Underdog Brewing Company owner breaks silence, speaks on unlikely future for start-up brewery in Starland

Jeremy Hammons envisioned his brewery as a place that he “would actually want to hang out in.” That was the plan on July 28, 2020, the day Hammons formed The Underdog Brewing Company, LLC and the day he filed formation papers with The Georgia Corporations Division. It’s a day he “remembers vividly” and the LLC registration is framed and hanging on his wall.

A start-up, now years in the making, Underdog Brewery Company (UBC) was planning to open its doors for business in June of 2023. With “a prime location” near the Starland District at 120 East 42nd Street, Hammons' dream hang out was seemingly well on its way to joining the ranks of local brewery success stories, even if it did take three years to get there.

As the calendar turns to 2024, Hammons and UBC have yet to open for business, and for more than a year, the monthly lease payments have drained the funds. But the company has been radio silent since November 1, 2022 when Hammons posted an update with plans to "open soon."

Many were wondering what was going to happen to the business and the building, so Hammons recently sat down with Connect Savannah to answer just that: What's up with Underdog Brewery?

Hammons answered questions for more than 45 minutes, while using some of that time to pitch to any potential investors that may be reading this story.

NOTE: The interview has been edited and condensed. Editor's notes added for clarity and further explanation.

Connect Savannah: Take me back to when you first started this. What was that process like?

Jeremy Hammons: Whenever COVID started and the lock-down kind of began, so March or April [of 2020]. That’s when it started to come together and I said 'hey' I’m going to do this. Our first LLC entry was on July 28, 2020 and I remember that day vividly. That LLC is still hanging on my wall. At the time, the money stuff, you know it made sense. My wife and I aren’t rich, we’re putting our whole life up against this. Our house, all of our investments. Everything was going up against this. It wasn’t just like some guy going ‘I’m gonna’ start a thing and whatever, so what if it fails.’

Our whole life was up against this.

I sent an email to my co-founders and investors at the beginning of this month, so early in November [2023] I sent it out just saying ‘hey, we can’t keep pumping money into this. I was planning on putting out kind of a public statement saying just ‘the banks are not funding start-ups right now’ and every month that we’re not open, we’re spending a pretty exorbitant amount of cash just to maintain the building.

Connect Savannah: What are the expenses for Underdog, or you? Beyond the rent I mean … Do you have employees to pay? Vendors? Etc.

Jeremy Hammons: No, no one is on a payroll. The building itself is a wonderful building, a wonderful location, and our landlords are cool but they aren’t just going to stop charging us. They are business people too.

Connect Savannah: What is the number one thing prohibiting you guys from opening?

Jeremy Hammons: Bank lending. I’m not a millionaire and neither is my wife. So anytime we have money coming in, it’s going back out the door within the month. We’ve dealt with a few different banking institutions and 2023 has been the year of goal-posts moving.

I don’t know if you’ve ever heard the term "S**t Sandwich" but I’ve been hit with that several times this year.

The banks will say we love you and this plan is rock-solid and over a few weeks they run it up the chain of command and they say your management team is great and dot, dot, dot. Then, at the end, they’ll say ‘Oh but we’re not funding start-ups right now. So we’re just in this vicious cycle right now. We’re on our heels. We don’t have just cash to throw out the door because I’ve been doing that for the last 12 months.

Connect Savannah: What does the building cost you each month? How much are you spending?

Jeremy Hammons: I don’t want to throw that [number] out there … It’s more than a couple car payments. I’ll say that.

Connect Savannah: So why not just get rid of the building and the rent payments until you can get going again? Would that hurt your future pitches to banks?

Jeremy Hammons: Because it’s such a prime location. The building is an awesome spot. Truthfully, at this point, I’m done with banks at this point. I met with a friend who is a banker – not in this field but he works at a bank – and I asked him for advice. He told me your plan is great, your numbers great, you are great.

Connect Savannah: Which numbers? What do the numbers show?

Jeremy Hammons: How many pints are you going to sell? How many kegs? It was enough to show that we could be successful.

Connect Savannah: OK. So, the banking friend was giving you advice...

Jeremy Hammons: Yeah. He just told me about the holding position and the cycle of these banks all declining to take any risks. Even though [Underdog Brewing Company] is not really a risk, if you look at the numbers. It turns out, me and every other person in the United States at the time who had the notion or the gumption to do this kind of thing, we all did it at the same time.

Now we run into the issue of architects backed up, the engineers are backed up and by the time I got all of that done, that’s when we started running into supply chain issues and our build-out plan went up by $300,000. It was just like that.

