Masters of the Beerverse Archives

Masters of the Beerverse: Natalie Cilurzo

January 14, 2018 Dean BrightmanLeave a comment

WAY too famous to be this nice. (photo courtesy Natalie Cilurzo)

The biggest interview of my life, and I nearly blew it.

I’m still anonymous enough in this industry that if Natalie Cilurzo, co-owner of one of the most famous craft breweries on the planet, grants me time for an interview, well, that’s like interviewing the President for your podcast.

Hyperbole? Maybe a little. But still, people from around the world line up for hours for a chance to drink a certain brew only available for a couple of weeks every February.

And I got to talk to one of the people that makes it possible.

So it was with equal parts excitement and trepidation that I walked through the door at the pub in downtown Santa Rosa and mentioned I was there to interview Natalie for my blog.

Quizzical looks.

Eventually I spoke to the pub manager, who explained that Natalie was at their production brewery.

A couple of miles away.

Where her office is.

Where we had arranged to conduct the interview.

D’oh!

Like an idiot, I assumed her office was at the pub. And of course, since I took the train to Santa Rosa, I didn’t have a car.

The manager called her and, after some back-and-forth, she agreed to come to the pub. But, she had a conference call at Noon that she couldn’t miss.

If you ran this place, your office would be here, right? Right??

By the time she got there, it was 11:40. We had 20 minutes.

I’ve heard it said that, despite all the success and accolades they’ve received over the years, Natalie and her husband Vinnie are two of the nicest people you’ll ever meet, in or out of the brewing industry.

Not only did I get that impression the first time I’d met her, but once she got to the pub, SHE was the one who apologized.

Are you kidding?

Anyway, once we got the hurried pleasantries out of the way, we had a great conversation. We discussed the pub’s critical role in helping the community cope with the Wine Country fires, the status of the new Windsor facility, and how her background in the wine industry helped her handle the challenges of running a brewery.

We began by talking about Sonoma Pride, the enormously successful fundraiser for victims of the fires.

The Beerverse: You must be really gratified at how well Sonoma Pride fundraising’s been going.

Natalie Cilurzo: I’m very moved by the tremendous response from the beer community. People were reaching out to US, they weren’t responding to an inquiry or a solicitation from us to help out. We had friends from all over the world reaching out, asking “What can we do, how can we help?”

BV: So you didn’t even put out a call, they just came to you.

NC: We didn’t. When we decided to mobilize our efforts and repurpose our Sonoma Pride brand, we started with local breweries. Bear Republic was the first we spoke with and they came on board. We ended up with about 60 breweries making Sonoma Pride beer, which also required signing a trademark license agreement.

BV: I was wondering how that process worked.

NC: It’s not a collaboration, we’re just licensing a brand out to a bunch of breweries. We had to stop it about 60 breweries. It was just too much. All we were doing was coordinating breweries and it became too burdensome. We weren’t able to focus our efforts on trying to raise money, which was the whole purpose.

Many of our friends, like Allagash and New Belgium, said, “we know what you need is money.” So they wrote us some very sizable checks. We just got an email from Alvarado Street who wrote us a sizable check.

It’s been wonderful, and very humbling.

BV: One of your fundraisers was to raffle line-cutting privileges for Pliny the Younger. How did the winners react?

NC: Nobody really flipped out, people just really wanted to help. This has been a very somber experience, it hasn’t been a party, at all. People were like, “I just really wanted to contribute to the cause. I’m excited, but I would have come anyway even if I couldn’t cut in line.”

BV: How’s it been since the first few days? I know you were one of the first businesses to open as a space for people to gather. It must have been nice to have this available for locals who were affected.

NC: If you think about it, most people were without power and water and gas, or were evacuated. We were the only place people could come to get a hot meal, a cold beer, see the television, have access to wifi.

For those who lost their homes, this became one.

BV: Did you lose power at all here?

NC: We didn’t lose power at all, we were really lucky. We’re on the Memorial Hospital grid, and that was the only Santa Rosa hospital that wasn’t evacuated. So we rarely lose power here, thankfully.

Most of our employees were evacuated, or inconvenienced by not having power, but they came to work anyway. Everybody rallied. Everyone here was part of the community for the couple of weeks that the fires were burning.

Over time, people from out of the area started coming back. We’re still not back to 100%, but there’s also no place around here [for tourists] to stay right now, as the hotels are filled with evacuees. FEMA and other agencies are here helping out, so there’s not a lot of vacancy right now.

BV: Has the mood of the locals lifted a bit with time?

NC: Absolutely. Everybody is in recovery mode, rebuilding mode, and looking to the future mode. I think the trauma is starting to wear off and people are wanting to feel normal. And that’s what we provided, a sense of normalcy.

We had a lot of people who lost their homes, or they were here when they found out they lost their homes. For many who lost their homes, this was the first place they came. Many didn’t know for a long time.

People said they came here because this is their other home, this is where they feel normal. They just wanted to forget about things for a little while.

Our staff has been really amazing. They’re primarily young, and relatively inexperienced with traumatic, life-changing events, and they had to be therapists. They had to be the shoulders to cry on, and sit down and listen to people’s stories. It was hard, we would all leave work exhausted.

BV: I bet! But at least you were here. In spite of everything, it must be gratifying to provide that for people.

NC: Oh yeah, we had to. We were only closed one day, because no one could get here because the freeways were on fire and everyone’s houses were burning down. I wouldn’t have even considered opening, I wouldn’t have had any employees to open with!

Our staff has been really amazing. They’re primarily young, and relatively inexperienced with traumatic, life-changing events, and they had to be therapists. They had to be the shoulders to cry on, and sit down and listen to people’s stories.

BV: Speaking of opening, how’s the new facility in Windsor coming?

NC: Windsor’s coming along great! Our brewhouse arrived [recently] on the ship. I went down to Marin Headlands and got some pictures of the ship going under the Golden Gate, which was amazing. It was a beautiful day. You can track ships these days, it’s kind of cool.

Walls are starting to go up, things are happening.

BV: Did the fires affect the construction schedule?

NC: Yes. We were down for a few days since the air quality was so bad. On the morning of the fires you could see northern Santa Rosa on fire. The fires were burning in the hills right across the freeway from the brewery, so you could actually see flames. It was weird, you could see a glow in the sky, but it wasn’t the sun. Then you could see smoke, flames, then the sun actually came up, and then it got really dark because of all the ash in the air.

We did a big concrete pour that first Saturday after the fires, while the fires were still going. That was the morning Rincon Valley was evacuated. But we didn’t get behind. We’re all caught up [on construction] and everything’s fine.

On the morning of the fires you could see northern Santa Rosa on fire. The fires were burning in the hills right across the freeway from the brewery [construction site], so you could actually see flames. It was weird, you could see a glow in the sky, but it wasn’t the sun.

BV: So it’ll be ready to help out for the 2019 Pliny the Younger release?

NC: Yeah, we’ll be doing Pliny the Younger at both locations. We still have some time to figure out exactly what that’s going to look like. For now the vision is it’ll be pretty much the same at both breweries.

Obviously we would not recommend going to both breweries on one day, because we wouldn’t serve you. We don’t care who you are, we can tell when you’ve had three Youngers! But it would be fun if you wanted to go to one brewery one day and one brewery the next day, and have a completely different experience.

The new brewery is going to have a lot more to offer — guided tours, self-guided tours, a growler-filling room. We have a lot of customers who just want to get in and get out. They’re just passing through, they’re locals, they know what the beer tastes like, it’s the Holidays, the Super Bowl, etc, etc. They want to fill their growlers with Pliny or Blind Pig or whatever, and get on out of here.

And we’ll have a real gift shop that’s bigger than that little room [here in the pub].

BV: When do you expect the new brewery to be online?

NC: We expect to start brewing in the summer, around July/August, and plan to open to the public probably September/October-ish.

BV: Between your work here and being President of the Board of Directors of the California Craft Brewers Association, you wear a lot of different hats. I would ask what a typical day is like for you, but I imagine no two are the same.

