FXBG Neighbors Podcast
Fredericksburg Neighbors Podcast
FXBG Neighbors Podcast
EP #34 Brewing Community: Mark Perry's Red Dragon Legacy
Mark Perry never imagined his journey would lead from military aviation to craft beer innovation, yet his Red Dragon Brewery has become a cornerstone of Fredericksburg's evolving cultural landscape. When Virginia changed its brewing laws in the early 2010s, Perry saw an opportunity not just for business, but to give something back to his hometown. Alongside partners with deep local connections, he transformed a warehouse into what would eventually become one of the nation's top-ranked craft breweries.
What distinguishes Red Dragon isn't just its location or atmosphere, but its pioneering approach to craft beer. Under brewer Cody Natale, the brewery gained recognition for revolutionary "juicy IPAs" that converted even the most hesitant beer drinkers, and heavily-fruited sour beers affectionately called "smoothies." These signature creations earned them an invitation to DC's prestigious Snallygaster Festival and, at one point, recognition as the 25th ranked brewery nationwide on Untappd's platform.
The brewery's story isn't without challenges. Through partner transitions, pandemic disruptions, and shifting market dynamics, Perry has remained committed to quality and community. Today, Red Dragon stands as more than just a place to drink exceptional beer – it's a community hub where cyclists gather weekly for "Bikes and Beers" events, where friends connect without distraction, and where the spirit of craft brewing thrives in an unpretentious atmosphere. Whether you're a craft beer aficionado or simply seeking authentic local experiences, discover what makes this Fredericksburg gem special by visiting their Google virtual tour, following them on social media, or better yet, stopping by to raise a glass with the community they've built.
Mark Perry
Red Dragon Brewery
info@reddragonbrewery.com
+1 540-371-8100
This is the Fredericksburg Neighbors Podcast, the place where local businesses and neighbors come together. Here's your host, Dori Stewart.
Speaker 2:Welcome back to another episode of the Fredericksburg Neighbors Podcast, where we share the stories of our favorite local brands. Today, I'm excited to introduce you to Mark Perry of Red Dragon Brewery. Mark, welcome to the podcast.
Speaker 3:Hey, thanks for taking the time to showcase our place.
Speaker 2:Yeah well, I'm excited to dive in and learn more about you and about your business. So let's start there. Share with us a little bit about the brewery brewery.
Speaker 3:Okay, so the brewery was an idea of three folks. Back in the early 2010s, the Virginia changed their brewery laws so that you could actually have tap rooms and open up and serve and not have to serve food. That had been a restriction for many forever in the state of Virginia of distilleries and wineries and things that you had to serve food if you served alcohol. Well, you know, it all comes down to money, so I think the state of Virginia said, hey, we can tax this, so we will allow it. So there was a guy named Tom Evans and I went to high school with his younger brother, Bill Evans, and another guy named Dan Baker and Tom was the home brewer. I went to his house here in Fredericksburg and he's a graduate of JM. The rest of us went, graduated from Spotsylvania High School at the courthouse the old one and anyways, he had some great beers and all of that. And he said, yeah, I'm thinking about starting my hobby into a business and this was about 2012.
Speaker 3:And then we pushed it off a little bit. I was doing international work at the time. My real job is I'm a pilot. I came from the area, joined the military, ended up being a pilot and I've done a little bit of something all over the world. So when the idea came up about this too, I decided know, hey, let's give something back to my hometown also. So in 2015, we kind of came to some terms, agreements, and found a location and all of those kinds of things, and there you go. So we started putting it together back then and we opened full business in 2016.
Speaker 2:I love that so much and I love that you have deep roots in the Fredericksburg area. That's amazing?
Speaker 3:Yes, absolutely. And the other guys too, and Dan Baker and Tom and Dan have stepped away from the business. Now, life, things change and all of that. But Dan, he just lived up the street and he would. You know, he was integral with talking to neighbors Good and bad ideas of opening an alcohol establishment in nearly a residential area, which there was some pushback on it. But we had to explain to people what a brewery was also because most people equated it to just a bar and you know. But all that stigma that comes with that but, uh, dan and I was out of the country.
Speaker 3:so you know, Dan and Tom and Bill also, they, they, you know they beat the pavement and they talked to everybody about. Uh, hey, this is not what you're thinking. I don't want to say upper clientele, but people who come and drink craft beer aren't into ruckuses and causing disturbances. They just want to have a good time with their friends and family and then just go home and 90% of them, or more, are responsible drinkers and stuff like that, so they're just there for the one or two or just to relax. It's worked out real well.
