The TagaBrew trail is unique amongst brewery and other trails for a variety of reasons. Rather than accumulating ink stamps in a paper booklet, collectors get to travel around to the different spots on the trail and collect the coveted copper memory tags with the brewery specific charms in what I like to call a sort of Pokémon with beer type of adventure. Russ likes to think of it as collecting baseball cards. Either way, the TagaBrew trail is, in my not so humble opinion, a “level up” on the others and not in the way that you might think.

Is adding to your collection fun, engaging, and exciting – heck yeah it is! For those of you who do not know, Russ and I are still collectors ourselves. Even though we have literally all of the tags and charms in our basement (aka the “fulfillment center”), we do not check them off of our apps or wear them on our personal chains unless we visit and purchase them from the breweries.

Beyond the tags and charms lies a greater and more important reason why I love TagaBrew, both as an owner and collector, and that is the relationships that we have made. We have met so many wonderful people on the trail, many of whom we now are blessed to call our friends.

There is a lot that goes into planning the events. We have to find a brewery willing to host (and we are fortunate to have many). We try to rotate locations so that there is something accessible to all at one point or another. Even though I admittedly find myself drained of energy after the larger events and in need of at least a day to recharge my battery, I LOVE seeing everyone all together, enjoying a common interest and belonging to the TagaBrew family! We are all unique and come from all walks of life, yet we come together and become one somehow.

I love to step back and people watch at the events, which I do even when it looks like I am running around like a chicken with my head cut off. Seeing everyone enjoying themselves makes the late nights of assembly in basement until 10 pm or giving up Sunday afternoons to fill reorders worthwhile. It erases some of the customer encounters that aren’t very nice and instead fills my heart with joy and gratitude for the many kind and wonderful folks that I get to see enjoying something that Russ and I put our hearts into on a daily basis. We truly love to hear about the adventures that people have on the trail and about what TagaBrew means to them. We even had a couple at the most recent holiday event tell us that TagaBrew literally saved their marriage!! Admittedly I thought they were kidding at first until they told us the story (not mine to share so I won’t get into it further than that). How immediately humbling and beautiful – and most definitely not something I would have expected to hear about a brewery trail.

Traveling around to different breweries has also allowed us to meet many of the owners, managers, and brewers behind the amazing stops on the trail! We have gone from just seeing names in a database or emails to putting faces to those names, and from there we have gotten to know many of them on a more personal level (Chris Harris gives great hugs!). They have also become part of the TagaBrew family by extension, and we care very deeply about them as individuals and also as partners of sorts. We want to help them succeed and to spread the word about their fun and unique establishments.

Last, but by absolutely no means least, we have been so blessed to get to know Debi and Jim Steward. What started out as a new business partnership for us quickly grew into a friendship. That friendship became family. The amount of trust that it took for them to bring us into their business and then turn it over and sell it to us when they retired is humbling. Our lives would be so very different if not for our relationship with them. It is one that I am profoundly grateful for, one Russ and I will both be forever blessed by.