NC: I don’t think so. I think a typical day is one that is very fluid, and I actually thrive on that.

As a business owner, you never really shut down. You don’t get the luxury of being able to check out, even if you’re on vacation. The phone’s going to ring in the middle of the night, or you’re going to sleep thinking about something, or you wake up at 3am thinking about something, or blah, blah, blah.

I wake up in the morning, feed the cats, make my coffee, and sit down and starting checking emails. It’s not a normal, Monday-Friday, 8-5 kind of job.

BV: I’m amazed at anyone who can be an entrepreneur. I don’t know how you do it.

NC: It requires a lot of passion, and you have to be enthusiastic about what you’re doing. If you don’t like what you’re doing, it’s not going to work out. You have to be flexible, you have to roll with the punches, get a thick skin. You have to develop a lot of things that don’t always come naturally to people.

As a business owner, you never really shut down. You don’t get the luxury of being able to check out, even if you’re on vacation. The phone’s going to ring in the middle of the night, or you’re going to sleep thinking about something, or you wake up at 3am thinking about something…

BV: I imagine a natural enthusiasm will carry you a long way.

NC: It helps if you’re passionate about what you’re doing. If you keep your eye on the goal, or are just constantly able to move forward, the speed bumps you hit in the road just end up being only speed bumps, regardless of their size. You’re always looking forward to the future. You always have things to look forward to.

BV: You started working in the wine industry at 16. In what capacity?

NC: I worked at a little winery called Mengihni Winery in San Diego County. I’m still friends with the owners. My best friend and I would go in on the weekends and hand-label and hand-foil their wine bottles.

BV: How did your wine career evolve before you got into beer?

NC: I was in the wine industry for 19 years. I put myself through college, got a Bachelor’s Degree from Sonoma State. I ended up being in more of a sales/administration type role, then got into sales. I got to work with wholesalers and be in education, and I really enjoyed it and learned a lot.

BV: I’m sure a lot of those skills translated well into running this company.

NC: A lot of those skills did, working with wholesalers and learning the ins and outs of that world and translating it into the role that I’m in now. I got a lot of great advice [from the] relationships I made along the way, and a lot of [Russian River Brewing] investors came out of that job, too!

And with that, she said a quick goodbye, thanked me for coming, and rushed off to her conference call.

By the way, as we were talking she showed me those photos of the ship carrying the new Windsor brewhouse passing under the Golden Gate Bridge. Expect to see those gracing the walls of the new pub once it opens.

After a very nice lunch, I spotted her as I was leaving and thanked her again for making the trip over and making time for me.

And, once again, SHE apologized for the location mix-up.

Masters of the Beerverse: Ken Weaver

November 5, 2017 Dean BrightmanLeave a comment

I’ve got a confession to make.

I want to be Ken Weaver when I grow up.

My Mentor, though he may not know it. Or want the job.

Ken is a freelance beer writer, author, hopefully-soon-to-be-published graphic novelist, and until recently Beer Editor at All About Beer magazine.

Now, when I say I want to be Ken Weaver, I mean I want to write about beer and get paid for it. (Don’t freak out, Ken. I’m not a stalker or anything. As far as you know.)

Don’t get me wrong. This blog is a fun hobby. But it would be nice to get a little extra coin for putting these words on the page, you know?

But, truth be told, my best fit would be a full-time gig with, you know, benefits and a paycheck and all that. I fully admit to being too much of a wuss to go full-freelance and actually fend for myself for my income. Yikes.

But I digress.

Ken was nice enough to answer some questions via email. He talks about the literal long and winding road he’s taken, from Pennsylvania coal country, to college in the Northeast where he earned two (!) Master’s degrees, to Nicaragua, to ultimately living the freelance life in Petaluma.

Beerverse: You have a Master’s in physics in college, then got another in creative writing. What was the original plan, and why did you switch gears?

Ken Weaver: The easy answer is: I grew up in coal country, I didn’t like it, and I was good at math. I’m originally from a rural part of northeastern Pennsylvania, which, like many parts of the Rust Belt, has seen some distant better days.

I had stuff I wanted to do. I didn’t make many close friends, and my personal ticket out was math. Special teachers from age six, accelerated courses, a brick calculator, lots of folks having my back. I got to do some cool stuff: discounted trip to Carnegie Mellon; paid jaunts to Cornell, MIT, CERN (the European Organization of Nuclear Research) in Switzerland. I pushed every academic button I could find. Ultimately, I forgot way more physics than most people care to.

I jumped ship from a PhD program with my now-wife to doing a creative-writing MFA, which still wasn’t the right fit. But it gave me time to write.

BV: What were your post-college years like? What kind of work did you do?

KW: Aside from a brief and glorious early reign as a Sandwich Artist…

I taught a bunch of different undergrad classes through the end of grad school — 8AM calculus, physics labs, intro-comp courses and, the best, creative writing. After that: renewable-energy consulting while trying to get my shit together as a writer. Throughout all of it, Ali (my wife) was building a firm career in renewable-energy consulting and keeping us afloat.

BV: You volunteered in Nicaragua for a short time, helping develop water and energy systems for remote villages, correct? I would imagine your physics background came in handy there. What inspired you, and what was the experience like?

KW: Ali’s impetus. We had considered a trip to Europe too, but Central America we could afford. We hooked up with Mathias Craig and the other fine folks at blueEnergy who were in Nicaragua doing good stuff with technologies we were interested in.

Nicaragua was cool as hell. And it puts you in your place really quick. We ended up community liaisons, as it were, spending three months at HQ, then the other three months in a remote indigenous coastal community called Kahkabila.

We’re talking 40+ miles by the slow boat and outboard-motor panga. We took buckets of rice and vegetables and such every time we headed out for a stay in the community: rations for a couple weeks at a time. We taught elementary-school classes to fill in, maintained the solar panels and turbines, made bricks for a tourist center, welcomed visiting fancy folks, taught one of the best kid creative-writing classes ever, and got sick so many times.

These folks were totally off-grid when we’d arrived. Candles. Crank lights, from other nonprofits. The wealthiest of the villagers had a diesel generator and some electrical cords strung along branches, connecting to houses of other family members. Gas came from a barrel and siphon in Pearl Lagoon.

We’d spent months working on sustainable projects in the community, and — in true Nicaragua fashion — near the end of our stay, we hear from folks in Kahkabila that the grid is coming through the jungle. Given bureaucratic realities, we’d gotten basically zero notice. But we did get to see the electrical grid come to that community: drilling post holes, the little celebrations. It was humbling and magnificent at the same time.

Regarding physics: Anything like electronics lab was always my worst class. I could speak ten times more Spanish than I could understand. I was not super useful.

BV: What sparked your interest in beer, and when did you decide you wanted to write about it?

KW: My college roommate at Carnegie-Mellon got me into good beer and whiskey. I also had a super-smart beer crew through RateBeer, when Ali and I lived in DC. I don’t speak many dude languages, and good beer’s always been a good way to find my people. I stumbled into the beer-writing aspect of it after finding a subculture I liked.

BV: Do you remember the first beer article you got paid for? Was that the start of your freelance career?

KW: My first beer-writing checks were probably from more than a decade ago now, when I happened to run into someone involved with the Mid-Atlantic Brewing News. She’d twisted [then Editor] Greg Kitsock’s arm to have this literary-fiction guy they met at a Brickskeller event write for them. At the time, I didn’t have a sense for the language, or the chops for it at all. That initial blip was before Nicaragua and led to nothing for a long while.

BV: How did you wind up on the West Coast?

KW: Before leaving for Nicaragua, Ali and I saved up and spent a few months traveling to national parks and beer spots. I think our budget was fifty bucks a day for lodging. I think Santa Barbara was the only time we slept in our car, so we didn’t move there.

A lot of the folks we stayed with were RateBeer peeps, or folks we’d just meet in a cool beer spot and would offer up a room. It was such a good trip. People were real kind. We gave ourselves extra days to hang in places that we had interest in. Sonoma County fit our vibe—we eventually settled in Petaluma—with Boulder just behind.

