“Don’t gut it out.” That’s Sarah “Woody” Wood’s message when it comes to dealing with digestive issues like indigestion and bloating. “I’m continuing to try to help people understand the importance of their gut health, what it means and how they can improve it.”

Wood’s desire to help people overcome the daily discomfort of gut issues became tangible last May when she opened Grand Jun Beverage Co., a craft kombuchery based in Grand Junction. The name’s word play goes beyond the clever reference to her business’s home base. Wood also focuses on brewing the “jun” style of kombucha, which is made with green tea and honey instead of black tea and sugar. She’s the only brewer in the Grand Valley to do so.

Wood’s passion for helping other people with intestinal issues and poor gut health stems from her own frustrating history. She grew up in Indiana eating a diet centered around standard Midwestern fare like meat, corn and potatoes — not exactly the recipe for healthy intestinal flora. She also had a series of childhood illnesses that required antibiotic treatments, a necessary process, but one that killed the good bacteria in her intestines as well as the bad. “All of that combined in my system to the point where I just struggled with my gut,” Wood explains.

Not that she let that get in the way of her professional dreams. By age 27, Wood had been a marketing manager in the music industry and owned a creative service business. Since then, she’s held leadership positions in the outdoor industry and been the executive director of an annual film festival. In 2020, she founded The Good Talk, a consultancy that helps businesses discover, plan, execute and evaluate their mission. And yet, while her high-intensity career was flourishing, her intestinal flora was not.

“It was a lot of discomfort, fatigue and not understanding why I was having these symptoms,” she adds.

When a series of concussions in the winter of 2017-18 forced her to pause her many work endeavors, she realized it was time to reevaluate the pace and purpose of her life. She also decided it was finally time to address the abdominal discomfort she’d been living with for so long.

She began looking into what gut issues are and found they’re typically either an imbalance of digestive enzymes and acids or a reaction to certain foods. She researched what causes them and learned poor diet, antibiotic treatments and specific food sensitivities/allergies are among the leading culprits. And of course, she pursued strategies to fix them — diversifying gut bacteria, often by consuming probiotics, is one great option.

Kombucha, she learned, is a great source of probiotics — and it tastes delicious, too. So, Wood began brewing the non-alcoholic, fermented tea at home. Laughing that her “engineering mind” appreciated the chemistry behind the interplay between bacteria and yeast, Wood began adding blueberries, apricots and cucumbers, as well as medicinal herbs and mushrooms, to her concoctions.

Wood’s experience with business development and her desire to help others with their intestinal health drove her to pursue brewing on a larger scale, upping production from 1-gallon containers to 30-gallon containers to six 30-gallon containers. She also began sourcing ingredients from farmers and beekeepers on the Western Slope, an approach that benefits other small businesses while also making for a better-tasting, nutrient-rich and overall superior kombucha. She knew her margins would be smaller, but it was worth it.

“I don’t want to make something just to make money. I want to make something that really affects people and changes them for the better. If that means I spend a little bit more for the fresh, local, organic apricot to do that, then that’s an easy choice,” she shares.

Another key element to the great taste of Grand Jun kombucha: oak barrels. Most brewers ferment their kombucha in stainless steel, glass or plastic containers, but Wood uses American oak barrels manufactured by hand at a small cooperage in Higbee, Missouri. She’s found that the oak enhances the smoothness and adds a hint of vanilla.

Grand Jun’s only been around for a handful of months, but it’s already been met with a warm reception. They regularly sell out at farmers’ markets and have earned a place on tap at multiple Western Slope coffee shops and markets. Wood continues to iterate her kombucha flavors, incorporating seasonal fruits and herbs to bring variety to her line-up. Soon, she plans to branch beyond kombucha into vinegars and kefir, both of which will offer similar probiotic benefits. She’s also excited to offer a custom-batch kombucha program, where she’ll work with clients to craft a recipe that addresses their specific gut issues.

If things continue to go well, Wood is open to expanding Grand Jun beyond the Grand Valley, but she’ll never sacrifice her kombucha’s quality or her commitment to sourcing from local producers. And right now, she’s happy to focus on bringing better gut health to the Western Slope.

“This is a really high-quality, niche product tied into the environment we live in, rooted here with the producers, and that’s what I’m focused on: perfecting that,” she says.

grandjun.com

Originally published in the Fall 2021 issue of Spoke+Blossom.

Sarah “Woody” Wood of Gran Jun Beverage Co: Drink This Booch for a Much Better Gut