A microbrewery on Buffalo Street recently celebrated its fifth anniversary as the dream of the Caddo couple who founded it continues.
Harbinger Beer Company opened in 2020 after a threeyear project by Drew and Kayla Harbin to breathe life back into downtown Caddo. It is the first microbrewery to open in Bryan County. During the recent celebration, musician Mark Shelton came out of retirement to play at Harbinger.
Drew and Kayla Harbin bought the former Ben Siegel and Marsh Grocery buildings on Buffalo Street in 2017 by coincidence when they took their son to a doctor.
“The doctor owned the buildings and he had gotten wind (of business plans) because I had called and asked him about another building because I knew he had redone his building,” Drew said, during a 2017 interview. “I was just wanting to know what he had to put into redoing these old buildings, and when he realized it was me at the doctor’s appointment, he said, ‘Hey weren’t y’all the ones asking about buildings?’” When Drew told him they were wanting to put in a small brewery, the doctor slid over a business card with a price that Drew recalled seemed too good to be true.
However, the buildings required a lot of work and they originally planned to open Harbinger Beer Company in 2019, and after about three years of hard work, the county’s first micro- brewery opened in 2020.
“It was a big learning experience,” Drew said. “You get into these old buildings and if you’re not somebody with a ton of money behind you, you can’t hire somebody that knows about them because they come from big cities and places … it’s not just your old buddy contractor that comes in and knows how to deal with these things and so we had to do a lot of research on how to even save certain things on these facades and stuff like that.”
Drew said they had an opportunity to open a microbrewery elsewhere, but the family’s roots are in Caddo-Caney area.
“My parents were business owners in Caddo and so just seeing the shape the buildings have gone through for the past few decades and just falling down and run down, we felt it better to stay here and that opportunity just kind of fell in our lap to get these buildings which it was a lot more work than probably anything else we could have done,” Drew said.
Kayla said they love Caddo and knowing their children are going to Caddo Schools, this was what they wanted to do.
“We saw the downtown, and like Drew said, an opportunity fell in our lap and we wanted to be to restore it and not really knowing how, but everything’s very youtubeable,” Kayla said.
Drew said they wanted to revive the downtown and help attract other new businesses. Toya Eats and Co., a Cajun restaurant, recently opened on Buffalo Street.
“Her food truck started coming here two or three years ago and she fell in love with the town too and she moved from Denison and now has a house in Caddo and opened a brick and mortar restaurant here,” Drew said. “So, that’s the spark that we wanted to ignite to start getting people, you know it can be done and we wanted to be proof that it can be done.”
The Rex II Theater is also located in downtown Caddo.
The Harbins spoke of the name of their microbrewery which is a play on their last name and harbinger means foreshadowing something to come.
“We wanted to be the revival of downtown,” Drew said. “It may not be happening as fast as we would have hoped, but five years later, and we’ve got another business. There’s quite a bit of activity in downtown these days as opposed to 10 years ago.”
The Harbins purchased the Craighead’s building when it closed in 2021 that they now use to host special events.
They hosted the Switchfest music festival in April and they also host a duck derby banquet in January.
Drew had been home brewing beer for about 12 years before deciding to go commercial.
“Just brewing in the garage,” Drew said. “I had a Kegerator in my garage and we had six beers on tap at home. We like to have get togethers. We love community and friends and it just seemed like an opportunity for that to be able to be expanded into a bigger thing in a bigger community, not just a friend group. It definitely, I think has been successful in doing that. We’ve gained relationships that have become family that we didn’t know these people before we opened the business and they’re some of our closest friends. We want it to feel like home.”
All of the beers have names that relate to the region’s history, such as 12 Mile Prairie. Their most recent brew is a lager called New Royal. That was the name of a hotel in downtown Caddo that Matt Swearengin remembered as a child in the 1970s when his parents, Bob and B.L. Swearengin, published the Bryan County Star newspaper on Buffalo Street, and when the Harbins were planning a new beer, it was Swearengin who suggested the name.
As far as plans for the future, the Harbins are planning to market the Craighead’s building as an event center.
“As everybody already knows, everything’s always a work in progress as a small business owner,” Drew said. “There’s obviously projects we need to do and not everything’s ever going to be 100 percent finished, but Craigheads is something that we want to put out formally that here’s a place you can get together, have parties and do all of these things.”
The building is also used for overflow for events they have and also a bad weather plan to move a band inside.
“It has multiple uses but the main thing is for having it rented out so people utilize it and have a place to gather in Caddo,” Drew said.
Kayla said they are grateful for the support they have received, a sentiment echoed by Drew.
“We’re grateful for everybody that’s supported us and continues to support us and we hope we’re here for a really long time,” Drew said.