BV: Was there a “light-bulb moment” when you realized you could actually make a living as a beer writer?

KW: When the baseline’s literary fiction, you’re not exactly shooting for the stratosphere on the income front. As noted, Ali had my back. I’d gotten a cover article published in All About Beer at an early stage in my writing life (Ali ended up shooting the cover shot), and we finished the book she and I did together: The Northern California Craft Beer Guide. I did words. She did photos. We’d spent six months traveling all around northern California—a few hundred spots. Took the tour at Anchor as the last piece. Turned in the manuscript (on time) that same day, then put in my two-week notice.

BV: Why did you make the jump from Rate Beer to start 3 Beer Island? I know your other projects have pulled you away from it, ever anticipate reviving it?

KW: 3 Beer Island was a fun email-newsletter prototype for me after I had left my role at RateBeer Weekly (which we’d built to like 100,000+ active subscribers before I left). I jumped ship in fall of 2014. Joe Tucker and I talked a ton of business ideas, and he’s one of the nicest dudes I’ve ever met. But I don’t last long in steady-state situations.

My eventually full-time spot as beer editor at All About Beer Magazine took up any time I had floating around for 3 Beer Island. But I love building content in that kind of space. Email newsletters are such a fun format if you know what you’re doing.

BV: Speaking of other projects, you’ve tweeted about potential books on the horizon. Can you elaborate?

KW: Still in flux. Got one coffee-table book under consideration. We’re trying to structure a solid working arrangement between the guide’s publisher (Cameron + Co. based in Petaluma) and a bigger publisher that they’ve been designing titles for. I loved how our first book turned out and want to build a bigger experience with this next one.

I’ve also been tweeting about a graphic novel, but I’m still just finding my feet in that space. Working on an 18-issue arch, hoping to have a draft later this year. Beer? Yes.

BV: I’m curious how you handle time management. For me, between working full-time and responsibilities at home, I find it difficult to create the habit to write consistently. How do you divide your time between all your projects and still having a life?

KW: I have a revolving stack of freelance gigs, after being full-time at the mag for a couple years. The most comfortable arrangement for me is an ongoing set of spaces where I have an audience I can grow with. I’ve got my different spots with All About Beer, one with Rare Beer Club, plus evolving freelance. Second book’s a natural next step. I’m always looking for folks to make stuff with.

Time management: I try to do the most important stuff first.

Ali and I don’t have kids. We both work long hours—but we don’t have that kind of a responsibility in place. We make increasing time for each other, fam and friends, and if there’s a trajectory to our lives now, it definitely isn’t in a direction of more work.

BV: Tell me about the Rare Beer Club and your role in it.

KW: The monthly beer club’s been around for like 20+ years. It was originally founded by Michael Jackson. I handle content for the club’s newsletter: brewery profiles and tasting notes, plus a brief column. They send me well-chosen beer and I do deep-dive tasting notes each month.

BV: It seems beer media is as susceptible to consolidation as the industry it covers, with All About Beer acquiring Draft Magazine not long after you left. How do you feel about the move? Any thoughts on the ever-evolving media landscape?

KW: I don’t know key details behind the move, but I’m hopeful that it means a more sustainable future for both companies. The plan is to keep my Trending column. I’ve got some new projects I’m working on, and it’s good to be back to full-time freelance work. Regarding the beer media landscape, I’ll just say we’re seeing things evolve rapidly right now.

BV: Regarding the industry in general, the Brewers Association has gone all-in on independent ownership with their recently unveiled logo. I gotta admit, I recently broke down and picked up a Lagunitas. Aside from the samples sent to you to review, is there an ownership line that you won’t cross as a consumer?

KW: I just try to stay away from companies that act like jerks or demonstrate destructive values. The world is complicated, industry groups will always have a challenge trying to fully define something, and as a consumer I just try to stay as educated as I can about what I’m drinking and the good folks who make it.

BV: Finally, based on your experiences, what advice would you give someone thinking about making a go of the freelance life?

KW: For one: I’d encourage folks to take careful stock of what they’ve already got. It often takes some months to build up clientele and for any actual checks to start appearing.

As I see things, though, this is about as good as it gets, for me. I’m an independent freelancer. I’m involved with a community of folks I genuinely feel great about. I’m able to work from home with Ali and two swell fuzzballs. I pick my clients and gigs.

I feel like much of adulthood, creepy as it is, is that very personal decision of figuring out what’s actually important, and then just focusing your efforts on those things.

Thanks, Ken. I’ll let you know when I have that figured out.

Check out his latest piece, his first ever for The Full Pint. And follow him on Twitter, where you can track the progress of his ever evolving backyard beer garden.

And Ken, if I can ever be of assistance to, oh I don’t know, help you with your backlog of samples, or maybe use your media pass for a festival you can’t attend, hit me up.

Seriously.

Masters of The Beerverse: Dan Gordon

June 24, 2017 Dean BrightmanLeave a comment

As a teenager, Dan Gordon took a trip to Germany with his family. He could legally drink there and immediately took to German beer culture.

And boy, did it stick.

So much so, in fact, that after graduating from UC Berkeley in 1982, he went back to Germany for Grad school, enrolling in the brewing engineering program at the Technical Institute of Munich. He graduated in 1987, one of very few Americans to do so.

His German education is evident in Gordon Biersch’s core lineup — Marzen, Hefeweizen, Maibock, Blonde Bock (my personal favorite), and Pilsner, among many others.

Of course, all beers are brewed in accordance with Reinheitsgebot, the German purity law which states only four ingredients can be used in brewing — malt, hops, water, and yeast. Not even carbonation can be added. All carbonation in each beer is naturally produced and captured during fermentation.

In 1988, Gordon and business partner Dean Biersch (who currently operates the Hopmonk Tavern chain in the North Bay) opened the first Gordon Biersch (GB) brewery restaurant in Palo Alto. Their concept — to elevate the beer dining experience by pairing German-style beer with upscale cuisine.

And boy, did it stick.

Today, there are 35 GB restaurants across the U.S., although Gordon is no longer involved in that part of the business. In the late 1990s, due to California law at the time, Gordon and Biersch had to sell the restaurants. Today the GB brand is co-owned by Gordon, who runs the brewery operations in San Jose, and CraftWorks, a restaurant group who also runs the Rock Bottom and Old Chicago Pizza chains.

A couple of years ago, CraftWorks was considering closing the original Palo Alto location, which was still running but by then was showing its age. Gordon couldn’t let that stand, and worked out an arrangement to get back into the restaurant business, albeit for this location only.

The restaurant closed in September 2015 for a total remodel, and was reborn the following March as Dan Gordon’s. The focus for this iteration is farm-to-table barbecue, along with an extensive whiskey bar. The brewery, Gordon’s original (purchased while still in Grad school in Germany), was also completely overhauled. In addition to brewing the core beers, it also works as a pilot brewery where different styles are explored. If popular enough, they may eventually make their way into the brewery’s regular lineup.

GB continued their marketing partnership with the San Jose Sharks with the debut of Chum, a dry-hopped Red Ale, introduced as a seasonal brew at the start of hockey season last fall. The beer was available at the Shark Tank as well as local stores, and will be back again when the pucks drop later this year.

I spoke with Gordon in his office at the San Jose brewery. We talked about Dan Gordon’s, Reinheitsgebot, ABI envy, his new line of ciders, and the emerging hipster brewery culture.

The Beerverse: How are things going at the Palo Alto restaurant?

Dan Gordon: Real well, we’re happy. We were just thrilled to be able to bring it back to greatness. It had been lacking some TLC from Craftworks over the last, going on, 16-17 years, and it needed a lot of help. It was the flagship, and it needed to be represented at the level of a flagship.

BV: Is your original brewery still there, from when it started?

DG: Yes, it was the one I bought when I was in Grad school in Germany, same kettle and everything. Although we did spend an enormous amount of money refurbishing it. It was originally a cast-iron kettle and we just went through and redid it in stainless steel.

