Garden Path Fermentation

Garden Path Fermentation was opening a second location in Bellingham. The Great Northern Bottle Shop & Lounge. New space, new neighborhood, no existing social presence for it. They needed someone who could build the content engine from scratch and actually understood the industry.

I came in as a brand consultant. Social media strategy, asset creation, posting schedule, event promotion. The whole thing. I built a cadence aligned with when their audience was actually online and created the posts, stories, and event content to fill it. But the real strategy wasn't about posting frequency. It was about becoming part of Bellingham.

I spent years in the craft beer industry before design. I know how taproom culture works. I know the terminology. I know what trends are coming and which ones are noise. That context meant I could write copy that sounded like it came from someone who actually drinks the beer, because it did.

The strategy that moved the needle was community-first content. Instead of just promoting Garden Path, I started interacting with local businesses, highlighting their events, and weaving the brewery into the fabric of what was already happening in Bellingham. People followed because the account felt like a neighbor, not an ad.

Thursday night trivia became the anchor. A recurring event that gave people a reason to come back every week. It built regulars. Regulars brought friends. Friends followed the page. That flywheel is what took the account from nothing to 900% growth in two quarters with almost no money behind it.

This project is different from my enterprise work. No design systems. No 12-person teams. Just scrappy brand work for a local business using industry knowledge I've carried for years. It shows range. And it was a hell of a lot of fun.