owned for over two decades, will use reclaimed wood from the ranch as wall decor and accents to the mounted menu that help create the ranch-style atmosphere.

The simple, down-home feel inside is a reflection of the beer they're bringing to the pub-table.

Four beers that are malty and easy to drink- no special additions, overpowering hops or seasonal brews as of yet while they're in the early stages of operation, reads the company website at www.4jbrewingcompany.com.

They may just be learning the ropes of the brew business, but Edwards is learning fast that the micro-brewery world is, indeed, very small.

"I'm a part of the Texas craft brewers guild," she said.

"We go to monthly meetings at different breweries and it's really cool to see the breweries and talk to everyone. There's so many great people and they were so helpful about licensing. It's a much happier industry than banking," she said.