Farmington Hills Man Brews Solution to Bad Beer

David Vogel of Farmington Hills attends industry trade shows to not only market his product, but also get ideas for new products that will make his Cool Brewing startup sustainable over time. (Photo via Facebook)

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David Vogel, of Farmington Hills, is one of those guys who could lose an entire day talking about beer.

So, when he had trouble regulating the temperature in the crucial fermentation process during his first few stabs at brewing his own beer, he naturally turned to other home brewers, who, it turns out, were similarly vexed.

The problem is especially acute in warm climates, like Florida, where Vogel, 32, lived when his first batch of beer went bad.

“I was surprised I had to keep it at 62 to 67 degrees, and that was a problem in my 80-degree Florida house,” Vogel told Patch.

For some less common styles of beer, the optimum temperature during fermentation was 50 degrees.

“That’s an extreme challenge for people in warm climates,” he said.

Other home-brewers, who were still a burgeoning population at the time, told him about the “swamp coolers” and other do-it-yourself solutions they’d cobbled together using insulated coolers and frozen water bottles, and even their bathtubs.

Advanced brewers fashioned fermentation chambers from refrigerators, but that’s a little spendy for most home-brewers, Vogel said.

“That will cost $300 for the refrigerator and wiring,” he said. “Most new brewers aren’t willing to do that.”

“I found all that frustrating and thought, ‘There has to be a better way,’ ” Vogel said.

With an estimated 1.2 million Americans who are hobby home-brewers, according to a recent study by the American Homebrewers Association, Vogel knew he had a market.

“There are hundreds of thousands of people out there with this problem,” he said.

Exponential Growth

So, using what he had learned as a logistics and marketing student at Central Michigan University, Vogel started noodling a solution. He eventually came up with the Cool Brewing Fermentation Cooler and took the waterproof, insulated and flexible cooler, sized to work the fermenting vessels, called “carboys,” to market.

“It’s a low-cost way for people to control the temperature,” Vogel said. “The beauty of the fermentation cooler is that it’s a simple product.”

“Part of the value is that I spent hours testing it and developing a whole solution, so it’s more than just a cooler,” he said. “Customers also get detailed instructions on how to use it, and what procedures will give you a certain desired temperature drop. That helps with that challenge.”

Vogel came up with the concept about five years ago, designed it and sold the first fermentation cooler in 2012. Initially, he sold the products directly, but now they’re available in retail stores and through LD Carlson Co., the largest U.S. distributor of beer- and wine-making supplies.

“We’ve gained competitive advantages, know the processes and the specifications to have a quality product at competing price,” Vogel said. “We’re known in the industry.”

With some deals in the works, Vogel declined to give specific revenue figures, but said 2015 sales at his fledgling company are projected to be double what they were three years ago. To get an idea of the company’s growth, 1,700 of the coolers were shipped last year; this year, Vogel expects to ship double that number.

Also, a similar product geared for the European market will be launched in 2016, he said.

When Vogel started marketing the fermentation coolers, he and his wife, Melissa, manufactured and shipped them. But as business has grown, he’s been able to outsource manufacturing and fulfillment. Melissa runs the business side of the operation, while he keeps his full-time job with Roush Performance, an automotive aftermarket company in Livonia.

More products are in the design phase to take some of the risk out of the business that appears to have high growth potential, given the interest in the craft beer industry — especially in Michigan, known as the Great Lakes State and, increasingly, the Great Beer State. With more than 200 local breweries, Michigan ranks fifth in the nation with the number of breweries.

That’s heady news to entrepreneurs like Vogel, who knows that many of those brewers started out making beer at home. He doesn’t figure interest in homebrewing will wane with the availability of more local beers; rather, he expects the opposite to occur.

“That’s been a strategic goal since the beginning, to take it to a multi-product company offering solutions to home brewers,” Vogel said.

Tap Into Network of Inventors

While growing his own company, Vogel wants to reach out to other entrepreneurs looking to capitalize and take their ideas to market.

“It’s very fun and exciting, but also a lot of work to build a business from a concept to a product to an in-home business to having a distribution center, but anyone who is passionate about their idea can do it,” he said.

He tapped a mentor from SCORE, previously known as the U.S. Small Business Administration’s Service Corps of Retired Executives, for advice on what works. Entrepreneurs who are serious about building their own businesses should carefully consider their college majors, he said.

Degrees from CMU in logistics and marketing were “both necessary to start this business — to understand both the size of the market and the best way to reach it, and to pick a distribution strategy,” he said.

Also, don’t be afraid to ask friends and associates to help. Vogel reached out to friends who are engineers and computer-assisted design professionals who helped him put together a prototype. His family helped out, too, augmenting his savings so he could put together the $10,000 investment needed to start the business.

“Try to find a local network for inventors,” Vogel said. “There’s a lot of good support there. Seek guidance. They can help you determine if your product is viable, can be profitable and has a market, and help you validate the idea and bring it to market.”

Also, he advised, read business books voraciously.

His personal favorite? “The 4-Hour Workweek” by Tim Ferriss.