2 Row Brewing
“The entrepreneur in me was saying, get into it and make it better.” For Brian Coleman, owner of 2 Row Brewing in Midvale, that instinct has guided nearly every chapter of his life. Long before he was brewing beer, building a bar, and filling a sixteen-thousand-square-foot space with customers, games, and food, Brian was a kid from Los Angeles who loved cars, tools, and figuring out how things worked.
Brian grew up in Los Angeles and stayed there through high school, even after his parents moved to Utah during his senior year. After graduation, he headed to Phoenix for automotive trade school, fully expecting to return to California. But a trip to Utah changed his plans. While visiting his parents, Brian went skiing at Snowbird in June. He then returned to Phoenix with a sunburn and spent days trying to convince people he had gotten it on the slopes rather than at a lake.
Beyond skiing, Utah offered something different that appealed to a young man starting out - housing was affordable, jobs were plentiful, and the mountains were unlike anything he had known growing up. When he finished trade school, he packed up his truck and moved to Utah for good.
Cars had always been his passion. A high school auto shop teacher had encouraged his talent, helped him secure a scholarship to trade school, and introduced him to Snap-on tools. After working as a mechanic for several years, Brian found an opportunity to become a Snap-on dealer and jumped at it. The business appealed to both his mechanical skills and his growing entrepreneurial ambitions. He spent nearly a decade building a successful franchise, selling tools to mechanics throughout the region. But over time, he found himself wondering whether he could build something entirely on his own.
The answer arrived in an unexpected industry. While traveling between repair shops, Brian became convinced that the towing business could be done better. He saw opportunities to bring professionalism, customer service, and strong salesmanship to an industry that often lacked all three. “There’s got to be a better option for these people,” he recalled thinking. “And there really wasn’t. So, I made one.”
Brian founded Speedy Towing and steadily transformed it into one of the larger towing companies in Utah. Clean trucks, trained drivers, professional service, and relentless relationship-building helped the company grow rapidly. The business expanded into heavy hauling, recoveries, and commercial towing, and Brian spent years building it into a successful operation.
Along the way, Brian met DeDe Coleman. Originally from Huntsville, Alabama, DeDe had moved frequently with her family before eventually settling in Utah. She and Brian built a life together and have now been married for more than three decades. Through every business venture, career change, and entrepreneurial leap, DeDe remained his biggest supporter. She also unknowingly launched the next chapter.
One Christmas, DeDe gave Brian a simple homebrew beer kit. It sat untouched for months until she finally asked if he was ever going to use it. One weekend, he decided to give it a try, brewing a basic batch of beer on the kitchen stove. The result was less important than the discovery. “I had no idea that you could make alcohol at home,” Brian said. “I thought this was the coolest thing ever.”
The beer itself, he admits, was not particularly good, but it sparked an obsession. Brian dove headfirst into brewing. He studied books, experimented endlessly, entered competitions, and transformed much of his garage into a miniature brewery filled with custom-built equipment. He taught himself everything he could, constantly chasing the next improvement. At first, he simply shared the beer with friends and neighbors. But as with most of Brian’s hobbies, it did not stay a hobby for long. Once he became confident in his brewing skills, he began thinking about how to turn it into a business.
That opportunity arrived early in 2014. While browsing a website that listed used brewery equipment, Brian found the exact commercial brewing system he had been hoping to buy. The catch was that it was located in Georgia. After a quick conversation with the seller, Brian and DeDe booked flights and headed east. What followed was a week-long adventure that involved dismantling a brewery, renting a truck, loading the equipment, and hauling it back across the country to Utah. When they finally unloaded everything into the shop at Speedy Towing, Brian looked at his operations manager and said, “I guess I’m going into the beer business.” The equipment became the foundation of 2 Row Brewing.
The name comes from two-row barley, one of the most common grains used in craft brewing. After cycling through countless possible brewery names, Brian and DeDe landed on one that was simple, brewing-related, and still had an available domain name. The first 2 Row location opened just around the corner from where the brewery sits today. It was focused entirely on production. There was no taproom, restaurant, or gathering space. Brian brewed beer, sold it through Utah’s distribution system, and worked to slowly build the brand.
For years, growth came one step at a time. Equipment was upgraded, capacity increased, and distribution expanded. But Brian quickly learned that producing beer alone was not enough to create a sustainable business. What he really needed was a place where people could gather.
Finding that place took years. Brian spent nearly four years searching for the right location, much of it during the uncertainty of Covid. When he first saw the current property, he actually walked away. At sixteen thousand square feet, it felt far too large. Eventually the landlord came back with an offer Brian could not refuse. 2 Row Brewing opened its current location in October 2023.
Today, the space functions as far more than a brewery. It is part brewery, part restaurant, part gathering place. Guests come for house-brewed beer, but they also come for cornhole leagues, trivia nights, board games, pool tables, pinball, craft markets, live events, and creative community gatherings like Pitch Your Pal, where friends make presentations explaining why someone should date one of their single friends.
The size of the space has also made 2 Row a destination for large gatherings. Corporate events, birthday parties, fundraisers, league nights, and community celebrations regularly fill the building. Groups can gather without buying out the entire venue, something Brian believes has helped set the brewery apart.
The beer remains at the heart of it all. 2 Row has become especially known for its IPAs, including Feeling Hazy, the brewery’s popular tie-dye-labeled flagship IPA. Other customer favorites include the Elderberry Blonde and Mexican Lager. While the taproom continues to grow, Brian has also expanded distribution, returning beers to grocery stores and increasing their presence in liquor stores.
The brewery itself has become a family affair. Various members of the Coleman family have contributed over the years, helping with finances, events, marketing, design, and day-to-day operations. The business has grown from a small operation run largely by Brian, DeDe, and their son into a company employing dozens of people.
Today, Brian and DeDe are proud to call Midvale home. After spending decades in Draper, they moved closer to the business and embraced the community that helped support its growth. They appreciate the diversity of the city and have worked to create a place where everyone feels welcome.
For Brian, the path to 2 Row was anything but direct: mechanic, tool salesman, tow company owner, homebrewer, brewery founder, restaurant and bar operator. Each chapter taught him something new, and each one helped prepare him for the next. The result is a place that reflects the couple who built it - welcoming, energetic, a little unconventional, and always evolving. “We just like to do fun things and bring people together.”
