Sojourn Fermentory (and Anniversary Extravaganzas)!

Welcome, everyone, to the DC Beer Show. We are at DC Beer across social media. Jordan, what are you drinking this lovely evening? Good, sir. I'm still in the Pacific Northwest, at least in spirit. I'm having a Reuben's pale ale. I Mix it up a bit. So, yeah, just to join the pale ale today, sir. It's been a it's been a beautiful week thus far. No tornado watches today or this week. All is well. Queen b, what are you having tonight? On this perfect, this not even,

like, summery night, it's 73 degrees. It's brilliant. Oh my gosh. I am drinking Good Neighbor's Lager. And Good Neighbor's Lager is a collaboration beer between Denizens and Brooklyn's Finest, which I love both of those places. I sat down with Julie, actually, last week, chatted with

Julie for a bit, took some photos and such. And we she talked about this logger and how both, Brooklyn's Finest and Denizen's are turning 10 and how they decided to celebrate together by brewing a lager beer, a Dortminder export lager, 6%. It's beautiful. It is brilliant. I might have consumed 3 of them during the time that I was at Denizen's last week. So I think this is my last can until I can pick up

another can. So make sure you guys check out the Denison's 10 year anniversary party this Saturday, tomorrow. Mister Stein, what are you drinking? I am having a do or die Irish style dry stout. It is a dynamite beer. I feel like the Irish Dry Stout is to, the Irish what the destica or the

10 are to the Czechs. You see there's a 10% lager in Czechia, which is 4% and this here is a 3.6% ABV dry stout packed full of flavor, just enough roast to let you know you're not drinking, let's say, a sweet stout or far drier than an imperial stout. It's just wonderful. And Capital Weather Gang told us this is the best day of the week for DC weather. It's incredible. Yeah. I saw my friend Julie from, the brew shop, and as she says, every day is stout and porter day if you try hard enough.

So today, I'm I'm giving it my best and enjoying this dry stout. So we've got a pale ale, a dorkmunder style lager, and a stout. I'm gonna add a 4th style to that. I have here old Mecklenburg's French style, Saison. Their brewery out of North Carolina. Stein gifted me a can a while back, and I really liked it. And so I had a friend driving up

and said, hey. Do you want anything? And I said, yes. I would actually like a 4 pack of that saison, please, just like a delightful under 6% clean saison for a lovely day before it gets to be 90 degrees and disgusting. And, you know, we all drink Campari and soda and cenet, such as IPAs. I figure just yeah. Okay. Got it. A lovely beer. If you're down there, check

them out. So glad to hear your friend brought you a fresh saison from old meck, as we call Old Mecklenburg in in Carolina, and you didn't hold on to the one that I brought you from July 2023. I had a oh shit moment when you said that. So thank you, hashtag drink it fresh, drink it now. I wanna talk to you for a second. I need to tell

you how good of a time I had at tiny beer fest on Sunday. And it I hadn't been. I was so excited to go. The weather was beautiful. But I'm also sad that you guys weren't there, but I know that some of you are representing at some other places. And it feels like summer is usually a slow sort of time, but June has been crazy poppin'. There's so many

events. And tomorrow, 15th, there are too many, really, almost to to list, but I feel like we should do our piece, our part, and do a little bit of of promoting and tell everybody where to go. Jake. Alright. So let's start. Jordan, and as well as Brandy too, where are you gonna be tomorrow? Tomorrow, I'm gonna flip the script. I'm already drinking Parale's and not IPAs.

I'm gonna be in Virginia, gonna be down with this, the town of Herndon, Bitter Fruit Light Brew Movement and a number of other awesome and amazing local and Black owned breweries will be participating and a Juneteenth beer festival of sorts. So I'll be down there and, really looking forward to just kind of commemorating the event, but also this is the inaugural, Juneteenth event for the town of Herndon. So, really looking forward to that. I

know it's gonna be a great time. There's gonna be some awesome beer and, you know, DC beer will be in full effect, but we'll also have Eye of the Beholder in full effect as well. So got a couple of other things. We're doing our best to cover all the things that are happening, but but, Brandy, I know you're you're kinda you're kinda squinting squinting your Saturday up. What do you all have going on tomorrow? Well, obviously, Denizen's

10 year anniversary. And out at Dynasty, there's, like, this cool, old, nice car show going on, which sounds I don't even like cars, but it sounds kinda fun. And I know, like, there's so many other events going on. I'm like, my brain is, like, fried right now. Jake, do you have Yeah. What's the other one that I'm missing? So Dynasty's loud neighbor and Favio Garcia, Dynasty Brewer co owner, previous employer, Lost Rhino, is turning 13. Oh, Crooked Run.