BV: Original, but improved, then.

DG: Well, the fact that it was cast iron, it had rust, it was wearing thin, it was creating off-flavors, it was terrible. It really needed some extensive work probably 15 years ago, 10 years ago at least.

BV: Do you use that brewery for one-offs and restaurant-only batches?

DG: Right. It enables us to do a 20-barrel test brew and see what what it’s like, to take it out into the trade and get consumer response, and to drink ourselves as well. Right now we have an Altbeer and a Dubbel on tap.

BV: What’s gotten the biggest responses there, so far?

DG: Both of those have gotten really good responses, I’ve been surprised. We were requested to produce a Sour Wheat, that didn’t go over well at all. That was interesting to see. I didn’t really want to do it, it was just a request, so you’ve got to approach it with an open mind. It tasted okay, but not really.

BV: What are the steps involved in deciding to launch a new beer into the marketplace? What kind of decisions are involved?

DG: It’s things that I’ve wanted to do more or less that we haven’t done is what the driving force is in whether to brew a style. The Alt beer and a great style because it’s under-represented. I look in the marketplace to see what isn’t being brewed the majority of brewers. I think light-bodied dark beers are really delicious, and I always loved to go to Dusseldorf and drinking Alt beers.

Getting the right yeast strain is not hard these days. I can call the yeast bank and get it sent over, and we’re brewing Alt like it’s done in Dusseldorf.

To me that’s where you garner inspiration, from your favorites that you’ve had before, and like the Belgian Dubbel, that’s just something I thought, ‘We’ve got to give that a shot, it’s a delicious beer, why not try it out and see what everyone thinks?’ It’s 7.8%, though, so it’s got some kick.

BV: So we’ll be seeing some Gordon Biersch Alt bottles in the future?

DG: Well, I don’t know. We’ve got several different lines now. We just launched our IPA called “Tilt.” Although it’s not really ours, it my brewer’s. So the Tilt line might be the one that’s going into the deep, dark void of under-represented beers. [Laughs]

BV: Your San Jose brewing plant opened in 1997, so it’ll be 20 years this year?

DG: Yes, hard to believe.

BV: How are you in terms of capacity? Any other brewery locations on the horizon?

DG: No. I planned for 50 years of growth here. We have infrastructure for more tanks. The only issue would be warehousing, and we can get to more warehouse space across the parking lot if needed.

BV: Is it better for quality control purposes to keep all brewing in one facility?

DG: Well, that and it isn’t cheap to build another brewery. I don’t think we’re at that level yet. Most of the guys who are doing bicoastal brewing have more demand on the East Coast, and we’re not at that level.

BV: Do all restaurants in the GB chain feature breweries?

DG: Almost every single one does, there’s only one I’m aware of that doesn’t, that’s in Scottsdale, AZ.

BV: Are you still the consultant for all beer recipes? Do they license them from you? How does that work?

DG: We co-own everything, the brand is jointly owned. The flagship brands have to be brewed identically, there’s no vacillating or changing those — Marzen, Pilsener, Blonde Bock, Winter Bock — they all have to be the heritage recipes and formulations that we started with.

It’s more the process than anything else. I kind of take it that it’s the home brewing mentality that’s been translated or upscaled to brew pubs or small brewery operations. When you have a brewer and you have a correct brewhouse that can do everything like graduated-step infusion mashing, decoction mashing for strong beers, those are important for the qualitative aspect of the beer.

[Things like] not reusing yeast 20 times. Here we use them, one-and-done. We have a propagator, we can always grab a harvest. Home brewers and some from other craft breweries where they reuse the yeast 10-15 times, they don’t have the ability to propagate and they by off-the-shelf yeast that doesn’t take off the way it should. It surprises me. If you go to one of these yeast banks, you have to grow it before you can use it. It has to acclimate to your work.

Those are the things that we specify in our brewery restaurant operations that most brewpubs wouldn’t even think of.

BV: So as long as the facilities are set up to your specifications, then…

DG: They’ve got to really be up to snuff, yes.

BV: Do they have any flexibility in…

DG: Not in aging time, or quality of raw materials, or yeast handling, or the brewing process, there’s no flexibility on those.

BV: Can they do their own one-offs and restaurant-only brews?

DG: That they are allowed, yes.

BV: Do you need to sign off on those?

DG: I have a counterpart in the restaurant group that watches over that who’s a great guy, so I don’t have to worry too much about it.

BV: Tell me about your cider line.

DG: It’s called Wild Cide. One ingredient, that’s all we use — fresh-pressed apple juice, that comes from Oregon and Washington overnight via refrigerated tankers. We don’t use sulfides to kill the bacteria, we flash-pasteurize the juice as it comes in. We’re able to get a very clean fermentation because of that.

We use an ale yeast strain, which imparts a fantastic, bright apple aroma. Some yeast metabolizes very rapidly, some of the cider yeasts in particular ingests, retains, and neutralizes some of the positive flavor components, one of which is that bright, fresh apple aroma, which we were able to maintain using an ale yeast.

We tried four different yeast strains, and I didn’t like any of them. I thought the flavor of the cider was terrible. And then we tried it with our ale yeast and thought it was amazing.

BV: Just one variety so far?

DG: We do one cider that’s just a straightforward hard cider that’s dry, crisp, and refreshing. Wild Mule is an offshoot. Instead of doing a traditional flavor extension, like a blackberry-infused cider, or lemon or lemongrass, we tried all that out and thought it wasn’t very good.

We made a ginger cider that was really good, and thought “this tastes kind of like ginger beer, except drier. So what if we add lime juice, and back-sweeten it a little with liquid cane sugar?” It wound up tasting exactly like a Moscow Mule, so we named it Wild Mule.

When you pour it, just tilt it a little bit to get the sediment from the bottom, because it’s all natural cane juice and lime juice. Over ice it’s unbelievable. In hot weather you’re gonna love it.

BV: I know your philosophy is to stick to the purity laws, Reinheitsgebot.

DG: Yes, and you can apply that to ale production, as well, it doesn’t just have to be for German beers. You’d be surprised how many chemicals are added to some of the bigger name, mainstream craft brew brands that are bottled.

BV: What do you think of the prevailing attitudes of experimentation, adding all sort of different ingredients?

DG: My philosophy is nothing that can go into muffins or cough syrup, that’s my preference. I think the Reinheitsgebot is a great law because it says malt-hops-water-yeast. That’s plenty of notes to put on paper, that’s the way I look at it.

BV: At first blush, without knowing too much about the brewing process, one might think that’s fairly restrictive. But you can do a lot with just those ingredients.

DG: I think it’s great that hop growers are putting so much emphasis on developing new strains of hops that are interesting and flavorful. I’m not a super fan of the ultra-bitter hops, because takes away the ability to balance the flavor profile. They keep trying to push the limit [of alpha-acid concentrations], to me that gives you too much of a harsh flavor profile. I’d rather use more hops than fewer. It gives you the ability to balance the flavor and hot have it get too astringent.

BV: What about the prevalence for tropical flavor profiles in hops these days?

DG: One of the neat ones that came out of the Hallertau is Melon, that’s an interesting flavor profile. Then there’s Hallertau Blanc, which has got some essence of aromas similar to Chardonnay.

BV: I remember reading how you feel it is crucial to have good relationships with hop brokers. How do you feel about how ABI is squeezing everyone else out of the South African hop market since they now own all the farms?

DG: Hops are a world-wide item, and people can just buy them somewhere else. ABI doesn’t control the world-wide market. I doubt ABI is predatory, they just have so much production in South Africa that they need all the hops themselves. That’s just normal if you own all the hop fields and you want to control your own destiny and not worry about supply issues, vertical integration is a great thing. I’m jealous. If I were that big and I could do it, that’s the way to go.

They even have an AB hop farm in the Hallertau, a small one for development. They have a full-time research group up there that’s trying to further brewing in the hop world. I’ve never been there but I’ve driven past it since it’s close to where I went to school.

BV: You were expecting a shakeout in the industry at least a couple of years ago. What are your thoughts now?

