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Meet Keith Chapman of Bone Haus Brewing in Fountain Hills

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Today we’d like to introduce you to Keith Chapman.

So, before we jump into specific questions about the business, why don’t you give us some details about you and your story.
Originally from New Hampshire, 30 minutes from Boston, I grew up loving aircraft. My father was in US Navy Aviation and tracked typhoons in Vietnam and he always took me to see the US Air Force Thunderbirds perform. In high school, I thought I wanted to be a fighter pilot and almost went to the US Air Force Academy but decided ultimately to go to Clarkson University for a mechanical engineering degree so I could design aircraft. I spent nine years at Clarkson, received my Ph.D. in mechanical engineering, focusing on aerodynamics and fluid mechanics. I was fortunate to be hired by NASA Dryden Flight Research Center (now NASA Armstrong) as an intern my junior year and they ended up funding my graduate work. During graduate school, I worked at Arizona State University in their wind tunnel to get aerodynamic data needed for my thesis. After graduating from Clarkson, I decided to take a non-teaching research professor position at ASU and worked there for 18 months before realizing I wanted to pursue something more product-oriented. My wind tunnel technician knew someone at Fender Musical Instruments in Scottsdale and knew I had been playing guitar since I was nine years old. So, I went for an interview and was hired as a software engineer to work on digital guitar amplifiers. That led to 18 years working at Fender where I eventually led global Research & Development for all guitars, amplifiers, and other musical instruments. I was fortunate to work with some of the greatest guitar and bass players in the world such as Eddie Van Halen, The Edge, Geddy Lee, Buddy Guy and many others. While at Fender, I worked incredibly closely with Marketing and made a career of interfacing between marketing needs and engineering possibilities, often interpreting very subjective words to describe musical instruments and working with very talented engineers to interpret what the musicians meant by those words and making the instrument better. The end result was really understanding how to build and maintain a brand. Fender doesn’t sell guitars and amps as much as selling the dream of becoming a rock star. At the end of my Fender career, I started talking with my now partner, Andy Weiner, about starting a brewery. He had been homebrewing for over 25 years and was ready to think about going pro. He asked me to partner with him in starting a brewery in Fountain Hills since that is where we both live and I immediately said yes without giving it much thought. I knew I always wanted my own company and I had traveled the world for Fender, enjoying local cuisine and beers across the globe. While planning the brewery and operating it in its first year, I worked in the musical instrument industry remotely for Fishman Transducers, leaders in the acoustic pickup and amplifier markets. It was difficult to balance the workload but I managed. In creating the brewery, we discussed a number of options for our brand and all I knew was that I wanted it to be deep, immersive and consistent. I had worked with David Lozeau, a day-of-the-dead, low-brow artist based in San Diego at Fender and asked him if he could design our logo. That turned into us partnering to design the basic theme, name and vibe of the brand, Bone Haus Brewing. He gave the brand a fantastic baseline to start. From there, I took the brand into blending Arizona history (predominantly from the mid to late 1800s), the macabre. and ultimately adventure by writing stories for the brand and working with a local artist Mikel Whelan for all of our labels and artwork. The taproom is unlike any other and is hand-built featuring a 22-foot copper bar, skeletons and bones everywhere, historical artifacts, and recycled wood as a backdrop with no televisions. It has a true old pub feel. Having now been in business for over 2 years, the brand is growing, the beer we make is popular and the creativity required for maintaining and growing this business is what excites me.

I also have the great pleasure of working with my father, Sam, and my oldest son, Derek, behind the bar and my youngest son, Tyler, in any woodworking project. Our team is great to work with, from my partner Andy, to DJ, Rachel, Shawn, Lydia, Amy, Kerry, Jeff, Morgan and family. It makes work not work.

Great, so let’s dig a little deeper into the story – has it been an easy path overall and if not, what were the challenges you’ve had to overcome?
With any start-up business, there are learnings along the way. Having never been officially in the beer industry before, we had to learn things the hard way by simply trying different things. The greatest challenge so far has been navigating the COVID-19 pandemic. We shifted our business to an online ordering model during periods of shutdown, moved our product focus to more beer in cans for pickup and to-go orders, and marketed differently. Fortunately, we have an incredible team and people who build our vision with us.

Please tell us about Bone Haus Brewing.
Bone Haus Brewing is a very unique microbrewery with delicious beer and a strong brand. We specialize our menu by having a diverse offering of beer styles from IPAs, stouts, pale ales, Belgian ales, barley wines, red ale, and brown ales. We also have created our own coffee brand, Skullentine, by partnering with a local roaster and our own craft soda brand, Sidewinder Soda, made here at the Bone Haus.

The brand is centered along the legend of the Lost Dutchman with our fictional history written in. Our patriarch, Hans Von Biermann, was the alleged nephew of the Lost Dutchman, Jacob Waltz. He was from a brewer’s family in Germany when he received a letter from his estranged uncle in the Arizona Territory in the mid-1800s. His uncle asked him to come to Arizona to help him mine gold in a mine he had claimed. Hans decided to come on this journey but when he arrived in Phoenix, he could not find his uncle or the mine he had claimed to find. He didn’t give up though. He started a tavern called the Bone Haus and would seek information from the customers, trying to find any clues to his uncle’s or the mine’s whereabouts. Every time Hans would venture out looking for the mine, he would have an encounter with the macabre. All of our labels, beer releases and the taproom itself are centered around this legend and story. In fact, at the tap room, we have a scavenger hunt where you look for hidden artifacts while enjoying our fine and delicious beer, soda or coffee. We have food trucks that supply us with foodservice and keep that old-style pub feel that is ever-important to a community.

Our best-selling beer is Desert Distortion New England IPA, followed by our Englemann’s Elixir Prickly Pear Pale Ale. These are very popular and have become our flagship beers. We have also created some unique beers like Coyote Thief Bourbon Mesquite Brown Ale, The Red Wraith Irish Red IPA and even a light beer called Carbide Light. In just over two years, we have brewed over 100 different beers. We brew beer for the adventure!

Do you look back particularly fondly on any memories from childhood?
I have so many. I always cherished when my dad brought me to Red Sox games in Fenway Park. It was like a religious experience bringing my young sons there many years later. My dad and I would always watch the games together on TV so going to a live game was always a big deal.

I also hiked Mount Washington, the highest peak east of the Mississippi, every year with my dad from age 6 to 18 and that is where I got my sense of adventure, my desire to be in nature, and my love for hiking.

Contact Info:


Image Credit:
Rachel Benkowski
Keith Chapman
Rebecca Bloom

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