Those plans called for a focus on Lagers and Belgian beers—specifically Pilsners and mixed-fermentation ales. Clean, simple, traditional beers crafted to within a Planck length of perfection. (A Planck length is the smallest possible size for anything in the universe. The mathematical equivalent is around a millionth of a billionth of a billionth of a billionth of a centimeter. Imagine a decimal point followed by thirty-four zeroes and then a one.)

Ah, but there were two problems. The first was that they wanted the brewery to be small, with little-to-no distribution, but own-premise was not in the cards. The second was that they wanted the brewery to be successful, but neither had much experience with starting an American business, nor the red tape involved.

Enter Tim Kilic, who was COO of Three Taverns at the time. Kilic is a kind man whose slow, Southern drawl matches his disposition to a tee. He’s made up entirely of “gosh” and “golly” and “aw, shucks,” all melted down and mixed together and poured into a human-shaped Jell-o mold. But a serious tone underlies his genuine sincerity.

Prior to his role at Three Taverns, Kilic was in medicine for 34 years, first as an emergency room doctor, then as an anesthesiologist. During that time, he handled all the finances for his practice and developed a keen business acumen and a dogged work ethic. A passion for homebrewing led him to become an initial investor in Three Taverns.

“I was still practicing medicine,” he explains. “So then I retired, and two days later I was running the whole operation.”

He was there from the jump and helped Three Taverns navigate the many complexities of starting a business and getting it off the ground. Van Ginderachter would eventually introduce Kilic to Bainbridge, who ended up building a pilot system for Three Taverns.