What year anniversary? Oh, like, we're not even done with Loudoun. Crooked Run is turning 11. Old Ox is turning 10. Miesa's turning 1. Our good friend, Judy Neff, who we saw at the excellent Brandy hosted event at other half in March, Checkerspot, I think, turns 7, and they're in their new digs, thanks to, Which is gorgeous. Sam Adams Grant. Yeah. Which is gorgeous. Yeah. You should get out there. We already mentioned Denizens and then, of course, the

weekend after. Right? So we've got 6 anniversaries, plus Juneteenth, plus the car show at Dynasty. And then the weekend after, we've got Third Hill's anniversary, the 22nd, and Manor Hill turns 9 on the 22nd also. And so I feel like the there isn't enough there's not not enough DC beer to be out and about covering all of these. Like, I'm gonna get to Denizens, but I don't think I can, you know, like yeah. I don't know how you get hit all these loud and events. I'd

love to be at Biesa, obviously. But Yeah. I'm I'm wondering I'm wondering, Jordan, are you gonna have a time traveling device ready by I know you were working on it all year last year. I don't. Is it still in prototype, or can we time travel yet? Yeah. Well, I have a beta, but it's you know, I I make no promises of of where what period you'll be traveling to, so we just might not test it for this time. We'll keep it for, the

fall. I mean, your girl somehow is always at every place at the same time, but this weekend, I can't do it. So I'm summoning help. I'm putting up the bat signal. So all of all of our DC beer friends and family, we can't be at everything, but we desperately hope that you show up and give love and and support our local breweries and friends. Wherever you are, spread that DC beer love around. You know if we were in Baltimore, we'd be seeing our

friend Judy Neff at Checkerspot. You know if we were in Alexandria, we'd be seeing our friends at Miesa. You know we will be in Herndon for the Juneteenth celebration, and I just have to say there are some common threads here. Old ox turning 10 in, you know, out in Virginia, but then both Denizens, Riverdale, Maryland, and Brooklands' finest, DC proper, all

turning 10. It's remarkable. You know? Julie Varady of Denizens told us it's so infrequent that small businesses, who are the backbone of the American, entrepreneurial economy, make no mistake about it, If they turn 5, it's amazing. Turning 10 is phenomenal. So we give massive shout out to them. And I just have to share a little tidbit. So for the Juneteenth well, what's being billed as the Juneteenth Brewbilly play on words on Jubilee, I assume, 2024, a culture and

beer fest. So our friends at Black Brew Movement have been instrumental, we've had them on the show before. Black Brew Movement and Bitter Fruit Brewing, Northern Virginia's sole black owned brewery, are also gonna see black owned breweries from DC, Maryland, and Virginia, and one of those, of course, is liquid intrusion. I have to give a massive shout out to liquid intrusion because they were at Dynasty for the brewing of this beer, and Fabio was just like, man, I

I like, Andrew and Jasmine are incredible. They have their act together. They knew exactly the moves to be made with the this farmhouse beer that's being released, the saison, light, spritzy, fruity, effervescent. It sounds like a wonderful beer. I can't wait to get my my hands on it, and we are so excited for the Juneteenth, rubily, 2024 Culture and Beer Fest. So I want to have pickles right now. I love pickle beer. I love

all things fermented. And Mike Stein and I just had a lovely interview with Mike Pauley and Jinson Chan of Sojourn Fermentary. And I think you guys are gonna really wanna listen to this because after you listen to how amazing this is, you're gonna wanna go visit. So open open your listening ears. Open your listening ears. Listen listen to, a man who finally got a brewery to name a beer, Asian Glow. Take it away, Brandy. I'm so

thrilled to have 2 amazing guests. And one of them I've known for many, many years, and I'm sure you know this person as well. You've probably seen him at literally all of the beer events. He's friends with all of the beer people. And the person that I'm speaking of is Jinson. Everyone knows Jinson. Jinson is what is joining us tonight with, his co owner, Michael Polley, and the 2 of them are starting a new brewery together, and we have them on to discuss this. Hello, guys.

