Today we’d like to introduce you to Jake Endres.
Jake, we appreciate you taking the time to share your story with us today. Where does your story begin?
Crooked Run is our brewery we founded in 2013 in Leesburg, VA. Founders Lee Rogan and Jake Endres opened Crooked Run with crowdfunded money raised via Kickstarter, building a tiny nanobrewery at the original downtown Leesburg location, which still operates today. The pair steadily grew the brewery via sweat equity and good business decisions, with a reputation in the area for creative and well-executed beers. Crooked Run opened a much larger production brewery and taproom in Dulles, VA in 2017. In 2023, Crooked Run opened its newest location in the Union Market neighborhood in northeast DC. In 2024, J&J Pizza was born. J&J does NYC style pizza, pizza by the slice, and many flavors of wings as half of Crooked Run’s DC operation. It was an immediate success, and a second J&J Pizza opened later that year in Virginia. Pairing Crooked Run’s variety of well-executed beer with high quality, cold-fermented pizza has proved to be a great move. Later this summer, the newest addition will open: Crooked Run Del Ray in Alexandria, Virginia, located right in the heart of town on Mt. Vernon Avenue.
I’m sure it wasn’t obstacle-free, but would you say the journey has been fairly smooth so far?
The craft beer boom started in 2010 and the entire industry grew by leaps and bounds until COVID. Our challenges were mostly related to keeping up with demand and growing a tiny business into a larger one. Post-pandemic, everything changed. The craft beer bubble began to burst in 2022, as peoples’ finances tightened and fewer people were spending money outside the house. Fortunately, we made a key pivot into pizza, working with our chef partner Julian Addison to launch J&J Pizza (Julian’s pizza, Jake’s wings). By adding an affordable great food option that is highly suited for delivery, we were able to insulate ourselves from the shockwaves in the craft beer market. But it was far from painless. 2023-present involved nonstop work to launch our pizzeria and streamline operations to become highly efficient, make our products consistently great, and learn how to market effectively. Fortunately, those efforts have paid off and we’re continuing to grow while many breweries in the region and nationwide have shuttered. We’ve done well enough to open our latest location in Del Ray almost entirely self-financed. Del Ray represents a new direction for us: a small but highly intentional taproom, with a greater focus on design and customer experience. We’re planning on continued expansion.
Appreciate you sharing that. What else should we know about what you do?
Founders and operators Jake Endres and Lee Rogan have found success in an extremely challenging economic climate thanks to 13 years of experience and diametrically opposite but complimentary skill sets.
Jake Endres–creative direction, beer and culinary design. Jake began as head brewer for Crooked Run, and still oversees production and recipe formulation. In the past three years, he’s brought the same creativity to running our restaurant, J&J Pizza, and to marketing/photography/videography. Most recently, he’s taken on interior design for the new Del Ray location.
Lee Rogan–operations and construction. Lee brings execution to the abstract. Lee’s background as a project manager for a major construction firm prior to opening Crooked Run has brought a high degree of knowledge on planning, construction, and execution. Lee is able to bring ideas and improvements, from small to quite large, to life through a broad set of practical skills and “measure twice, cut once” mentality. Right now, he’s hard at work building our latest addition in Del Ray.
Although opposites in a lot of ways, Jake and Lee work well as a team thanks to shared ingrained abilities in logic, math, and business. It’s a true right and left brain team.
Is there anyone you’d like to thank or give credit to?
Michael Courtney, our first investor. A CFO for a large company, his knowledge of business and advice guided us and he exemplified “smart money.”
Ryan Courtney, Michael’s son and brewer at Crooked Run for ten years. Ryan brewed almost every beer for the last decade, and helped build a lot of Crooked Run.
Adrien Widman, owner of Ocelot Brewing. The first person in our industry to really believe in us. Ocelot has been an inspiration to us.
Emily Brown, owner of Eeebee’s Corner Bar. Emily showed us the world outside our little town, and that more was possible for us than just a suburban brewery in an office park.
Pricing:
- Happy hour (Sterling and DC). Two slices and a beer or soda for $12 M-F until 6 PM.
- $5/slice
- $6-9/beer
Contact Info:
- Website: crookedrunfermentation.com jandjpizzadmv.com
- Instagram: crookedrunfermentation jandjpizzadmv
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/p/Crooked-Run-Fermentation-100089448863068/
Image Credits
Josh McDonough, Jake Endres
