Former UF Lineman Turns Beer Passion, Family’s Legacy Into State’s ‘Best Small Brewery’

TAMPA — Jim Barrie gazes at the frames hung on the wall of his brewery, BarrieHaus Beer Co. in Ybor City, pointing to artifacts of his great-great-great grandfather’s brewery and speaking of continuing the family legacy.

“It almost feels like destiny, right?” Barrie said. “Beer is in my blood.” 

The former offensive tackle turns around and heads back toward the taproom, passing by the framed No. 68 Florida Gators football jersey that he wore for two national championship teams in 2006 and ’08.

Barrie, who is from Odessa, a town about 30 minutes north of downtown Tampa, was a highly sought-after offensive lineman from Berkeley Preparatory School. At 6-foot-5 and 290 pounds, he was a four-star recruit who received 34 offers from schools across the country. 

Barrie ultimately landed at the University of Florida, his dream school, the school his two sisters and mother attended. The program was trending up under coach Urban Meyer, who was hired in 2004. He was part of the Gators’ celebrated No. 2-ranked 2006 recruiting class which included Tim Tebow, Percy Harvin and Brandon Spikes.

Florida would win the national championship in 2006 in Barrie’s freshman year, but he didn’t see the field much during his first two seasons, playing one game against Florida Atlantic in 2007.

As a sophomore, Barrie met his future wife, Brittney, a junior at the time, in a statistics tutoring session. Brittney was in the College of Health and Human Performance and was the manager of the swimming and diving teams at Florida from 2007-09. During this time, Brittney and Jim were introduced to craft beers, which were just starting to make a splash in the alcohol market.

In the fall of 2008, Florida had its eyes set on a national championship. Tebow, now a Heisman Trophy-winning quarterback, had become a superstar. But three heartbreaking losses in 2007 left the team with a sour taste in its mouth.

“When you’re in it, you don’t realize that it’s a unique situation,” Barrie said. “We never thought we were going to lose a game.”

As Florida was becoming a football powerhouse, Barrie’s life changed during a practice.

While blocking during a play, another player got thrown into Barrie’s right leg, tearing his ACL, MCL and meniscus. Over the next year, he attempted to rehab it and return to action, but it was just too difficult of an injury to overcome.

“It sucked,” Barrie said. “My lifelong goal was to play at Florida and play in the NFL. I got close, but set out a different path, for sure.”

Florida went on to win the third national title in program history in 2008. For Barrie, with more free time on his hands, he did what any injured athlete does while rehabilitating what turned out to be a career-ending injury. He started home brewing.

After watching a documentary on how to make beer, Barrie and his roommates started buying ingredients from a local home brewing shop. While some slight knowledge of brewing lineage encouraged him, he started becoming passionate about the art of making beer.

“I’m pretty much self-taught, like the science aspect of it, but there’s brewing textbooks, German brewing textbooks,” Barrie said. “That’s kind of how I learned that side of it.”

Brittney, who played a big role in getting Jim initially passionate about craft beer, was a big part of the journey, too.

“We basically were starting to look on the shelves and understanding the different beers and the different flavors of beers and all the craft breweries,” Brittney said. “It was a really fun time in craft beer.”

After Barrie and Brittney graduated, they stayed at Florida for graduate school. Jim was working toward a real estate law degree and Brittney worked in the exercise science field, graduating with a degree in applied Physiology and Kinesiology. The couple married while in graduate school in 2014.

Barrie began working in real estate law, but struggled with the day-to-day element of being stuck at a desk, especially after being a football player who was constantly on his feet and moving. Barrie also missed the competitiveness of football, which he started to channel into brewing by entering home brewing competitions in Gainesville.

“I started winning and then I kind of got addicted to entering competitions and trying to win. I kind of fueled my competitiveness,” Barriesaid.

As Barrie fell more in love with brewing and less in love with law, he started to think about opening his own brewery. He began working at First Magnitude Brewing in Gainesville in 2016 to learn the ropes of how a full-scale brewing operation runs.

“They’re wonderful people,” Brittney said of the First Magnitude team. “We have a really special relationship with them.”

The Barries were set on starting their own brewery and they set out to find a spot in Gainesville to open. Barrie’s role was to focus more on creating the beer, while Brittney was going to deal with finances, communications, hospitality and other nuances that come with starting a small business.

Barrie also called up his lifelong friend, Junbae Lee, to also co-own the brewery and be the director of sales and relations. At the time, Lee was living in Colorado, and when Barrie called, he was in Korea visiting family.

