Veteran-owned Fire Base Brewing Company has a military theme

By RACHEL STRICKLAND | Photos courtesy of FIRE BASE BREWING COMPANY

The true soldier fights, not because he hates what is in front of him, but because he loves what is behind him.” This G.K. Chesterton quote is displayed prominently on Fire Base Brewing Company’s website, and it perfectly encompasses what they’re all about: respect for the United States military and a focus on the community. In May 2020, J.D. McBride and Stacy Zemp opened Fire Base Brewing and became Temple’s first craft brewery, and they’ve been going strong ever since.

The idea for the brewery came in 2017 when the couple was living in Washington state. McBride had just come back from a deployment in eastern Africa and was close to military retirement when he realized he didn’t want to work for the government anymore. He’d already been home brewing for several years, so when he jokingly suggested that they open a brewery wherever they retired, it just made sense.

The couple has always loved visiting breweries all over the country. “We really enjoyed the welcoming atmosphere of them all,” McBride says.

“And one of the bigger things for me was how most of them were somehow involved with their community. So, it wasn’t just about the beer.”

McBride was a supply sergeant in the Army and the Marine Corps, and he was stationed with cavalry units for three of his four combat deployments. According to McBride, “fire base” is the military term for a forward firing position for field artillery during combat. Because of his time spent deployed overseas, it made sense for McBride to have a military-themed brewery.

McBride learned to brew sometime in 2015 when he and Zemp were stationed in Hawaii. He was about to have knee surgery and wanted something to look forward to and to take his mind off things. He found a small beer-making kit at Bed Bath and Beyond, and he decided to give it a shot. “It tasted pretty good,” he says. “I didn’t have to dump anything down the drain, so that was a good thing.” From there, he began to dabble with creating his own recipes. “It was self-taught trial-and-error with a lot of drinking market research,” he says, laughing.

McBride creates all the beer recipes at Fire Base, and he is involved in brewing the batches as well. As far as types of beer on tap, he says they don’t limit themselves to any one kind. “We prefer to focus on traditional style beers,” he says. They always have 13 beers on tap, as well as a hard cider. “We have everything from the light, easy drinking pilsners and cultures to the dark, heavier stouts, and everything in between,” McBride says. “We do our best to appeal to everybody’s flavor profile and try to push people to open their palates as far as craft beers are concerned.”

McBride also names all the beers on tap at Fire Base, and most of them clearly have a military theme, including Amber Waves and Staff Duty Coffee Stout. But a few have very personal meanings to McBride. “The very first beer I ever named is called Fiddler’s Green,” he says. “It’s our American Pale Ale, and that one is very near and dear to my heart.” According to military lore, Fiddler’s Green is a place where fallen service members go after they die, and over time, it has become closely associated with the 1st Cavalry Division. “I just wanted to pay homage to my three combat deployments with the cavalry over in Iraq,” McBride says. Fire Base’s wheat beer, called Joe’s Wheaty Wheat, was named after a retired chief warrant officer McBride was stationed with at Fort Lewis in Washington. And one of their pilsners, called Where Beagles Dare, is a play on the movie Where Eagles Dare, and is a tribute to his friend’s beagles.

If beer isn’t your thing, Fire Base also has several types of wine, and there’s surely something for everyone. Zemp says they carry wines from Moose & Goose and Dancing Bee, two local wineries, as well as some white wine mix blends, some Cabernets, and a Moscato.

The brewery itself has a strong military theme. “We tried to make it look like a couple of soldiers put it together…because a couple of soldiers put it together,” McBride says, laughing. On the right-hand side as you walk in the door, there’s a brick wall layered with concrete and plaster. He says the wall reminded him of some of the buildings he’d stayed in while deployed in Iraq, so he decided to leave it the way it was.

“It’s pretty awesome to see soldiers that have been deployed to Iraq or Afghanistan walk in for the first time and see the wall. They kind of point at it and give a quizzical look like, ‘Was that on purpose?’ And I say, ‘it reminds you of Iraq, doesn’t it?’ And they’re like, ‘Yeah, it gave me goosebumps.’”

Aside from the unique wall, the brewery also has a beer cooler called the Hooch, which is in reference to the makeshift huts that soldiers make from plywood and netting when stationed overseas. There are also unit flags that were gifted from some of the brewery’s patrons, as well as patches from all five military branches. In the back of the brewery, there is a little space for the Local Police Association and the Firefighter Association called the Ring of Honor. According to McBride, it’s a place for “those that aren’t necessarily military-related, but still do some great stuff for the community and put their lives in front of others.”

While there’s no food provided by Fire Base, there is a rotation of local food trucks. “We try to focus where we can on veteran-owned businesses,” Zemp says. Every month, they host a First Friday block party in front of the brewery where they allow veteran-owned businesses to set up shop, free of charge. “We like to help where we can in getting those small businesses going because we’re one of them,” Zemp adds.

Though there are several other small craft breweries in the area, Fire Base holds its own in many ways. Not only were they the first locally owned brewery in Temple, but they also do a lot to help the community. This past holiday season, they ran a toy drive for the Temple Police Department’s Blue Santa Program, and they’ve also made some fundraising beers for nonprofits in Texas and around the country. One of the biggest fundraisers they did was for the 13 service members who lost their lives in a terrorist attack in Afghanistan in 2021.

There’s a welcoming feeling in Fire Base that’s palpable, and that’s just what the couple wanted for their brewery. Zemp says that one of the best parts about Fire Base is that it has become a great place to make friends. “A lot of people come to the brewery and meet new people. And that’s what we wanted. I don’t know how we managed it, but we did,” she says. McBride adds to this sentiment by saying, “You could be new, but you’ll be family before you leave. Everybody who comes in gets razzed a little bit, and we give them a hard time here and there, especially once we get to know them better,” he says, laughing. “That’s what we do in the military. We give each other a hard time, but it’s because we love each other.”

IF YOU GO
Address: 8 S. First St., Temple
Phone: 254-598-2345
Email: contact@firebasebrewing.com
Website: firebasebrewing.com
Taproom Hours: 4 to 9 p.m. Wednesday and Thursday, 4 to 10 p.m. Friday, noon to 10 p.m. Saturday, noon to 6 p.m. Sunday