DG: I just looked at New Brewer, which is a trade magazine, that said in 2016, in California alone, there were 120 new breweries, not including brewpubs, that were bottling, canning, and kegging. I think there were another 50 or 60 brewpubs. It’s absolutely incredible.

I got a call from a private equity firm, that unlike venture capital firms usually acquires companies instead of starting them from scratch, and they were talking about building a beer brand.

What is going on out there? Why do people with no background think they’re going to succeed?

BV: That’s what was happening in the ‘90s. Venture capital companies were just inventing brands to take advantage of that first boom.

DG: Armageddon is coming, there’s no question in my mind. It’s inevitable.

BV: At least in the Bay Area, the concept of very small, neighborhood breweries with very small distribution seems to be taking hold.

DG: It seems like every urban roll-up garage door deserves to have a brewery behind it. It’s like, ‘oh, there’s another.” I know there’s the element of discovery to it, that people love to try something new, and the hopheads want to have a growler of this one beer that only they can get to bring to a party and talk about it, as their badge for the occasion.

It doesn’t drive quality, it just drives new names.

“Oh look, there’s another 95-IBU IPA, whaddya think?”

“Great, it tastes just like the other 95-IBU IPA that you brought to the last party. And the one before that.”

“But look, this came from this address.” It’s basically an address, it doesn’t really matter. The guy’s got a little 50-gallon kettle…

BV: It’s like a cache to have a tiny, tiny space, and to have to make the pilgrimage to go get it.

DG: It’s like grow a beard, get a tattoo and a piercing, boom, you own a brewery.

BV: Having said that, are there some newcomers, say in the last five years or so, that have impressed you?

DG: Honestly, I haven’t been out there tasting everything that’s popping up, so I can’t speak from an educated standpoint. I’d be making it up. I’m basically focused on what we’re doing, and trying to convert the world into drinking a good pilsner again. That’s my goal. Getting back to basics, getting to the good stuff.

Thanks, Dan.

For those interested in tasting GB beers at the source, sign up for a tour, or check out the Taylor Street Night + Market, every Thursday from 5-9pm.

Masters of The Beerverse: Don Barkley

May 14, 2017 Dean BrightmanLeave a comment

I’m not one for hyperbole, but I’m a bit giddy these days because I just got to interview a craft brewing legend.

Okay, he might think that a bit grandiose. How about pioneer? Trailblazer? Sherpa?

Whatever, doesn’t matter. Don Barkley has been in the craft brewing game since before there was one, when he convinced Jack McAuliffe in the late 1970s he could use some help running America’s first true new small brewery since Prohibition — Sonoma’s New Albion Brewing Company.

Try as they might, they could only make the venture last until 1982. McAuliffe and Barkley then took the equipment north to Hopland and helped found Mendocino Brewing Company (MBC), the nation’s first on-site brewpub, in 1983.

With brews like Red Tail Ale and Eye of the Hawk, growth followed quickly. But by the mid ’90s, like many breweries at the time, MBC faced a challenge. They needed to expand to keep up with demand, but didn’t have the money.

Enter India-based brewing conglomerate United Breweries (UB), which purchased MBC in 1997. Their deep pockets allowed MBC to expand their own facility, and, UB’s recently established brewery in New York allowed them the possibility of nationwide distribution.

Barkley helmed MBC’s brewing operations until 2008, when the promise of being closer to his ailing father brought him to his current home at Napa Smith.

You’ll find the Vallejo taproom under a big V.

The brewery was purchased in 2013 by R.S. Lipman Company, a Nashville-based owner of several wine, beer, spirit, and mixer brands. Seeking to expand capacity, Lipman recently moved Napa Smith from its initial home in a business park south of Napa to a former Sears distribution center in northern Vallejo, just off Highways 29 and 37.

[BTW, although the official taproom Grand Opening is still about a week away as I post this (May 20th), the soft opening is well underway. Stop by and say howdy. Look for the giant palm trees in front.]

The combination of Vallejo’s new brewery and Lipman’s Nashville facility, currently home to their Hap & Harry’s brand of ales and lagers, will allow them to eventually take Napa Smith nationwide. Just as with MBC, Barkley will be managing breweries across the country.

Speaking of Barkley’s former employer, United Breweries made recent headlines when founder Vijay Mallya was arrested in London amidst business fraud charges. His extravagant lifestyle in the face of these charges is well documented.

I recently spoke with Don at Napa Smith’s new brewery about New Albion, working for United Breweries, craft-beer sustainability, and Vallejo’s possibilities.

The Beerverse: By the time you finally convinced Jack McAullife to be his assistant at New Albion in the late ‘70s, I imagine he pretty much had the brewery fashioned together by then?

Don Barkley: To some degree. There was continuous improvement at New Albion. Everything was absolutely built from scratch, that was one of Jack McAullife’s fortes — knowing how to make beer, then actually putting it into practice by building the equipment, putting it together and making it a functioning brewery.

I’ve been [thinking about] him the last couple of years with the addition of a lot of people doing really tiny, tiny little breweries — a barrel, barrel-and-a-half, even half-barrel breweries, thinking “What in the world are these people thinking?” And then of course I had to stop myself and say, “Wait a minute! New Albion was only a barrel-and-a-half per batch!”

Don Barkley (far right) chatting with friends in the new taproom, about a week before opening.

BV: At least they have some templates to go by. You guys had to figure it out as you went.

DB: Pretty much. There was no equipment anywhere at that point.

BV: Were Fritz Maytag (Anchor) and Ken Grossman (Sierra Nevada) good resources for you guys? Did you interact much with them?

DB: Fritz Maytag was a great supporter of what we were doing at New Albion. Ken wasn’t really in the business yet, although he did come by and take a peek.

Fritz was a great help. Once Jack had made a malt bin, we would go down to Anchor to get our malt. All the malt we used for brewing for a long time came from Anchor. Fritz and the whole Anchor gang were pretty interested in what we were doing at New Albion.

BV: What was it like working for United Breweries once they took over at MBC? Were they very hands-on or did they let you do what you do?

DB: They definitely were hands-on. They put a little over $4 million in [the brewery expansion] project which was enough to get it finished, and installed not only the Managing Director but also the CFO on-site. Both of those guys came from the brewing business so they understood brewing and how to make and sell beer in India.

There may have been some cultural differences in learning how to sell beer in the U.S. market, but as the Master Brewer at the Mendocino Brewing Company, I was certainly held in high respect. But I certainly learned a lot in regards to record-keeping and watching the pennies and all that.

The only thing that probably was a little different was the fact they were from a different culture. Making beer around the world is always the same, but selling beer in a different culture is a different type of thing.

How ’bout some shuffleboard with a side of education?

BV: Did you have much interaction with Mr. Mallya himself?

DB: Vijay came to Mendocino once a year for the shareholder meeting. He was aloof to say the least.

BV: With nearly 40 years in the industry, you’ve seen a lot of cycles, expansions and contractions. The last few years of growth have been astronomical. There’s lots of wringing of hands lately about what the short term will bring. Your thoughts?

DB: My gut feeling right now is that we’re on the tip-top of the wave. With the amount of capacity coming on, with all the small breweries that have expanded in the last couple years into 100-barrel, 150-barrel brewhouses, those people [already] in the marketplace and those trying to get into the market, we’re going to see some fall-out. It’s starting right now as far as I’m concerned.

BV: The Speakeasy shut-down caught a lot of people by surprise. Hopefully they’ll find a find a new buyer. [Editor’s note: interview was conducted before the buyer was announced.]

DB: Hopefully they will, and maybe draw back a little bit and regroup.

But I think as far as small brewpubs and that kind of thing, I think there’s still room for a lot of that, as far as community establishments. But getting out into the marketplace, there’s almost too much beer right now, too many products to select. You end up with more beer on the supermarket shelves sitting there longer, which is not good for beer at all.