Speaker 2:I love that and people who love good beer.
Speaker 3:Yes, absolutely.
Speaker 2:So tell me about the difference in Red Dragon Brewery versus some of the other, Like what is your unique factor?
Speaker 3:So what put us on the map? We were, one thing, if anybody's familiar with Untapped, which is a menu service and also social media for beer. We were one of the first adapters of that, which was also a good gauge of how you're doing in the industry. But our brewer, cody Natale, he came up from Charleston, south Carolina. He'd been here for a few years, he'd worked at a couple of different breweries around town, but he came from a restaurant and hospitality background. Well, he was on the latest trend. So he started doing our really big juicy IPAs. People who didn't like IPAs. They were like, wow, I thought they were all bitter and got you right in the cheek where you just don't like it, like that super sour lemon. So those, he started making those for us and then he also brought in the we even just call them smoothies now the sours or gozes that are heavily fruited. And those two things are what really put us on the map here in Reddicksburg, because you know everybody can make just an average beer.
Speaker 3:But we did something that was a trendsetter, I would say, nationally. We were invited shortly after that to Snallygaster, which is in Washington DC. It's a big beer festival and it's by invitation only, and this small little brewery here in Fredericksburg, Virginia, even though we're close to DC, it doesn't mean that it was obligatory to invite us. We were invited to it and it was a great showing and people around the United States and even the world got to see what we do down here. So those are the things that really set us apart.
Speaker 3:And then to talk a little bit more about that, that kind of fell apart during COVID with being able to produce some of those things because of the high cost of ingredients at that time and people couldn't go out and the dynamics changed, stopped doing a lot of those for a while. But we're on the uptick again because things have kind of settled, at least at the new level of pricing that we can get all those materials at a reasonable amount. That doesn't, you know, you don't have to take it alone to come to the brewery to have a beer, you know, um. So so we're on that upward trend again. But also with keeping some of our normal beers here, like our lagers and our Saint David's Stout that everybody raves about and our Towne Sterling ESB.
Speaker 3:That's on our beer engine. That's the other thing that sets us apart. A beer engine is just when you're looking at the old English style where they have those taps that just stick up out of the bar and it's a pool lever and it's a pump just to pump that beer into the glass and it agitates it there and that's how you get the head and a little bit of creaminess. So those are. Those are kind of the three big things that set us apart from almost every other brewery around, to be honest nice.
Speaker 2:Congratulations on all your success. You really are a front runner in the industry.
Speaker 3:Congratulations well, thank Well, thank you. Thank you so much. It means a lot to us.
Speaker 2:Yeah, so tell me, are there any myths or misconceptions that you hear about, about either Red Dragon or the industry?
Speaker 3:So there are some myths and just because of, again, covid, and there's a lot of breweries that are closing and there's a lot that are trying to open and struggling. And this industry does kind of struggle now because, you know, in some aspects craft beer is a bit of a luxury for some people, a lot of people. I mean, if you can go get something a little bit cheaper and you can have two or three of them versus one or two, then people will gravitate towards that. But it's a hard balance we have to do here. One of the one of the things that's been kicked around, or I've heard rumors of here and there we um, when my partners wanted to step away from the business a few years ago uh, you know the, the little rumor mill in town of like, oh, they're closing there, this is going to happen, that's going to happen. Uh, you know, business model isn't great because they don't serve food or things like that. Um, we're still here. There's a lot of breweries that have closed up because of COVID or because of lack of interest.
Speaker 3:My other two partners, they have stepped away, like I said, but I also have another brewery that I'm involved with in North Carolina, so I have a bit of you know and it's quite a bigger brewery as far as we distribute to the whole state down there and we have a big tap room and a kitchen, and so I was, and there was a little bit of disagreement as there always is with partners of business models for things that we wanted to do here, and so the great part of me taking over the full gamut here is I can institute all those ideas that I had before, and so some people look at that as like, oh wow, they're not producing this anymore.
Speaker 3:They're not doing that, but it's just shifting that business model to something that is a little bit more sustainable but also wide variety for people. So we have changed up some of the beers we do and we've, you know, like I said, we're getting back to some of these other things that so hopefully that quells the rumors of and there was a. There was a couple of people who've approached me about buying the business and then they stepped away from it, and you know so, unfortunately, people talk and then they say, oh, they're selling Red Dragon. You know anybody that's in business understands if somebody comes to you and they want to buy it and there's always a discussion, right. So we're still here, we're not going out of business, we're not selling, unless somebody comes out and they want to be a partner here or they want to do some great investment in a local business.