“When Jim first told me, I laughed at the idea,” Lee said. “But when I realized he was serious, I simply replied, “I’ll see you Stateside.’”

At the time, the city of Gainesville was attempting to develop “The Power District,” an area between downtown and Depot Park that is predominantly filled with former industrial buildings. Many potential vendors, including the Barries, had requests for proposals in for development, but none of the RFPs came to fruition.

Still, the Barries were adamant about their plan. They had pooled money from family to get the brewery going and they realized Gainesville wasn’t going to be the spot for them. So, they moved to Tampa, a hot spot for craft beer and breweries, in 2018. 

“[The] Tampa Bay [area] is the best beer, craft brewery scene in the state of Florida,” Brittney said, pointing to not only the quality of beer, but also the most breweries per capita.

They found a 5,000 square-foot building in historic Ybor City which was originally a surveying office. Barrie and the crew demoed all the cubicles inside, which was full circle for him.

After months of preparation, BarrieHaus Beer Co. opened its doors in December 2019. That opening excitement was short-lasting, though, as the COVID-19 pandemic swept across the globe shortly after, and was especially difficult for small, in-person businesses like BarrieHaus.

The brewery also wasn’t distributing beer yet, which meant that the only way they could make money was from people coming in the building.

“We barely got through it, it was rough,” Barrie said.

The brewery was shut down for some time, then they eventually were able to open with half capacity. The brewery also has an outdoor beer garden, which allowed them to accommodate more guests.

“Honestly, the outdoor beer garden saved us,” Barrie said. “We had that, and we cut as many feasible costs that you could possibly have in order to stay open.”

Barrie was aware of some of his brewing lineage, but once BarrieHaus opened, his family members sent him more artifacts and information regarding the family’s history.

Barrie’s great-great-great grandfather, Philip Kling, a Cooper by trade, immigrated to the United States from Germany at age 17 in 1836 to set up a barrel shop. Once in the states, he decided to start brewing beer instead, and founded Peninsular Brewing in 1863 in Detroit, which was eventually renamed Ph. Kling Brewing Company.

Kling created German-influenced lagers and opened another location in Flint, Mich., before being forced to shut down because of Prohibition in 1920.

Kling’s daughter married Louis Schimmel, Barrie’s great-great grandfather. Schimmel founded Tivoli Brewing in 1897 and his Altes Lager beer became one of the most popular beers in Michigan.

Tivoli was also affected by Prohibition, but the brewery decided to operate underground. Tivoli’s Altes Lager brand was one of the few to survive prohibition – with Barrie’s great grandfather, Hugh Martin, serving as its vice president – and it continued to be brewed by various breweries until 1990. Brewing would skip a few generations in Barrie’s lineage, but now he has rekindled a historical aspect of his family.

BarrieHaus has an entire wall with artifacts dedicated to these former breweries and he even has original boxes from both breweries at the front of the building.

“It’s paying homage to family history, it’s pretty neat to keep it going,” Barrie said.

BarrieHaus’ beers are European-style stock lagers, which Barrie said fits a niche in the Tampa community, as most other breweries focus on IPAs and other styles of beers. The brewery imports its ingredients from various places in Europe, which keeps Barrie busy trying to replicate the same taste each time.

“It’s a passion that is just a very interesting, scientific and art-like combination, because in order to create the same recipe over and over and over with ingredients that are coming from all over the world, it’s difficult to create quality and consistency of the same beer,” said Brittney, who is the brewery’s president and director of Hoperations — in addition to being a Doctor of Physical Therapy.

While the brewery is still young, BarrieHaus has started to make a significant name for itself in the Tampa scene. In March, BarrieHaus was named the “Best Small Brewery” after winning the most medals at the Best Florida Beer Competition. BarrieHaus’ Tampa Export Dortmunder (Barrie’s personal favorite) won a gold medal, the brewery also took home silver for both The Dark, a Munich-style Dunkel, and its Vienna lager, Family Tradition. It also earned a bronze for Bublina, a Czech-style pilsner.

BarrieHaus’ success led them to expand to a second location in Trinity, which is about 45 minutes north of their primary location in Ybor City.

“Now, we’re local to a different community,” Brittney said. “We’re able to bring our beer, our product that we have a passion for, up there and create different connections and communities.”

Expansion was always a goal for the Barries, and they plan to keep expanding when the right opportunities come, which may even include Gainesville, which Brittney said is “never off the list.”

Still, the Barries, who went from brewing beer in home refrigerators to having their own brewery, want to keep the business as personal as it began.

 “I truly love the brewing process,” Barrie said. “I love every aspect of it.”