I think we’re pretty much topped out as far as this wave. So we’ll have a bit of a slump as all this capacity comes on and people try to figure out how to sell it all. Then we’ll start to have price wars going on. When you get into the price war business, then those who don’t know how to run a business will start to have a bit more of a problem surviving.

BV: On to brighter things. When did the Vallejo facility come on-line?

DB: We actually moved in in December. On December 1st, we had everything out of our original Napa location. We actually made our first batch of beer in the first week of January, so it took about a month or so.

BV: Were you guys offline for a while? Did you brew elsewhere or just stock up your accounts to cover the outage?

DB: We were offline for about six weeks. We made sure our production was proper, our finished goods inventory was high, our distributors were full of beer, and said, “Okay, let’s go!” It took about two weeks to move the equipment and put it back together.

BV: You’re completely out of Napa now, correct?

DB: Yes. We were in the Napa facility for about 8 years.

BV: Was Napa Smith just starting when you were brought on?

DB: It had not existed before I got there. I got there and basically sourced all the brewing equipment and installed it, and in a fairly short time was able to make some beer. We made our first batch in April 2008.

BV: Any plans for a satellite taproom or some other future presence in Napa?

DB: We have planned to keep a presence in Napa. We are looking for the right location, downtown if possible.

BV: It must be an exciting time for you guys.

DB: The move to Vallejo has allowed us the opportunity of opening up the production side and be prepared to make more beer. That’s a really good thing for us.

BV: Any thoughts of a Vallejo collaboration with new neighbor Mare Island Brewing?

DB: I think as we go along [we’ll look into it]. We haven’t [reached out yet] because we’ve been trying so hard to get ourselves up and operating here. It’s a whole new game for us. And Mare Island, from what I understand, they’re planning on starting to brew at their facility in May, as well.

We hope to do something with Mare Island in the future. We’ll see how it goes.

BV: Outside of the core beers, will you be doing one-offs and other taproom-only brews?

DB: We’ll have some taproom-only, and we’ll do our one-off program now that we’re in our new space. We’ll be looking at bringing new beers in about every six weeks or so. Two days ago we made a Cascadian Dark Ale. It’ll be BLACK.

And of course, because we’re involved with Tennessee, Robert Lipman makes and sells as part of his product line a Bourbon called Old Hickory, and every once in a while they dump a bunch of barrels…

BV: I was just gonna ask if there was going to be some barrels coming your way…

DB: We do have some Bourbon barrels, yes, and we just put some Hoppageddon into a Bourbon barrel. That’ll sit in there for about six months.

BV: Note to self — “come back to Napa Smith in six months.”

DB: You’ll definitely want to. Hoppageddon is such a lovely beer, anyway. Out of a Bourbon barrel it’ll be really, really nice.

So we did that recently, and we’ve got our wheat beer which we just launched last year. It’s basically a hoppy wheat, obviously no [bittering hops], only aromatics. That’s really a nice wheat beer and we’ll have it out full-steam in the summertime. Really, really lovely.

And we’ve got another special beer that I think we’ve got on tap right now, and that’s called TrHOPic Thunder, and so it has a lot of tropical papaya and really interesting flavors from the hops. We’ll be playing around with a lot of really fun beers.

BV: It must be nice to have the room to do that.

DB: That’s right, and have a really nice little taproom to feature it in.

We made our Golden Gate IPA specifically as an IPA that … a few years ago, we were just so tired of big, high alcohol, super big IPAs, we said, “Let’s make something that’s just really, really nice.” It’s gotten so sophisticated and so delightful lately.

It has just gone crazy throughout San Francisco, obviously, with the name. It’s a 6% IPA, a nice big hoppy thing but not trying to blow you out of the water, just a real, delightful, sophisticated flavor.

BV: There’s something to be said for balance, absolutely.

DB: Well, that’s part of my forte, here. Have that balance. Never forget the malt!

BV: Is canning in your future?

DB: We’ve had a lot of requests, especially from the Sonoma Raceway. They would LOVE to have our beer over there. We could do it on draft, but the real source of sales would be cans. We’re playing with the idea of doing cans, but all in good time.

We’ve got a brand new Kosme filler, though, so the beer is getting into the bottle in superb character right now. Our air pickup is absolutely nil, so we’re really, really happy to finally have a filing machine that can get the beer into the bottle and really know that that beer is going be good down the line.

BV: I read in Ken Grossman’s autobiography that, in the early days, the bottle fillers probably gave him more headaches than anything else.

DB: Yep, yep, absolutely. You can make the best beer in the world and have it in your fermenters, but if you can’t get it into the bottle, you have a big problem! It won’t last!

You see it out in the marketplace, now. There’s a lot of great beers, and you want them to be better, but you [can] just tell the age on them, maybe they weren’t filled the way they should have been. It’s a disappointment.

BV: Working at Mendocino must have been good training for you to coordinate brewing on both sides of the country. Are you brewing Napa Smith in Tennessee yet?

DB: We have not started to actually produce product there. We’ve done some trial batches, and we’ve just installed a lead brewer in that facility and he’s getting used to making some of our other products.

Robert Lipman is contracting a particular beer he brewed at Yazoo Brewing [in Nashville] called Hap & Harry’s, ale and lager. Right now we’re concentrating on making those beers for the Nashville market and beyond. As our new lead brewer gets the facility well under his belt, then we’ll probably start making some Napa Smith beers there.

BV: Is that a new facility there, as well?

DB: Yes, it’s about a year old or so.

Having brewed at Mendocino in both New York and California, there are nuances that are pretty involved to get the product to taste as similar as possible.

BV: Dealing with different water sources…

DB: That’s a huge component. If you’re in one place and you know what your water’s doing, it’s a whole different ballgame if you go somewhere else and all of a sudden your calcium and every other ion in that water is off. Sometimes just the equipment itself requires some unique approaches to do the same thing you’re doing in California.

BV: Do you plan to eventually brew and distribute some Tennessee product out west?

DB: Maybe. As we’re going along we might do some Hap & Harry’s. We have made the lager and ale in Napa and sent it back to Tennessee for some trial runs and also to help their production gap as they ended production at Yazoo Brewing and started at the new Tennessee facility.

BV: Finally, hazy beers. Yea or Nay?

The reason there’s hazy beers out there is that people don’t have their brewing process down. In theory, haze should not affect the flavor of a beer at all. I’ve had and made myself some wonderful hazy beers. But with a good, tight brewing process, there’s no reason to have a haze in your beer at all.

Unless you’re making a wheat beer. Then, of course, style dictates you’ll have some haze. But the beauty of a beer is watching it sparkle in the sunshine.

I can drink a nice, hazy beer as long as it tastes good and has a reason for being, other than just being hazy.

Thank you, Don. It was nice for you to spend some time with me while in the middle of getting the new taproom up and running. As I mentioned, the doors are now open. Have a pint or two and enjoy the new surroundings.

Masters of The Beerverse: Dave McLean

April 30, 2017 Dean BrightmanLeave a comment

With the possible exception of Anchor Brewing, there probably isn’t a brewery more iconic to San Francisco than Magnolia.

To wit:

Dave McLean, the founder, got indoctrinated into the craft beer scene in the parking lots at Grateful Dead shows in the Boston area the late ’80s/early ‘90s, where many of the Dead’s followers brought brews with them from the West Coast shows. Once he settled in the City in 1991 (in the Haight, natch), he began home brewing almost immediately.

After finishing the brewing program at UC Davis, he found a space at Haight and Masonic just a few blocks from his home. The small space had an even smaller basement, in which he managed to cram a seven-barrel brewhouse in 1997.

That tiny brewhouse is still churning out quality brews to this day.

The location already had a colorful history before Dave’s arrival, with one of the former proprietors being the famous Magnolia Thunderpussy. Given that, you really can’t get more San Francisco than by naming your new brewery Magnolia (Dave continues the tribute with his barleywine — Old Thunderpussy).

Seeking to expand production, Magnolia opened Smokestack, a brewery/BBQ joint/whiskey bar in the Dogpatch district, in 2014. That name also comes from Dave’s love of history, a nod to the Dead’s remake of Howlin’ Wolf’s song “Smokestack Lightnin'”, as well as to the neighborhood’s industrial past.

