In this latest episode of “A Tribute to Our Heroes,” we talk with a Ryan Cage, the CEO of Honor Brewing.

Honor Brewing is a Virginia based brewery that believes in giving back to the Military community. Founded by Army veteran Allen Cage in 2014, the brewery has grown into a family-driven business with a mission far bigger than brewing. We sat down with Ryan Cage, Allen’s son and current CEO, to talk about the company’s origins, the influence of his Military upbringing, and where Honor Brewing is headed next.

You can view our full video interview with Ryan below.

Q: For those who don’t know you, can you share a little about yourself?
A: My name is Ryan Cage, and I’m the CEO of Honor Brewing Company in Sterling, Virginia. I’ve been running Honor Brewing, the family business since 2022, but I’ve been connected to it since the beginning.

Q: How did Honor Brewing get its start?
A: Honor Brewing started as a winery in 2012 but transitioned into a brewery in 2014. When it started, it was an idea between my dad and a couple of his friends at the time and then he started growing it the way he wanted to. All he wanted to do was brew beer and be able to give back as much money to the Military communities as he could.

Q: Hid you have to learn how to brew like from scratch? Did you have any idea how to start?
A: I just applied what I knew from running and growing gyms on a business side and started applying it here in Honor. On the brew side, I can tell you maybe like the most vanilla version of how to brew a beer, but I’ve also learned that I put the right people in place because I expect them to do the job right. I had to learn a lot quick and I didn’t get a lot of respect and that’s fine. So, it was something that I had to understand quickly and lean on the people that knew it obviously before I could really come to the table with some uh actual sense.

Q: How has the Military influenced your life and leadership?
A: Even though I didn’t personally serve, I grew up in a Military family. I think a lot of who I am today is based off of my parents and my brother. I mean, they all taught me different things. Everybody wants to be reactive instead of trying to figure out the solution before being reactive. I watched my dad with his company after he got out of the Military and he had over 400 employees across the United States and he was able to delegate the things to the right people. And even at the beginning, that company started in like a basement. He had to know that there was time to bring in the right people and let them do the job to help that company expand.

Q: Do you feel that your dad’s Military experience bled into the way he led that company?
A: Yep. Absolutely. He is the type of guy that would go to bed at 8 o’clock at night, maybe 10 and he’s still getting up at 3 or 4 AM. It’s just rinse and repeat. Having that routine and being able to have that communication and structure, absolutely, that definitely has been embedded into me. It’s been embedded into my brother and into our families. This is how it works. We all like to have fun, but there is some of that Military lifestyle that still carries now. If I say a meeting’s at 10 o’clock, meetings at 10 o’clock. I can’t tell you how bad I felt the other day when I missed our meeting with what was going on. So yeah, I just I don’t like that.

Q: When did you first hear about Soldiers Angels?
A: We heard about Soldiers’ Angels a couple years ago, kind of through the grapevine. We started doing some more research on what you all do and the aid that you all provide and whatnot, which is amazing. All 50 states, I think it’s like 31 countries, is that right? What you guys provide is awesome. I think we did some little things and then you guys reached out for Hops for Heroes and that’s been a great thing for us and just more exposure. And not necessarily exposure for us, but I mean exposure for you guys and in a sense of what you offer and how you guys give back. Honor has been able to give back just last year about 75 to $80,000 in different community outreaches, different charities and so forth. This year we’re pushing anywhere between 150 and $200,000, which I mean for us that’s a significant number, right? We’re a company that’s still trying to grow. We know what we want to do and where we want to take it. That’s significant for us and we want to continue to help out as we can.

Q: What ways does Honor Brewing give back to the community?
A: We do a charity tapline. Every month we have a different charity that we work with and we give proceeds back to our number one selling beer, which is our classic lager. Then we do different ways every quarter that we can give back to a little bit bigger based off of who our bigger clients are within the market. So like Trader Joe’s, Giant, Kroger, Wegman’s, all these type of companies that are clients here. Customers that they do so well for us, then we were able to kick back some money on that level as well. Most of them are Military, but there are other ones that we work with. Like a Food pantry is one of them that’s local here. So, we’re able to give back in that direction as well. And then we do another one for a women’s abuse shelter that’s not far from here. So, we are Veteran-owned obviously with my dad and my brother, but we like to give back as much as we can to different community outreach places around us.