Welcome. Hey. Hello. Thanks for having us. Hey, Brandy. Thanks for having us. Mike Stein is joining us for this interview as well. So we're tag teaming, which is lovely. So let's get started. You're too kind, Brandy. Let's get into it. Jinson Chan, Michael Pauley, welcome to the show. We're so excited to have you. Jinson, why don't you start us off? Tell us a little bit about, Sojourn Fermentary. What is it? Where is it gonna be? What's

happening with it? First of all, thanks for having us. We are so honored to be here at Spiro. I've been, listening to your podcast for a long time and really enjoy whatever you guys doing. Love it. Stojan inventory is a project that, Mike Paulie and I and Scott Osborne, few of us, co founded this project. I wanna say probably, like, 3, 4 year 3 years ago. And the idea is really simple. Right? We want to create a space where we

have view and experience. And, we want to bring everybody together, enjoy the beer, and have conversation, and build relationship at the space that we provided. And, something very, very simple, and that is based on, you know, many years of, my extreme high side, how we curate the beer and also create a beer that people enjoy. And then, Mike, you know, he also a

very, very talented brewer. He create a lot of good beer, and I've had challenges with many, many year with, different difficult year to make, and we always see the home run every single time. So so the inventory is really, something that we we love to put all our perspectives together, and, hope that everybody can be there, food and beer and the whole environment. You can sit down and, you know, enjoy it. And it's gonna be in Suffolk, Virginia. It's very close by to

64 and 17. So you ever go out to Autobahn, it's probably like a 5 minute tour for you to provide to grab some beer and some fruit, and maybe get a whole case of beer and bring to your big tub and enjoy it. Oh, sounds it sounds terrible, Shenzhen. Sign me up. Where do I sign up? So, a, you're gonna get a bunch of, Virginia Beach and navy people because, you know, navy's right there. So you're going to be slammed. I sadly haven't been to Virginia Beach in

before since they've had breweries there. So I am I am due for a visit, and I can't I I'm gonna choose the best time and go when you guys open. Which is gonna be when, Michael? So right now, we're targeting the end of July. So last week of July, is gonna be our grand opening. And so we're really looking forward to that. It's my birthday month, so thanks for the birthday present, everybody. So how did this idea came come about? Like, who

did Jinson go to Mike or Mike go to Jinson? Or was this, like, do you guys, like, wake up and have the same dream and you just texted each other and said, guys, I just had the craziest dream. And you said, me too. How did how did this happen? So Jin and I were talking, and, you know, I was kinda at a crossroads of things. And, Jin said it was like, well, you know, instead of moving to another job, why don't you start your own thing and make it happen and, do that? And I was like, well, that

would be great. But, you know, there's a lot of hurdles to that. And Jinson basically was like, well, I'll help you through those hurdles, help you figure out solutions, and, make that happen. And so, you know, me and my, other good friend, Scott Osborne, they always kinda had this dream of doing that. But, you know, it's a lot of round or taking and there's a lot of, like, unknown unknowns. And so, you know, I was, kind of jinxed that was, like, you gotta conquer fear. You have to go through

that. And so, yeah, you really spurred me out and, believed in me and, you know, would talk me up and blow it off smoke where I believed it. And, you know, here we are. So I mean, look, Jinson just being the motivator for everybody and being everyone's, you know, cheerleader. Yes, Jinson. Oh my gosh. And anyone who knows Jinson knows that this is how he is, so that's fantastic to hear. I love that story. Well, I mean, honestly, when I talk to Mike about this, it's like, I basically asked

him, like, what else do you need to prove on your resume? Like, you have this amazing resume already. What else do you need to add onto it? And, why not do something on your own? And, you know, he always have the idea about doing something his own. And all I'm really trying to do is just kinda, like, provide help for him to start, you know, making his dream come true. And and the other part of it is also a little bit selfish or

buy. Originally, I was, you know, thinking about, for hindsight, where my craft beer bar is, you know, started in 2018, and the business plan is always called for after 2 year, we're gonna open a 2nd location and maybe a 3rd location, concept like that. Obviously, 2 years later, it's 2020, and that's right where the pandemic happened. So, basically, the project was on hold, and, give me more time to think about it, and then, you know, talk to my a lot during that time as well.