(BTW, Magnolia also makes a damned tasty Smokestack Lightning Imperial Stout, which I was fortunate enough to enjoy during the last Beer Week)

Although all his businesses have been profitable (he also owns The Alembic in the Haight), Dave filed for bankruptcy in late 2015, seeking to restructure his debt-load from the expansion. All businesses have continued operations during the process, which continues. In fact, during this time Magnolia recently brought their first packaged products into market, Kalifornia Kolsch and Proving Ground IPA, both in cans.

Dave was kind enough to chat with me via email, and talks more about history, Magnolia’s bankruptcy, the Dead’s influence on his record-keeping, the can rollout, and the one collaboration he’d still love to do as Magnolia approaches its 20^th Anniversary.

The Beerverse: To get this out of the way, can you comment on how the bankruptcy is proceeding? Looking good to emerge from it?

Dave McLean: We’re diligently working on our steps forward to emerge and while it has taken longer than I had hoped, I’m pretty happy with how much we’ve been able to accomplish during it and how it hasn’t had any impact on the experience at our brewpubs nor our beer. It was a major milestone to launch our canned beer during this time.

BV: How has the can rollout gone? Is Blue Bell Bitter still on the horizon? Are there plans for others?

DM: The cans have been selling so well that it has been hard for us to keep up. It was incredible to see the initial reception in terms of how so many people know the brand and were thrilled to be able to take Magnolia beer home in a convenient format after all these years. We’re just getting to the point where we can spread some around to our other distributors outside of San Francisco and we’re beginning to work on the next releases. Yes, I really want to put Blue Bell in a can.

BV: Putting the bankruptcy aside, how has the Smokestack experience been? I know you changed chefs and tweaked the menu last summer. How has that been received?

DM: I feel like both restaurants are operating better than anytime in their past. We saw some opportunities to optimize the service model at Smokestack last year and there are always menu adjustments to be made at both restaurants. Everything seems to be well-received and we have a lot more in the works in terms of some additions to the Smokestack menu.

BV: Some big anniversaries are coming up in the Haight this year — the Summer of Love’s 50^th, and Magnolia’s 20^th. Any plans to commemorate the two? Any special anniversary brews?

DM: Both are big milestones and we’re excited to celebrate them with our community. The Summer of Love is coming up fast and our own anniversary is in the fall. I’m kicking around some ideas for a 20th anniversary beer. More to come on that.

BV: I’m a historical preservation buff (one of my columns is called “Beer Preserves”, featuring breweries in historic buildings). Can you talk a bit about the history of both locations?

DM: Sure, that’s something that really appeals to me, too. One of the first things I did when I signed the lease for the Haight location was to go to the San Francisco History Room at the public library and dig into what had been there before us.

Our Haight building has a pretty interesting history—built in 1903, it was a grocery store in the early days and then was a pharmacy for many of its years, with that era ending in 1964. It then became the Drugstore Cafe, one of the early hippie businesses in the Haight (they had to change the name to the Drogstore after a run in with the California pharmacy board).

And then a legendary woman named Magnolia Thunderpussy took it over and opened a cafe named after herself. She only ran it for a couple of years but those years stand out in a lot of people’s minds and we still hear anecdotes and stories about her and that era of our building. She moved on and took her name with her (next to the Boarding House on Bush, where she ran the kitchen and put out basically the same menu as she had served at her Haight location).

Our space became the Psalms Cafe, something of a hold-out hippie business after most of them fled and the neighborhood had a long hangover. It was a breakfast spot, Dish, throughout the ’80s until 1996, when I took it over.

While our Dogpatch space [Smokestack] doesn’t have quite as colorful history, it’s special in its own way, as is the history of that neighborhood.

It was the industrial heart of San Francisco for many years, and our building was part of the American Can Company, which started across the street in the early 1900s and expanded by building our building in the 1940s. Incidentally, the American Can Company produced the first beer can, but not in San Francisco (they had several plants around the country).

They shut their San Francisco plant in the 1960s and the buildings sat empty for a few years. The father of the current owner bought them and subdivided them into spaces for artists, artisans and craftspeople, and other creative types who wanted affordable space in a then-desolate part of town.

Now it is at the center of one of the hottest neighborhoods in the city and home to an amazing patchwork quilt of cool, independent San Francisco businesses of all kinds.

BV: I’ve never seen such detailed beer archives on a brewery website. The way your library can be cross-referenced and sorted is a researcher’s dream. Why is that so important to you?

DM: I can’t quite explain why, but it is, so we try to record it all. And there’s so much more along those lines that I’d like to add when and if I have time. I’ve always been that way about the Dead, too—identifying with the tapers and collectors who chronicled every version of every song, every setlist, etc. To that end (and sports can be this way, too), the stats and facts can tell stories, reveal patterns and give context to both history and the present. It’s also just fun to look back and be reminded of some of this stuff.

BV: Your list of collaborations is quite impressive. Are there any bucket-list collaborators you haven’t yet gotten to work with?

DM: Well, what has been most fun about our collaborations has been the organic way in which they have all come about, rather than having a master plan or wishlist. That’s important because to me it helps make the case for one of the things that’s special about the beer world. It’s an amazing community full of friends new and old and the inspiration to collaborate almost always seems to come for me out of a social moment with someone, usually over a beer. That’s what’s fun about it. There’s an element of not trying to hard and letting things unfold in interesting and satisfying ways.

That said, as we approach 20, I think a lot about how much Brian Hunt from Moonlight helped me make Magnolia a reality when most people didn’t think I could squeeze a brewery into the basement at Haight and Masonic. And yet, we’ve never brewed together. I’d like to fix that.

BV: Finally, I gotta ask — hazy IPAs, yes or no? Is the kerfuffle justified?

DM: I can appreciate the good ones and get the idea but I’m not all that into them.

Thank you, Dave! I really appreciate you taking the time.

A final note. Although Dave noted his collaboration brews usually happen organically, I think we as a community need to help him out just this once. A Magnolia 20^th Anniversary collaboration brew with Moonlight needs to happen. What better way for Dave to celebrate this milestone than with the guy who helped him out so much when he first started?

Mr. Hunt, if you’re reading this, whaddya say?

Friends of Mr. Hunt, if you could pass this note along to him, I’d really appreciate it. I think we all would enjoy the result.

Masters of the Beerverse: Fal Allen

March 3, 2015 Dean BrightmanLeave a comment

Admit it, you thought this day would never come. Truth told, neither did I.

Presenting our first Master of the Beerverse:

Fal Allen, Brewmaster at Anderson Valley Brewing Co., Boonville, CA

Courtesy Anderson Valley Brewing Company — Courtesy AVBC

Fal grew up in Hilo, Hawaii, and left the Islands to attend college in Oregon, where he first encountered Northwest craft beers. After graduation and a couple of years honing his craft as a home brewer, he took his first brewing job with Redhook in Seattle in the late ’80s.

By 1990 Fal joined Pike’s Place in Seattle, where he remained for nearly a decade. He then moved to Anderson Valley Brewing Co. (AVBC) in 2000.

After a falling out with ABVC in 2004, he was offered a dream gig to start the beer program for Archipelago Brewing, a new brewery in Singapore, in 2005. A two-year tour turned into five, but by then Fal yearned to return to his adopted homeland in Northern California.

Fortunately, an ownership change facilitated his return to Anderson Valley, where he’s been Brewmaster since 2010. He was kind enough to chat with me via email regarding his time in Singapore, the excitement of his second tour at AVBC, and what he’d do a with bajillion dollars.

^^^^^^^^^

BV — Okay, not gonna ask how your Boontling is. I assume it’s perfect, so I wouldn’t understand the answer anyway.

FA — Well, I am surely no bahl Boont harper, I am a bit shaggish, but I can harp a wee slib of the ling and a bahl Steinber helps a missit.

