April 7 is recognized as National Beer Day in the U.S., and April 6 is known as New Beer's Eve. Why, you ask? April 7 is the anniversary of the end of Prohibition in the United States. Those who frequent Downtown Rogers restaurants and bars don't need a special day to enjoy locally the popular beverage that has been made for over 5,000 years. But it is a great reason for us to shine the spotlight and help you get acquainted with one of the founders and co-owners of Ozark Beer Company, Lacie Bray.  

Lacie Bray inherited a love of nature from both sides of her family. On one side, a multi-generational Ozark farming history, and on the other, a family that relocated to Arkansas in the 1970s to enjoy nature and waterways. Growing up on a farm in Garfield, Ar., Lacie was part of a small, tight-knit community. Many of us have heard of of a one-room school, but Lacie didn't have to watch "Little House on the Prairie," to experience one. "My grade school had only one class, kindergarden through sixth grade." It is one of those things that forms who you are, but you don't appreciate it until you are much older," says Lacie of her early upbringing in the small Ozark community.

She developed a passion for being on the water including canoe trips on the Elk and Buffalo Rivers and time spent in Colorado on summer vacations. After her first year at Lyon College in Batesville, Ar., Lacie secured a job at a rafting company in Buena Vista, Co, for the summer. This decision would lead to eight years of traveling for seasonal jobs--from rafting, to outdoor education, in Colorado, California and Virginia--living out of a tent or the back of a pickup truck for a lot of it.

A love story also began on the water as Lacie would meet Andy Cotes rafting in the middle of this time. "It was a great time of adventure. It was before smartphones, so all we had to do was sit and talk around campfires at night and go outside and hike or raft during the day. It was a magical time looking back," says Bray. "But if I had been paying attention, it seems that Arkansas was always calling me back." The river Lacie rafted on all those years was the Arkansas River and the company she worked for was owned by an Arkansan that had moved to Colorado decades earlier.

Lacie and Andy ended up in Denver in 2007, where they pursued their passions. Lacie applied to Teach For America, and Andy joined the team at Great Divide Brewing Company. Once she was accepted into the program, they moved to Chicago, where she taught high school science while getting her master's degree, and Andy worked at Goose Island Brewery.

After two years in the same city, they took a break from the routine and embarked on a year-long journey of exploration. They each chose where they would spend part of the year: Andy wanted to head to Walla Walla, Washington to learn about wine, the grape harvest, and wine barrels. Frost came early that year, leaving them with extra time to travel around Oregon, Washington and Idaho. During that time, they visited breweries and noticed taprooms act as a pulse for each area. "We could get a real feel for a place by visiting taprooms. The energy, the events, the people. It was obvious that there was no better place to go to understand an area and get connected with people." That's when their dream of opening their own brewery started. But it was Lacie's turn to pick the travel, and they ended up organic farming and traveling in South America. While traveling, they researched different states' laws and concluded that Northwest Arkansas was the best location for their brewery.

Once back in NWA, it would take Lacie and Andy, three years to get the brewery open. During that time, Lacie taught high school biology in Bentonville, and Andy worked at West Mountain to get their brewing system up and running. They eventually found and converted an old ammunition warehouse in Rogers into the original Ozark Beer Co in 2013.

"I realize now that the whole time we were traveling, I was looking for community. We would go on these wild goose chases trying to find little towns I remembered from river trips, and I would always leave disappointed," explained Lacie. "But after returning to Arkansas, everything clicked." Lacie and Andy found great community first in Fayetteville and then on the east side of Rogers. Downtown Rogers has everything that Lacie loved about mountain towns out West: a close-knit community with deep ties to nature and outdoor activities, and largely based on the service industry. These conditions, Lacie believes, creates an area that likes to work hard and play hard and is based on mutual respect as the people who serve you at the local restaurants and bars are the same people you may be serving the next night.

And, her reasoning may make you want to dig out that VHS tape of The Wizard of Oz when she explains, "I am very happy here, and so grateful. For me, after all the traveling and searching, I just needed to come back home."