And at the end, we figure, instead of open a second location, why not we just open a brewery and create this whole experience that I couldn't provide currently at Highspot. Right? Because we don't brew our own beer. So having Mike partner up, and we can brew our own beer and create a whole new beer. That was kinda right, the whole story, pretty much. That's super exciting. I wanna hear a little more of

the story. As we were talking with you, Mike Polley, at the start, you had mentioned earlier on in your career getting onboarded and being flown to Austria to study brewing, and, of course, Austria is famous for pastry stouts, with toasted almond. They they really love their 10 to 12% imperial stouts.

No, but I'm kidding, but but take us from that all the way back there, most recently I've seen your beer at Blue Jacket, where there's not one but 2 different stouts, both barrel aged, one with the sort of pastry stout treatment, one straight out of, I believe it was Bourbon Cask. So tell me a little bit about the beers you're making now and how far you've come in your journey as a brewer. Yeah. So

it's been an interesting journey. You know, I started off making just, multistep decoction loggers, at a time where there was no plate of the market for that, which was fun and interesting to, working at Cigar City and working under, you know, I've got Pringle and Wayne and those guys, just like, yeah, which hats off, you know, I don't know if you guys know much about Wayne, but really keep that in motion a lot of what's super popular in terms of, like, rethinking what IPs

were using ingredients that were non traditional. And so, you know, that was an interesting kind of ruffle to add to it. And then I kinda came up here in more of a leadership role, working at Commonwealth and, you know, just building there and, and kind of riffing out all those ideas. So, yeah, so it's been quite a journey along the way, and I worked in different brewery as well. And, you know, and but now it's it's really cool because, you know, I've gone through

all these different experiences and grown and learned. And even with the breweries that we've done beers with, you know, we we actually also did a lager with, Blue Jacket, Austrian Medicine, which is probably one of the nearest and dearest collab we've done. And so going back to those blue jacket beers in particular, and, dig those 2 different styles, but we were very intentional to do, more of like a Wayne and Wayne Lambos, you know, OG Cigars inspired

beer, like base beer. And with that, you know, there was 1 or 2 barrels within the barrels that they laid down. Down. They were exceptional. And so I had talked to Greg and those guys for, you know, my recommendation was can we do, like, those couple barrels as, like, the barrel select version? And so and they get, you know, and then we also did the treatment version as well. And, you know, the thought process behind that was just to, again, rift on that idea of doing

culinary inspired rights. So just for clarity for the listenership, there are 2 beers on offer at Blue Jacket right right now. There is before midnight, the barrel aged imperial stout, and then there's dolphin named Ace, and dolphin named Ace is a bourbon aged stout infused with fresh hazelnuts, cacao nibs, and vanilla beans, and they're both wonderful. They're both exclusively in bottles at Blue Jacket if you're interested to try some of the Sojourn, beer now.

That's exciting. Are you excited, my Michael Polley, sorry. There are 2 mics on the recording, to get back into Lager? Because, you know, I'm assuming when you were working for Cigar City, which is such a cool thing to have on your resume because everyone loves Cigar City, And, and even Commonwealth, the lager the presence of lager has just has a has had a resurrection. And it's so exciting for all of us, you know, regular old folk beer drinkers.

So yes. Yeah. So with that, you know, for me, personally, I've always loved lager beer, you know, going to Austria, things like that. Even my beer journey started with English beer and lagers, you know. It wasn't these big crazy IPAs or anything like that. Even I remember when I took the job at Cigar City, it was really tough, even just to, like, put back highlights for what it used to be or being not metered. Right? But I took the job knowing I was gonna learn and grow.