Connect Savannah: From when to when did it increase by $300K? From what date to what date?

Jeremy Hammons: From when we budgeted to … November of 2022. So there’s a big gap [of time] by the way.

There’s a gap where there’s not a lot of movement you know. You’re getting your early investors on and you’re doing a lot of stuff. Our plan is pretty rock-solid so I had a lot of people come on board very early with us as investors. The city is still all-in with us. They’ve been lovely.

All of our permits are ready. We’re just waiting on this funding part.

Connect Savannah: But you’re not going the bank route anymore? So how will it happen if you can't wait out the banks?

Jeremy Hammons: We have investor cash. We’ve been using that to take care of all of our early costs but we’ve, unfortunately, had to use a bunch of it for the lease payments on the building. We started paying (monthly lease) on the building in June [of 2022]. And we are in for a lot right now. But to me, the building is an important piece of this whole thing.


Connect Savannah: What’s next then? You said you were going to make a post and that you had talked to investors already. So now what?

Jeremy Hammons: This particular plan, I have to fold it. The company and myself don’t have the funds to continue to just pay out every month. I didn’t think it would ever get to this point and it’s all just because the banking world just went ‘hold on for a minute’ and they have been doing that for 12 plus months now. I don’t have another 12 months.

Connect Savannah: When you say 'fold it,' how do you do that?

Jeremy Hammons: It’s not great. I have investor cash, which when you invest in something, it’s obviously – and a lot of start-ups don’t even start up – but you obviously want to prove investors right and come through. I’m honestly still very uncomfortable with that thought even right now.

My wife and I don’t need a tiny violin or anything, we’re fine, but we’re going to be in some debt from this for quite a long time. If January comes and we haven’t received funding somehow, December 31, 2023 will be the end of it, when we stop leasing.

Looking back, it is a regret. I could’ve opened a smaller place to get some real numbers under our belt instead of hypothetical numbers. This was never a money-making venture for us, though. Actually in the original plan, me and my co-founders McKenzie [Hamby] and Phillip [Price] were going to make less money than the GM [General Manager].

Connect Savannah: When were you hoping to open, originally?

Jeremy Hammons: I was hoping by ... last June [2023] which is why we started paying on the building lease before then and they actually gave us a pretty long runway of no payments. Because they are good people. Our landlord is Pars Oriental Rug. Their building is actually attached to ours.

EDITOR'S NOTE: Pars Oriental did not mention any 'long runways' of payment relief when speaking with Connect Savannah inside his store on Dec. 15. He expected to be leasing the location to a new tenant beginning as soon as January 2024.

So we are getting into stuff that’s still the unknown. I talked about meeting with a banker friend – this was only a few weeks ago and it’s still rattling around in my head – he said 'what you need is a rich uncle loan.' I don’t have a rich uncle. There are emails to the company with me telling them about this, and me saying 'we would need a crazy person right now.' We need someone who has liquid capital.


I can tell you I’ve been to six different banks [for loans] and they want something crazy. Like a bank would say we need this or that and I’d have to go to another group of investors over here to get that handled and when I get that, now the bank wants something else.

Connect Savannah: Did you use crowdsourcing methods to raise any funds? Go Fund Me or Kickstarter?

Jeremy Hammons: We did a kickstarter for fun. I set it at a $10,000 [goal], but it was really to sell some merch and build excitement for the company. We hit that goal and we went past it. When we did [a kickstarter campaign] it was never to like fund the company by any means. I think we hit [the goal] a couple days prior to the deadline and we went over, got to maybe $12,000, I think. We weren't selling equity [in the LLC] or anything like that.

Connect Savannah: Is this the end of the company's story then? Are you still trying to open Underdog?

Jeremy Hammons: Of course. I’m just looking for a crazy person who wants a solid, guaranteed return on their cash. Hit me up. The name ‘Underdog’ comes from a band called Spoon and a song they have called The Underdog. I loved [that band]. I wanted to open something that would be called [Underdog].

It was never meant to be a calling-card. All of the sudden now, we are the underdog. I’ve been very quiet online, on purpose.

That last update … for a while there after that, it did bother me. I just didn’t want to talk about it. Then, I realized I should be honored people ask about it online or in-person when they see me. I get it. It’s just once you poke your head back out there [on social media] people can be real S**t-heads on there. They become real jerks. It’s best to just be quiet.

Connect Savannah: But you will be poking your head back out at some point soon?

Jeremy Hammons: I have to, yeah. People have been kind to us. I can’t just fade away. If we’re going down, I'll be going down swinging.