- We are here to build community.

Food is a great way to bring people together.

Good food, man.

You could sit around the table for hours and just enjoy each other's company.

And one intentional choice that we made in here is to not have TVs on the wall showing sports because I want people talking to each other.

Another thing that you'll see when you look around the taproom, we have 12 foot long picnic tables.

The idea behind that is to force people to sit next to people they might not know.

And by chance, you might overhear a conversation that's relevant and all of a sudden you start to see friends forming at these tables.

That is what I'm excited about.

- [Narrator] Jake founded the brewery out of a passion for bringing people together over great beer.

What started as a home brewed oatmeal stout aptly named Obama quickly became a hit, sparking the creation of the Presidential Brewing Company.

- Serving as a restaurant in this community, we have a leadership position in our community and we wanted to represent that well.

So we thought, how can we support our local community the best that we can?

And we found that being spread out across everything is not always the best answer, but trying to dial in and focus on a specific part of the community seems to fit really well.

I have a lot of friends that I've served and I talked to them about this idea that I had.

I want to do a buy a veteran a beer program.

The idea would be that the customer could come in and add an extra beer to their tab.

We could hang it on the wall and it would go to a veteran when they come in and they could just grab a beer that somebody in the community bought for him.

And all of them were super giggly about it.

They thought that was such a cool idea.

We also were friends with James Dentler through Zero Day and they came over and talked to us before we opened and told us a little bit about what they did.

And we just thought, man, this is such a cool partnership opportunity.

Whatever we can do to support this organization and focus our efforts towards them.

It's in alignment with what our brand is.

And I'm really excited about trying it out.

So we did.

And it's been great since then.

- [Narrator] Zero Day, a nonprofit organization based in Battle Creek, has a clear mission: to empower veterans through intentional employment, purposeful training, housing and deliberate application of discipline and core values inherent to military veterans.

Army veteran and pitmaster Steve Seige has been involved with the organization since 2022.

- We do mostly vocational training.

We try to do that transition period from veterans getting out of the service.

When you get out, you have to find something else.

We do wood shops.

We have a greenhouse.

We do the culinary program.

We also pair up with Pro Start, which is troubled teens.

We run those through the culinary program also.

We have a couple of trailers.

And what we do with the trailers is everybody wants to run a barbecue trailer or a food trailer, but they have no idea what's involved.

We get their feet wet, see if they have an amplitude for it, and if they want to take it to the next level, we help sponsor with their own trailer if they move down the path.

- [Narrator] Steve operates the Battle Bites food trailer, working side by side with veterans and their families, serving up mouthwatering dishes while turning service into success.

Beyond the trailer, Steve also hosts Zero Day Barbecue Bootcamp events, hands on experiences where he shares his extensive barbecue knowledge while raising awareness about the many ways Zero Day supports and empowers veterans.

- Today we've got a ribs and rubs class, and I'm super excited about it.

How to put the best rub mixes together, how to make your own barbecue sauce from scratch and techniques from somebody that's a pitmaster that's been doing this for years.

It's kind of funny.

You see people that go from craft beer and then they almost always end up with a smoker at their house.

And so there's kind of a natural synergy between our community and theirs.

And that's going to be part of what goes through today.

- 20 years ago, nobody was doing barbecue, you know, hardcore hobbyists now, almost everybody has a pellet grill.

And that's where it's kind of gone.

I love to teach and to hand down the techniques and the knowledge that I have to keep it going and to grow it.

When you see people talking and sharing food and sharing beer together, it's such a great experience.

I don't think we have enough of that community experience.

You'll see that at the class today.

They'll start talking across table and talk about their smokers and where, you know, it's pretty cool.