The story below is from our March/April 2025 issue. For more stories like it, Subscribe Today. Thank you!
Photo above: Left to right: Paul Witt, Brynnen Beierle, Jeramy Poe and Sparkles at the store entrance.
Photos by Anthony Giorgetti
Collaboration between a local business and the school provides hands-on learning for future cannabis entrepreneurs.
Over the course of centuries, cannabis went from textile to drugstore staple to Class 1 narcotic to its current spot as a gray-area legal drug that the American majority now view as helpful or harmless.
Blue Ridge Hydroponics owner Brynnen Beierle says her views on cannabis mirror that of the country at large.
Once steeped in the “just say no,” culture, Beierle has come full circle as BRH in collaboration with Roanoke College educates the new generation of cannabis growers and entrepreneurs.
“In high school, I was an anti-cannabis girl,” she says.
It was a class at Lower Columbia College in Washington State that initially pointed Beierle in her new direction. Students were required to write a paper on a subject around cannabis.
Beierle chose medical marijuana. As part of her research, she interviewed a mom who used CBD oil to shrink her 14-year-old daughter’s formerly inoperable brain tumor by two millimeters, allowing doctors to remove it in a single surgery.
During their conversations, the mother suggested Beierle try CBD for her own frequent migraines. She did and felt relief for the first time. Beirele hasn’t had a migraine in five years.
It was then she saw the “absurdity” of cannabis prohibition. While she’s glad that cannabis studies and society’s view of them have come a long way in recent years, with even the state of Virginia legalizing it, she acknowledges there’s still work to be done around the stigma.
Though her intro to cannabis was through its medical use, Beierle doesn’t think its legitimacy stops there.
“It’s a plant that brings laughter.” She loves the cannabis community and Roanoke at large.
Originally here to visit her father, she “fell in love with Roanoke. I got into my community so quickly here!” That eventually led to her entrepreneurship journey, beginning with buying BRH from the previous owner.
The running gag at BRH is “helping you grow ‘tomatoes’ since 2004,” and that’s true. They have everything you need, from grow lights, soil amendments and the eponymous hydroponics to classes on growing your own cannabis. But there’s also some truth to “tomatoes” since it’s a resource for home growers and gardeners regardless of crop.
Beierle gives back to her adopted hometown in every way she can as a business owner, ranging from sustainable practices, like building her sign from unused pallets, to community projects to recent partnerships with two of the area’s educational institutions.
BRH supplied the hydroponic growing setups for Virginia Western’s new hydroponics course, which launched in February.
And Beierle helped brainstorm Roanoke College’s first-of-its-kind program for Virginia. It offers a BS in Cannabis Science and a BS in Cannabis Social Justice and Policy. BRH also offers a 10% discount for RC students, setting up growing stations at the school and offering classes that students can take as part of a certification.
Beierle and BRH are growing more than tomatoes (and “tomatoes”). They’re growing the community.
You can visit Blue Ridge Hydroponics at its new site on Apperson Drive in Salem or visit their website at blueridgehydroponics.com.
The story above is from our March/April 2025 issue. For more stories like it, Subscribe Today. Thank you!
