Our Story

Barry is a White Sulphur Springs native and obtained his Civil Engineering degree from Montana State University in 1981. Chris hails from Sheridan, Wyoming and began working in the banking industry in 1988. After 32 years, she retired in 2019 but continues to do some consulting. They met while both working for Peter Kiewit’s Decker Coal Company just outside of Sheridan, Barry as a senior engineer and Chris as the payroll clerk. After what Chris describes as a painfully long courting period (5 years), they were married in 1988 and began ranching and farming near Ringling, Montana. After selling the ranch, they moved into White Sulphur Springs and continued to raise their two children Hank and Molly.

With Hank and Molly soon to start out on their own, they found themselves looking for something to fill the pending emptiness. Enter the basset hounds. With really no good reason to get a basset hound other than Hank wanting one, they got Stanley when Hank graduated from high school in 2009 and Leroy followed when Molly graduated in 2012. Enter the beer. (Okay, beer came well before the bassets, but the idea of doing more than just drinking it came after.) In 2014 Barry began experimenting, to the delight of family and friends, who very much enjoyed the brews. One thing led to another and 2 Basset Brewery opened their doors on February 26, 2016.

Oddly, the Hedrichs’ found many similarities between bassets and beer: basset hounds are friendly and very social, laid back, sometimes they behave and sometimes they don’t. But without fail, they make you laugh. Folks enjoy sharing a beer with family and friends for some of the very same reasons: because it is relaxing, social, and generally laughter abounds.

Sadly, Stanley and Leroy have left us for that big brewery in the sky. They will always be an inspiration to us. But to keep us on our toes, Jack the Cat arrived on the scene in July of 2017 and Lance the Basset joined the team in September of 2020.