Speaker 2:I'm not afraid of having a conversation with people.
Speaker 3:But we're here. We're here for the community, we're here for folks like you and your friends, who just want to come down and have a place to chill and have a nice beverage, nice.
Speaker 2:So it sounds like there have been a lot of, I guess, lessons learned and some shifting and adapting that you know all successful businesses have to do. Absolutely, let me ask you this Do you have some advice for new entrepreneurs, maybe for someone who's thinking about opening a brewery, or is there some advice, maybe, that you wish you had received?
Speaker 3:uh, the advice that I would have received and and this is this is not necessarily a play on my partners here, but it's, you know, it always taxes it when you go into business with friends or close acquaintances and even family. You know, just always put that in perspective when you do that and have that. You, I believe you have to have that hard conversation and if it's you and your spouse or something, it's going to have a business together, you really have to have it, because now you're living together 24 seven and that little thing about the floor didn't get mopped. Then you go home and the dishes didn't get mopped. Then you go home and the dishes didn't get put away, or whatever may come out of that. It can build up as a little bit of chronic stress that is sometimes hard to deal with. So I would say, be sure and have those hard conversations with your partners, or even if they're silent partners or investors or things like that, when you're getting ready to start a business. As far as, if you're going to start a business, and breweries included, look at the area you're going to open up in and this is, um, you can see this in this brewery industry as well, for lack of a better cliche in 2015-ish, and we had already had this plan, so it's not like we were jumping on a bandwagon. But the bank started lending a lot of money and then people thought it's a license to print money and open a brewery. It's just barley and wheat and water and yeast and man, it just turns into gold. And that is not necessarily the case. There's a lot of work involved, no matter what the business is.
Speaker 3:And look at your area, because market saturation does happen, and my favorite thing to say to people is hey, you and your friends get together and you have a pizza pie. Well, if you have 10 friends and you only have one pizza, everybody gets just a small slice and everybody walks away hungry. So if you're looking in the area and you're like, wow, man, I've always wanted to open a wine bar or a sandwich shop or anything like that, how many other places or eateries or drinking establishments are there around and are you going to bring the area to saturation? Because then it doesn't help anyone and, of course, everybody has the idea that theirs is the best. And I can do it better. Dr Andy Roark and I would recommend going to a partnership with somebody who maybe already has a business and see if you actually like it first, or apprentice there or some things like that, internships Because again, it's a lot harder than people think and I've been through this with both of my breweries of different partners and different things going on.
Speaker 3:People just think it's easy to do and it's like, well, today this broke and tomorrow that broke, and then OK, where are we finding the money to get that? Or are we shifting it around? Or who's the best guy to repair it? Or he's out of town, and now you have that stress added to it. And if you're producing something, or it's just something that you know, the refrigerator in the front that holds the Coca-Cola, you know, is that, is it just that OK? Front that holds the the coca-cola's, you know, is that, is it just that? Okay, we can live without that for a while. But all those little stressors add up to people um, getting super frustrated, and then that will affect your face when you're talking to the public as well. So people can see that, people can see that stress and I'm sure you know you've walked into places and you're like, wow, this person is having a bad day or something like that, if it's chronic in that because you're stressed about.
Speaker 2:You know business or things like that.
Speaker 3:It really does translate to people don't want to be in a place, that's sad or that guy's stressed all the time. I don't know if that totally answered your question but oh, definitely. And it touches on a few different things.
Speaker 2:Yeah, two big takeaways. Be very careful with who you partner with and be very intentional with where the market that you are going to open in. So that's really good advice.
Speaker 3:Thank you Absolutely, and you know. Look at the future market, For instance. We're very fortunate in our location. When we started this place it was a warehouse, so we retrofitted it, so our cost was a little bit less than what it would be to just go to a straight place that was already semi-established or has a retail business. So just that price per square bridge can be quite a huge difference in your base cost.
Speaker 2:Yeah, really good. A lot of people just don't think about that. Really good advice. Thank you for that. So clearly you are a very busy person and you have two breweries and you've got a lot going on. So tell me when you're not working, the rare occasion you're not working, what are you doing for fun?
