When Jeff Battershell and his wife lived in Ouray, Colorado, for six years, he fell in love with the numerous small town craft breweries in the area. A Cleveland native, Battershell moved back home a year and a half ago with the initial thought of starting a brewery.

“It was always kind of our plan to go out there and experience something different and move back,” Battershell explains. “But I felt like I was missing out on Cleveland’s renaissance.”

When he got back to Cleveland, Battershell’s environmental science and entrepreneurship education from BGSU kicked in. “Breweries seemed like a saturated market,” he says. “I was being honest with myself. I wasn’t good enough to compete with places like Great Lakes Brewery and Market Garden Brewery.”

Then Battershell got the idea to pair his environmental studies with his love for beer and start an apparel business that benefits water conservation groups while promoting breweries. He started Keepin’ it Fresh, a company that sells baseball caps and t-shirts with embroidered brewery logos. A portion of the proceeds will go to water conservation groups or projects; a percentage goes back to the brewery.

“I bounced the idea off of my friends in the industry and they really liked it because it was one more way to promote their business,” he says. “And beer depends on the quality of water they’re brewing with.”

Keepin’ it Fresh has four Southwest breweries signed on and is working with a number of well-known Cleveland breweries on agreements. Right now, Battershell is embroidering baseball caps on one machine out of his house. He plans to hire one part-time employee by 2015 and his five-year plan calls for five employees and additional embroidery machines.

Battershell’s site will be selling apparel by April. In the meantime he is working with organizations like the Natural Resources Defense Council’s Brewers for Clean Water Campaign and the Alliance for the Great Lakes.

Source: Jeff Battershell
Writer: Karin Connelly