What comes to mind when someone says BBQ? Do you think of summertime, maybe backyard games and grilling out with friends, loved ones, and everyone on the block?
To us, our brewery is the backyard where our families, friends, and neighbors can come together as a community. We’ve built a warm, friendly atmosphere, that when combined with a cold beer and some BBQ, will remind you of the backyard BBQ’s you used to go to as a child. At least we hope…
We’ll start where Bill’s Best began – with Bill.
Bill had many manual gifts – sports, building, bow hunting, and working on cars – as well as gifts of community, like teaching, catalyzing the United Bowhunters of Pennsylvania, or just entertaining friends and family with jokes and stories. Bill’s talents blend a hand-made, self-belief with a desire to share his gifts with those he loved. He didn’t just fix up his own cars, he’d help family and friends with theirs. He didn’t just build his own house, he’d help neighbors install a ceiling fan. So when he created his own recipe for barbecue sauce, of course he gave it to family and friends as Christmas presents.
Perhaps it was just luck, or perhaps it was intentional, but Bill chose to create a type of sauce that symbolizes his virtues.
Beyond the cuisine, in our culture, barbecue is meant to be shared with others. Barbecuing for cookouts spans socio-economic backgrounds, geographic barriers, political party, and unites different generations with Americana. The indulgent sauce evokes aromas of spices, onions, garlic, and tomatoes, perhaps connecting us to childhood meals.
If you could bottle nostalgia, family, and labors of love, you’d probably end up making barbecue sauce a bit like Bill’s Best.
But transforming the sauce from a home cooked recipe to a product to be bottled and sold reflected the values and drive of the Fehon family. From the start, the ambition wasn’t to get rich quick. The sauce was made with quality ingredients but sold at an affordable price.
Ingredients that could make a family feel good about eating the sauce for dinner on a weeknight, but delicious enough for a weekend treat. With the same spirit and drive, Bill’s Best is on the precipice of opening a brewery. But the principles behind the products remain the same – high quality ingredients to make a high quality products, that’s fairly priced.
If BBQ sauce had to select its liquid equal, it would choose beer. Best enjoyed with a group, a common denominator of our culture and country. Relaxing, uniting, indulgent.