BY GABE HART
PHOTOS BY MIRZA BABIC

Iron City, Tennessee sits just north of the Alabama border, tucked right at the bottom of the state line. As its name suggests, the town is tough; its history marked with rebellion and anarchy in a setting that brings to mind Jason Isbell’s “Decoration Day” — a song rife with generational violence, a southern-fried version of the Hatfields and McCoys.

Cody Stooksberry was born and raised in Iron City and describes his hometown as “a town that’s known for being a little outlaw.”

Cody is the brewmaster at Hub City Brewing and Rock’n Dough Pizza here in Jackson. A self-described “beer nerd,” Cody fell in love with the process of brewing back in Iron City by simply wanting to understand it:“For me, to really get into something, I need to understand it. I need to break it down and build it back up. That’s how I got into brewing. What made a certain beer a stout? Why was there so much flavor in an IPA?”

Cody’s first love of beer developed a few miles south of Iron City, just across the state line in Florence, Alabama. There was a bar in Florence that didn’t exactly check IDs and always had over a hundred beers on tap.

“I didn’t have a lot of money at the time; I was 20 years old,” Cody explained. “Every week, there was a beer that was set to expire, and they would sell it for cheap. That’s what I would buy. I was able to sample so many different types of beer during that time.”

From there, he was hooked.

The first brew Cody created was from a mail-order kit he ordered online; it was the beginning of a passion that has turned into a creative career right here in the Hub City.

“When I was 20, I got my first beer kit in the mail. I did extract brewing for a year with those beer kits. I actually have a photo of me bottling my first beer. It was a 5% American Standard. I made my own labels and bottled it myself. I bought a bunch of Sam Adams, drank them, soaked them in the sink, saved the bottles, and used those for my beer. I would always go all out — make labels and names. It was all part of the process,” he said.

The labeling and naming of his curated creations connected back to the reason Cody moved to Jackson in the first place — a job in marketing.

“I moved here for a marketing job, but I didn’t love it,” he said. “I had been brewing beer for a while as a passion, but I heard that Rock’n Dough was brewing their own beer and that Hub City [Brewing] was opening and wanted to be part of that. I went down there and asked if there was any job I could do, so I just started serving and being around the process of it all.”

For any creative, there are steps to honing a craft. There is a period of time when the process and the practice are being perfected. Often, it’s in those times when the growth of learning is undergirded by something sustainable but not necessarily rooted in excitement.

For Cody, the time of perfecting his brewing process — of trial and error — occurred when he was running his own trucking company, something that he started as a way to simply make money.

While planning and navigating routes for his drivers, Cody would brew beer with a headset atop his head to direct his drivers and wheat, hops, and yeast, distilling and mixing in their natural processes. Along with perfecting his brewing process, Cody also learned a valuable lesson that freed him up to really explore his passion:“I learned that you can make money every day, so if things don’t work out, there’s a way to make money somehow. It gave me more freedom in my thought about what I could do. While I was on the phone with the trucking company, I'd be brewing beer. I brewed beer all the time. I set my garage up as a bar, and people would come over, and I would fill growlers. I really honed my brewing ability during that time.“

As Hub City Brewing nears its fifth anniversary in Downtown Jackson, Cody isn’t slowing down. The mind of any creator, including Cody, is like the beer he brews — a living, breathing thing in constant motion and evolution.

“I’m always thinking about the next beer,” he admitted. “There are different types of brewers. You have the engineering mindset — build a beer; x and y equal z. Then there’s the artist's approach to making beer, and it’s more of a ‘let's see where this goes’ approach. I’ll flip-flop back and forth between the two.”

Regardless of the creator role he plays — artist or engineer — in any given brewing process, what he has found is that there is a zen-like peace in the actual undertaking of brewing; there is a calmness in the work.

Iron City is only 99 miles away from Downtown Jackson, the place where Cody now brews and stores over 8,000 gallons of the beers he creates to sell in Hub City Brewing, Rock’n Dough, and countless restaurants and supermarkets all over the western half of Tennessee. His first batch in Iron City was five gallons, and he gave it away. While Jackson may not exactly be polished, it’s not in any way “outlaw” like that small town on the southern border of Tennessee. Ninety-nine miles never felt so far away. What Cody has found, however, is that brewing beer isn’t always about the end product. Sometimes, it’s about the experience itself.

“Brewing beer for me — the actual process of it — is my happy place; I can turn my brain off. I can think clearly. It’s regimented, and in that regiment, you find consistency, and in that, you find clarity,” he said.

When Cody was soaking those empty Sam Adams bottles in his sink all those years ago, waiting for the water to catalyze the adhesive that stuck the labels to the glass, he couldn’t have imagined where he would be today. But he was a creator then, too; he’s always been that. He understood then and understands now that the most crucial aspect of the creative process has to be authenticity — taking an honest piece of yourself and putting it into the product.

“When I first started brewing, it was selfish. Every single beer I made was excitement about the beer and how I would like it. At some point, it turned the other way, and I thought more about how other people would like it,” he explained. “That’s the transition of trusting your authenticity; that’s where that zone is. You’re doing it for other people, but you’re taking a little bit of yourself and putting it into your product. Anyone who creates and truly loves it, that’s what they’re doing.”

Mirza Babic is a multi-talented creative, adept at weaving captivating narratives through both visual and written forms of expression. With a foundation in photography and content creation, Mirza brings stories to life with a keen eye for detail and a flair for engaging storytelling. Beyond the lens, Mirza's versatility extends to music, where a passion for music production and a commitment to excellence shine through. Mirza is dedicated to crafting compelling narratives and immersive experiences that leave a lasting impact.

GABE HART teaches 11th grade English Language Arts at Jackson Central-Merry High School. A lifelong Jacksonian, Gabe is a product of the Jackson-Madison County School System and has taught English in JMCSS for fourteen years. Along with contributing to Our Jackson Home, Gabe also writes monthly columns for Tennessee Lookout, weekly columns and a podcast for Newstalk 96.5, and has been published in The Tennessean. He lives in Midtown Jackson with his daughter who attends high school at Madison Academic. When he's not in Jackson, he's most likely traveling with his partner, Laura, or spending time with her in her hometown of Philadelphia.

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