Inland Ale Works is a great brewery in Cheney, Washington. Established in a remodeled auto shop, the whole place is decorated with photos of old Spokane, Washington, breweries and horse-drawn wagons loaded with beer barrels. There are ads for Rainier, National Bohemian, and Golden Age beers. I was there on Saturday to talk to my friend, the owner and expert brewmaster, retired Air Force Master Sgt. Nick Johnson.
I sat at the bar and ordered an Aye or Die Scottish Ale. For a small, annual “Mug Club” fee, I get a slightly larger pour.
The beer was dark and smooth. “Nick,” I asked, “why did you enlist in the Air Force?”
Nick chuckled and went to throw a dart. Triple 14. “I wanted to eat, and not live in my car.”
He graduated from high school in Dearborn, Michigan, in 1981. The Carter administration hadn’t been kind. Unemployment in the greater Detroit area was over 10%. The Coast Guard was full, so Johnson joined the Air Force as a jet engine mechanic.
“Thank God for Ronald Reagan,” Nick said.
The best part of the Air Force? “A roof over my head and eating regular.”
The Air Force was OK, but Nick’s an independent man and didn’t like being told what to do. He hated Air Force Form 349, which required them to document every activity to the minute.
Eventually, he was stationed at Chanute Air Force Base in Illinois. As a hobby, he began collecting beer memorabilia. Beer signs and lights. Antique beer cans. He joined other collectors with a table of beer paraphernalia at a convention in Peoria, Illinois, where a man at the next table offered him a beer.
Nick threw another round of darts in a tight group. “I didn’t really like beer back then.” That was 1988, before the independent brewery revolution. Most beer was pretty uninspired.
The man handed Nick an unlabeled brown bottle of home-brewed beer.
“It was absolutely the most incredible thing I ever had,” Nick said.
I ordered my favorite beer, a Golden Age, made from a defunct Spokane brewery’s 1930s-era recipe. Incredible.
Nick threw another tight dart group, describing how he began his home-brewing hobby and how he gathered equipment to improve both his brewing technique and the quantity of beer he produced. It was clear he loved everything about brewing, as he described a process that sounded as complex as the Air Force jet engines upon which he once worked.
After Chanute AFB, Nick’s next duty station was Fairchild AFB, outside of Spokane. He loved the beautiful area and its climate. He loved his brewing hobby, which expanded throughout his time at his remaining duty stations.
In 2004, he retired from the Air Force and returned to Spokane.
“Every home brewer always dreams of opening a brewery,” Nick told me. When his daughter graduated with a business degree, the two of them decided to do just that. In early 2019, he found the perfect place in Cheney, near Spokane. He built a bar, set up the brewery, and secured the required permits so that by February of 2020, Inland Ale Works was ready.
The business struggled at first under then-Gov. Jay Inslee’s (D-WA) totalitarian control due to COVID-19 hysteria, but like any good veteran, Nick wouldn’t be beaten.
Now, Inland Ale Works thrives as a great brewpub. Nick doesn’t display anti-Immigration and Customs Enforcement or other political signs like some businesses, “Because I’m all-inclusive,” he said.
A “Beer It Forward” chalkboard lists the people for whom customer-purchased beers are waiting: disabled vet (times two), 57-year-old woman, Korean War vet, and Afghanistan vet who served “south of the Korengal Line.”
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“The majority of people who come in are vets,” Nick said.
The Air Force provided Master Sgt. Nick Johnson with the opportunity to travel and meet beer people, leading him to create Inland Ale Works, a place with good food, great beer, and a fun, welcoming environment for everyone, especially veterans.
Trent Reedy, author of several books including Enduring Freedom, served as a combat engineer in the Iowa Army National Guard from 1999 to 2005, including a tour of duty in Afghanistan. *Some names and call signs in this story may have been changed due to operational security or privacy concerns.