Authored By chloe.morrison

Similar businesses have been successful in other cities, and now, two local residents are bringing a craft brew tour to Chattanooga.

Owners of Chattanooga Brew Tours Brent Stott and Larry Vance will soon have a 14-seat school bus to drive local residents and tourists to craft brews around town.

If you go What: Chattanooga Brew Tours When: Booking tours soon Where: Downtown-area craft breweries How much: $40

So far, they have agreements with Chattanooga Brewing Company, Moccasin Bend Brewing Company and Strum Haus; they are close to closing the deal with The Terminal; and they are hopeful that they will be able to add Big River Brewing Company to the tour, although details of that stop are still in the works.

“There’s going to be a sample tasting at each of the breweries, a tour of the facilities and meeting with one of the brewers at each of the locations,” Stott said.

The tour will take about three hours and allow participants to glean insight into the local and regional craft brew scene, which has been developing more in recent years.

There’s a new Craft Beer Festival scheduled for this weekend, Chattanooga Brewing Company is expanding and moving to the Southside (near a trampoline park, by the way) and Livability.com recently named Chattanooga one of the top 10 beer cities.

Sturm Haus recently opened downtown, and although it isn’t a brewery, its owners support local and regional craft beer and sell growlers.

A craft brewer is defined as a small and independent brewer with an annual production of 6 million barrels of beer or less and with no more than 25 percent of the craft brewery owned or controlled by an alcoholic beverage industry member who is not themselves a craft brewer, according to the Brewers Association.

One of the owners of Moccasin Bend Brewing Company Chris Hunt said that-just as some people visit a new town and look to visit wineries-others come and look for craft breweries and beer tours.

“Anything that drives traffic to our brewery, we appreciate,” he said. “Plus, as opposed to having them find a designated driver to take them around, it’s a lot easier to have that [tour] available. It’s a bonus for us, it’s a bonus for the city and it’s good for tourism.”

Stott said that he and Vance bought their bus from a school district in Chicago and that it’s currently at Printree, where it’s getting wrapped with the Chattanooga Brew Tours logo and logos of the local breweries.

Compared to the overhead cost of some other business startups, this one has been a relatively small investment of about $12,000, Stott said. He and Vance used savings and help from family and friends to get their business going.

Their website will be finished in the next couple of days at the longest, and when it’s up, people can start booking tours.

“My partner and I-we really enjoy the beer that’s being made in Chattanooga,” Stott said. “We prefer it over other types of beer. It’s local, so you’re supporting your friends and neighbors. It’s fresher-you’re having a pint of beer that was made about a mile away.”

Updated @ 1:21 p.m. on 9/16/13 to correct a typographical error.