Speaker 3:we need to know well, I probably the biggest thing I do, and I don't know if it's for fun or stress relief, but I do like cycling. Um, and that translates a little bit from one of I mentioned before, bill Evans, who was instrumental and he was a minority partner with us here at the brewery, but we went to high school together and he's a teacher at Fredericksburg Academy also, so he's a bit of a local legend and he's a bicyclist and we do a bikes and beers thing at the brewery every Wednesday and it's a social thing. So everybody meets here around five, 30 and then they'll go on to like a 45 minute to an hour ride. Some of the guys are super competitive that ride and do stuff like that, and some of them are just there for the social atmosphere. But whether it's for fun or stress relief, I like to go bicycling. It's a great thing to. It's good for your body, low impact, all those kinds of things.
Speaker 2:Yeah, that sounds like fun and a nice, a nice additional way for your customers to gather and you're creating a community there at Red Dragon.
Speaker 3:Absolutely yes, and that's what we try to pride ourself on and I'll touch on that community thing again for a second is we used to do a lot of events and a lot of trivia and a lot of things like that, and some of that is nice. But I want us to be more of a place that's for community events, where people can just kind of come and hang out, kind of like a cheers bar, if you will, so it's not loud, it's not sports going on or these other things, so you can come in and just have a couple of beverages. You know, we encourage people to bring their own food if they want, but we have a food truck and some. We do an awesome Bavarian pretzel, but you can. A place that you can kind of come and chill out and be community. Uh, walk down here, drive down here, ride your bicycle down here, you know, and we have off-street parking so it makes it that easy, so that this can be the place that you can decompress and you don't have to worry about some of those things.
Speaker 3:Again community.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I love that. I love that so much. So is there anything that you wish the listeners knew about Red Dragon Brewery?
Speaker 3:That we're the best in the nation. So I was talking about this before, about this untapped the social media and beer rating system, so some people didn't know it.
Speaker 3:We would talk about it occasionally, but we were actually ranked about number 25 in the nation wow just prior to covid, and then of course, more people started adapting to using that system for their menus and stuff like that.
Speaker 3:But you know that's, you know a lot of people don't know that's wow, it's just a local brewery but we, you know, back to being invited to the beer festival and stuff like that. We produce some awesome beers and you know, and there are some you know people who say, well, the beer quality kind of went down for a bit and a lot of that has to do with supply chains and things like that that were a lot of out of our control and so we weren't getting the ingredients we want to make the great products we had and unfortunately that kind of suffered for a bit. So we maybe didn't put out the best product we could or that is available, but it was also cost versus availability and things like that. So, and you know, if people aren't coming in too after that covid where people just started doing a lot of drinking at home, so um, but that you know, we are back to producing those beers that everybody talked about and all that before. So nice.
Speaker 3:That's kind of the little known thing. I guess I noticed that you know we're nationally ranked at points in the brewery. We still have the same brewer, we still have all that stuff. So we're getting back to it. We just want the public to come out and support us as well, because I hear from everybody they love our establishment but sometimes it doesn't materialize with people coming in, and every time we do some big event. I love this place, I want to come here Sometimes. I just never see them and it's unfortunate. But we're all busy too. I understand that.
Speaker 2:Yeah Well, if the listeners want to come and check you out and taste your beers and hang out in your establishment, how can they find you?
Speaker 3:and taste your beers and hang out in your establishment. How can they find you? So you can find us on the worldwide web, at red dragon brewery LLCcom, on Facebook, instagram, and just come on down here. If you look us up on Google, if you're looking for something like a venue to do whether it's a company party or a family get-together or something like that you can actually do a virtual tour. Go to Google Maps, look at our place and look at the pictures on the left-hand side, and there's a virtual tour 360, you can do so that you can take a look on the inside if you've never been here. But yeah, that's the best ways to get a hold of us. And, again, we're open for doing events and things like that, but we don't really charge a whole lot for you to come down here and do something.
Speaker 2:Nice Well, mark. Congratulations on all your success and thank you so much for joining me on the podcast today and sharing Red Dragon Brewery with us.
Speaker 3:Absolutely Thank you for taking the time to meet with me and Brewery with us.
Speaker 1:Absolutely Thank you for taking the time to meet with me. Thank you for listening to the Fredericksburg Neighbors Podcast. To nominate your favorite local businesses to be featured on the show, go to fxbgneighborspodcast. com. That's fxbgneighborspodcast. com, or call 540-534-4618.