Louisville Magazine is Louisville's city magazine, covering Louisville people, lifestyles, politics, sports, restaurants, entertainment and homes. Includes a monthly calendar of events.
Issue link: https://loumag.epubxp.com/i/842307
34 LOUISVILLE MAGAZINE 7.17 LIBA Partner Pages derbycitybrewtours.com Talk about turning lemons into lemonade! Or perhaps more accurately – beer. Twenty-eight-year-old Keith Joy felt overburdened by student loans when his creativity and an entrepreneurial spirit took flight in Kentucky. Previously working by day as a manager at an environmental safety company in Riverside, California, Joy spent weekends working as a tour guide at California breweries to make extra money. When he moved to Louisville in 2014, he asked himself "Why couldn't I start my own company offering tours of craft breweries here?" And that's exactly what he did. Joy launched Derby City Brew Tours in 2015. His company offers van and bus tours of breweries in Kentuckiana on weekends and also arranges private tours for bachelor and bachelorette parties as well as other celebrations and corporate team-building experiences. Tours range in price from $45-$50 per person. Tours include stops at three rotating breweries, flights of 3-ounce beer samples at each stop, and a pretzel necklace. Tours typically last about four hours. "I just did a private tour for a Crestwood neighborhood association," Joy says. "That was a ball!" Joy, who holds a graduate degree from Eastern Kentucky University, currently works days as a safety engineer at a defense contractor. But it's his private start-up tour company that pays his student loan bills. The ebullient Joy – a very warm and likable fellow – said there were 13 craft breweries in Kentuckiana in 2015 and that number has jumped by nearly 30 percent in just the last two years. There are now 18 craft breweries in the Kentuckiana area. "Louisville is positioned to be a city in the top 5 nationally for craft beers in the next five years," Joy A conversation with Keith Joy, owner and CEO of Derby City Brew Tours By Rachel Reynolds says. "There are just tons of great breweries here. Louisville used to be a beer city when the German immigrants moved here, competing with St. Louis and Milwaukee. There were 14 breweries in Louisville before Prohibition in the 1920s, and only three survived." After that, Louisville breweries turned to the beverage and ice industry, Joy says. But, Louisville is now coming full circle and re-emerging as a craft brewery destination. "The craft brew scene is just blowing up across the country right now," Joy says. "And we are outpacing other cities." Joy says he fell in love with hops and beer and all things brewery during undergraduate school when he studied abroad. He studied in Seoul, South Korea and then backpacked through Taiwan and the Philippines. During his senior year, he spent a month in Peru. "With each country I went to, I got the local feel not only through art and cuisine but also through the local craft beer," Joy says. "That's where it all started was sampling local beers in many different countries. That's where my passion comes from." Ever the entrepreneur, Joy is currently working on a new offering that he calls the Sunday Funday. This will be a hop-on-hop-off vehicle service that makes stops at various bars in Germantown. It will run from 2:30 – 6:30 p.m. on Sundays, and for $10 each patrons will get a wristband that allows them to ride at their leisure in circulating vehicles from one bar to another. Joy is currently negotiating happy hour prices with some bars in Germantown for his Sunday excursions. All tours can be booked online at www. derbycitybrewtours.com or by calling Joy at (502) 208-9954.