A Minute with Misty Toomey Eytcheson, C’97

The University of Saint Mary Advancement Office hosted a happy hour at ExBEERiment Brewing on March 7.

What interested you in opening ExBEERiment?

I was working in the Spring Hill School District as the director of communications for the last six years before COVID hit. I decided that I needed a change. It was a very stressful time, and I needed to do something completely different. When I was looking around trying to figure out what my next steps would be, my husband and I got to talking, dreaming, wishing about opening a brewery. Gardner didn’t have a craft brewery, and it’s a large enough town to support one. 

We would drive around and look at empty spaces and talk about fun names. Eventually, that got more and more serious, and we decided that we were actually going to do it. It was a quick transition from wishing and dreaming to opening a business.

What was the inspiration behind the name of the brewery?

My husband, Greg, and I both worked for a community college before we moved up here, so we both have quite a bit of background in education. There is a love of science between the two of us, and it was obviously a great name to market. Inside the taproom, we have a BEERiodic table, and we serve our flights in beakers, and we have a wall of “Lab Notes.” 

It has been a really fun, memorable theme for the brewery.

Were you homebrewers before you started the business?

My husband was a homebrewer, and he worked in IT. He takes care of all of the brewing and technical parts of the brewery, and then I take care of all the communication, marketing events, and taproom. It’s a nice combination for just the two of us to handle all aspects of the business.

Tell us about your menu.

We keep a variety of beers on tap. We try to have at least one sour, one stout, one IPA, and so forth. There are three beers that we keep on tap year-round, and then the others just rotate based on inspiration or season.