Q: What advice do you have for Veterans or anyone wanting to start a business?
A:  You got to be ready and willing to get knocked down because you get knocked down a lot. You have to have the mentality to get back up. I think that just on the military side, that’s a huge thing that is talked about, right? I mean, what the military does for our country and whatnot. You have to be willing to go and do things that not a lot of people want to do. So, when it comes to a business side, there are things that not a lot of people want to do it. They say they want to do it or they want to get to the top of the mountain, but they don’t want to do all the steps to get there, right? Um, and uh, yeah, you got to be willing to be knocked down and get back up and dust yourself off and continue to go.

Q: What is your advice for people to accomplish their vision of growing their business?
A:  At some point you’re always going to get to a level that you can’t get past, right? And there’s only so many things that you can do as an owner or a CEO or an entrepreneur that you’re going to meet that ceiling. So, you either have to find the right people to help you grow in the direction that you want. To me, there’s no ceiling what we want to do at Honor, we don’t have a level of stopping, right? We want to continue to grow. It’s really just hard honest work, a little bit of luck, and having the right team around you.

Q: Where do you see Honor Brewing in the future?
A: We opened our 40,000 square foot facility in October of 2023. So, this October is going to be two years here at what we call headquarters. We built it to expand in our production side. We want to be able to control anywhere with seven to ten states with this location. When I say control seven to ten states is having a decent or well-known footprint in those states. So, in 2026, we’re looking to expand to a couple more states. But, I’m not going to lie, craft beer sections are starting to get smaller, and they’re trying to figure it out. So, we have continuously kind of broken that mold, because where everybody’s starting to come down, our trend’s coming up real hard. The THC drinks and and some other stuff we’re doing also helps. So more states, more recognition of what we’re trying to do, give more money back. Um, yeah. I mean, we have our 10-year plan to see where we can go. And in 10 years, I’ll be 52. And hopefully, I can sit back and hand it off to a different family member or we can figure out what the next move is.

Q: Who are you outside of the brewery?
A: I own a couple gyms, so when my mornings start I’m normally coaching at those gyms. Then we start our day at the brewery. But I have a 16-year-old son, his name’s David. I have a daughter, Isabella, she’s 14, and another daughter, Lucy, who’s 12. Uh, that’s my time. That’s what we do. Um, other than that, that’s about it. The kids are good and understanding of when dad and mom work, because mom works here, too. So, when we have free time, our free time is with them.

Q: Do your kids have any interest in taking on any roles at Honor Brewing?
A: My son likes to be silly and thinks that he’s going to sit in this big boy chair at one point. I don’t know if that’s going to happen. My daughters, maybe. I mean, I want them to make their decisions. My dad was understanding enough back in 2011/2012 when I left all the family business stuff and decided to go run the gyms and do my own thing. That wasn’t an easy thing for him to understand. That I wanted to go do something different and not be a part of what he was growing. Especially with my wife working for him there as well, and then my brother being there, and my cousins, my uncles. I mean, it was everybody and I was the lone wolf that was like, “Nope, I’m out.” So, for my kids, I want them to make that choice on their own. I don’t want to push them anyway and kind of let them figure out life. And I think it’s important. I mean, if they wanted to come work here, they need to probably go work somewhere else before.

Q: Any closing thoughts?
A: You got to be willing to get knocked down and get back up. Your uncommon thought or uncommon idea is where I would go with, right? Just because it’s weird to everybody else and everybody else is like, “Ah, it’s dumb. You shouldn’t do that” or whatever it may be. I mean that’s what makes these companies unique. I’m not comparing us to Amazon or anything like that, but at some point that was a thought that people are like “that’s not going to work,” and now our whole country is run on—the whole worlds runs on Amazon, right? So you got to be confident in yourself. You got to be ready to jump off that ledge and see where you fall. For sure.

Want to watch more? Click here to watch more vlogs from the Tribute to our Heroes series, or go to our YouTube Channel to see what other events we have going on.

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