BV — Shoot, where did I put that Boontling/English dictionary. It was just here a second ago…

Anyway, I would imagine a chance to return to your tropical roots was a big factor in moving to Singapore in 2005. Was your familiarity with the climate an asset, or were there more cultural differences than you expected?

FA — I accepted the position I Singapore because it was an opportunity just too good to pass up. They wanted me to design a brewery from (literally) the ground up, then design all their beers and become their brand ambassador. You can see the progression of the building of the brewry here, and read about some of my adventure about it here.

My familiarity was with a mild Hawaiian climate and a multi-ethnic culture. Singapore is just plain hot (even the locals agree on that) and most Singaporeans are of Chinese decent. I am sure that my growing up in Hawaii helped me cope with the differences in Singapore, but I certainly had a lot to learn about how different Singapore was from where I grew up.

Having said that, I loved it in Singapore. The people were great, the food is some of the best in the world, and exploring Southeast Asia was fantastic. I learned a fair amount of the local slang (Singlish) but I was never able to grasp the differences in pronunciation of Mandarin Chinese.

BV — How was your experience working for such a large parent company while in Singapore? Lots of challenges or were you given a fairly free hand?

FA — Working for Asia Pacific Breweries, who at the time owned more than 30 breweries throughout Asia (all which produced over a Million hectoliters), was a big change; some good, some not as good. But overall it was a great experience. It was certainly nice working for a company that had the money and inclination to spend it on nice equipment.

They were good about knowing where their expertise was. They hired me because they knew what they wanted to do was not where their expertise lay. They found a great general manager for the project, and she and I worked well together to develop some nice and interesting beers with some good concepts and marketing behind them. For the most part they let us do what we thought would work. The brand had a story to tell and the beers were distinctive and fun.

BV — I understand differences with management led to your departure from AVBC. Has your second stint been all you were hoping for?

FA — The previous owner of AVBC was a bit difficult to work with. The new owner is much better. His name is Trey White and he has made great investments in the (much needed) upgrading of our equipment, has given the brewers a lot of free reign to try out new beers, has pushed us to increase our barrel beer program, and has worked hard to both grow the brands and to get the brands back into the conversation about which breweries are relevant.

I think that our Wild Turkey Bourbon Barrel Stout and our Holy Gose are great examples of him facilitating the creation of great beers. The best part is that our beers are getting better and we are developing more of them all the time. In many ways this time around has exceeded my expectations.

BV — Regarding your barrel program, any plans to use barrels other than bourbon? Say, wine or tequila? Or does your agreement with Wild Turkey limit you to their barrels exclusively?

FA — We are fortunate to have such a good partner in Wild Turkey. They have been very helpful, and our agreement with Wild Turkey does not limit us to the use of bourbon barrels. We have used bourbon, Rye, brandy, whiskey, raw oak and both red and white wine barrels to produce beers.

To date we have focused more on our Wild Turkey barrel series and less on the beers from those other barrels. Many of those beers produced from other barrels don’t make it into bottles (they are draft only), so not as many people are aware of them. For example, we have over 200 wine barrels in our sour beer program. Since the beers that come out of those barrels are only in the draft format, not as many people have tasted them (but they are worth tasting). Maybe in the future we will bottle some of them.

BV — Any dream collaborations, people you would love to call and say “Hey, come brew a beer with me”?

FA — We have done a few collaborations, both with retailers (having them up to the brewery to help design and brew a beer) and with other breweries (we have collaborated with a few breweries in South America — Cervesaria Kross, Wals Brewery, Amazon Brewery). But we did them more for the fun and the sharing of experience of brewing the beers than for commercial reasons. We are always open to the possibilities of other collaborations, they are fun and it is exciting to work with other people.

BV — Any trends in the craft brew industry you find disconcerting? Exciting?

FA — Disconcerting, no. Exciting, yes, always. I am excited by the new lower ABV beers that we are seeing out there (and there are some great ones). I like to drink beer so the lower ABV beers afford me the opportunity to have several, not just one or two (as the 8+ ABV beers do). And I am excited by the many new sour beers we are seeing. I think sour beer will replace the IPA craze and all the beer aficionados will be seeking them out soon.

BV — Are there any underappreciated/forgotten styles you’d like to see come back?

FA — Mild ale. I would love to see Mild ale make a comeback, but I doubt it ever will here in the USA. Whenever I see one on draft I always order it. Of course, Mild Ales are lower in alcohol and yet have to have a good, interesting flavor profile, so that makes them challenging and interesting (as a brewer). But with a name like Mild Ale they won’t be that appealing to most craft brewers. I think that is why we don’t see them that often.

BV — If you had a bajillion dollars and could run your own place and do whatever you wanted, what would you specialize in?

FA — If I had a bajillion dollars, I would specialize in drinking beer on the beach. (And I might open a nano brewery behind my estate sized beach house – you know, mostly for fun.)

BV — Speaking of your own place, if you ever move back to the Big Island and start something there, could you use an assistant? Cuz I’ve been there twice and would move there in a nanosecond. Absolutely beautfiul.

FA — Well, as much as I love the Big Island I am fairly entrenched here in the Anderson Valley. But never say never, so I will keep you in mind for an assistant … for my estate nano brewery … should I win that Bajillion dollar lottery.

^^^^^^^^^

Thanks, Fal. And I’ll be scouring the papers for lotto winners. If a certain someone hits it, I’ll be calling.

(Special thanks to Beer in Hawaii for very helpful background info.)

Back to Beerversity.

January 25, 2015 Dean Brightman3 Comments

It’s a new year (well, new-ish). I’m not much on resolutions, which is a cop-out way of admitting I never stick to them.

Still, as I’m sure you’ve noticed, The Beerverse has been dark for a while. Now, I could hand you a lot of excuses, but they’d be lies.

I’ve just been lame.

For whatever reason, the thought of coming up with ideas for posts, much less actually sitting down at the desk and banging out a few sentences, became too daunting. After coming home from work each day, it was WAY easier to flop on the couch and potato-out for an hour or five.

So that’s what happened. And before I knew it, slacking off for a few days turned into months of inactivity.

Then along comes the esteemed beer guru Jay Brooks and Sonoma State. They’ve partnered to create a Craft Beer Appreciation Certificate course, to be held at Lagunitas‘ facility in Petaluma.

Gotta feed the body before you feed the mind.

I was intrigued and looked into it, but scoffed when I saw the tuition (not cheap). So I figured that was that.

But, with strong encouragement from my wife, who’s grown tired of seeing her husband slowly turn into an extension of our living room furniture, I swallowed hard and plunked down the cash.

Yes, you’re looking at a newly minted Sonoma State Seawolf. (Don’t ask me how the basketball teams are doing, I really have no idea.)

So what does this have to do with resolutions? The biggest reason for going back to school (other than getting off the sofa for a few hours) is inspiration. I’m hoping being submersed in an academic setting once a week for 12 weeks, meeting like-minded people also eager for knowledge and listening to industry folks, will enable the blog posts to flow like beer from an open tap.

Speaking of taps, I use the term “academic setting” pretty loosely. Class will be held in the loft space at Lagunitas, otherwise known as the employee break room. If you know anything about Lagunitas at all, it shouldn’t surprise you the loft space resembles pretty much any stoner’s basement you’ve ever seen, complete with low ceilings, dank lighting, and ratty couches.

Now add a bar and several taps, and you’ve got our “classroom.” (Insert “higher” education joke here.)

The course itself will be divided into three areas of emphasis:

Beer history and process, including brewing basics and quality control,
The business of beer, including equipment, laws and regulations, and distribution,
Beer appreciation, everything from styles to sensory analysis, how to conduct tastings, and food pairing.

Mr. Brooks will be laying down all this knowledge with the help of a boatload of guest speakers representing all aspects of the industry, from hop farmers, maltsters and yeast wranglers to brewers and marketers. Name pretty much any brewery in the Bay Area (and several more elsewhere), and they’ll be represented.

Possible Masters of the Beerverse subjects, perhaps?

Maybe, assuming I get the cahones to ask any of them. Another resolution to conquer, I suppose.