Right? But, so yeah, so for me, if I had to really sum it up, I'm still the same old guy who, really enjoys making very technically complicated, but, clean lagers. And then, you know, with coolest beer, which is also a very interesting and complicated, expression, you know, like, there's a lot of yeast general flavor. And then it takes kind of like, a lot of restraint, to balance those beers out really well. And then, you know, I really have a strong love for, for Belgian beer as

well. So So if I had to pick, like, 3, then those are them. I wanna know where the name came from. Who where did so Sojourn from entry? Like, who who came up how did that process go about? Steve. You guys are laughing. Oh, it's gonna be a good one. Okay. Yeah. So, naming a brewery is a very, very difficult thing. There are 10,000 names out there. So, you know, there's a lot of cropping things off the list. But, yeah, the term sojourn basically means to dwell or

stay for a while. And so, you know, we just want to create a space for people to hang out in the community and fossil community. You know, so far we talk a lot about, beer as an object now. But, beer is more for me, it's more of an experience, you know, when you go to Austria

or Czech Republic and you drink beer, right? You see people sit down, sit down a stomkisch, you know, and they're like, the only comment on the beer is, oh, the beer feels good today, or, oh, it feels a little off, And then they continue to drink their beer and order another one. And, you know, it's it's not a social, experiment of, oh, I get this, I get that, and dissecting things. And not I don't mean that delittling to anyone, like, that's fun. But for me, you know, it's beer is like,

part of the culture, and the experience. It's a it's a place where you dwell and you hang out and you meet your friends and you celebrate life together. So, yeah, that's kinda how we ride this together. Yeah. I love that. Yes. The fermenter came from the fact that, know, we have a very big space, and we wanted to offer beer and cider. And then for food, we wanna do something with fermentation elements as well. So we talked about a lot of different

things. But, you know, the one that clicked the most was to do rum style pizza. So we brought that in and, you know, that requires a 3 plus day fermentation on the dough, or like hard process does. But again, that that riffs off the same idea of, you know, long slow fermentations like for lagers and and just bringing that to the forefront. Yeah. No. Jinson is incredible over at Highside because every time I go, I get the pickles that are available there. And the pickle a pickleback, this pickle

brine is incredible. So as long as that's available at Sojourd, I think everyone's gonna be super happy on top of the beer. Yes. Our goal is to do all things fermented. Right? So that's why we name it Fermentory. Is it a brewing or beer company? Because we would like to experiment with, all kind of fermentation, if possible, And I I think, you know, people like that, as simple as a pickle, and people draw to it and, so many use of it.

And I I think it's clear, very interesting experience. I agree. I personally love pickles and all things fermented, So not everyone does, but I do. So you say this this space is gonna be huge. And so what should people expect when they come to visit at the end of July? To be specific, our space is 9,248 graphic. Jeez. And, I mean, we have probably about 40, 50% of that will be production. Right? Okay. And then, lots of food kitchen there as

well. We will we we kind of very fully divided space out for family friendly area, where, you know, people who have kid can come in and they have a I want to call it a stay stay for them. And then we also have a space where we call it a indoor beer garden, because we open up the garage door, it connected to an outdoor space, like a patio. So we call it indoor

outdoor beer garden. It's gonna be huge, and because we have, like, a outdoor space that has, like, a bay where we can perform, like, live music there, and we also can host some community event, at the space there. And, we have this ice well, we're gonna put all the glassware to the temperature same as the beer. So if you just sort of hang out with your happy hour, we could maybe 2 or 3

TV there. You can watch a spa, hang out with your friends, or if your company have, like, happy hourly, whether host your staff, we have a big order. Well, so the space is huge, and we kinda, like, cater it to different demographic and, you know, be inclusive in all kind of people who want to enjoy their life a little bit. That's brilliant. I love that. That's it sounds incredible. I can't wait to visit. Any parting things the DC beer listenership should know, before we let you go, Jinson,

or Michael? Yeah. We're excited to, you know, host you guys, when you're driving through, and, please be on the lookout, you know, if you see me there, definitely say hi. I you know, a big thing for me is, you know, building community and making time for people, making time to share beer. And so, yeah, I'll be the one who's pretty much always there. So, yeah. Yeah. We even have, like, the little stop and chase table that,

if you see me sitting there, definitely come hang up. I will definitely do that. Well, you guys heard it here, on DC beer. Michael Polley and Jinson are opening a fermentory. So all you pickle lovers, all you pizza lovers, all you beer lovers, check check lagers. We're we're so excited, and I know Mike Stein is excited. So Mike's gonna have we're gonna have to take a little road trip. What do what do you think, Mike? I'm ready. Do you see beer on location? Sojourn for

Menerey. Let's go. Well, oh, again, like, we are planning to open in end of July. If you ever plan to put down in the south in Suffolk, just stop by. Thank you guys for having us. It's a pleasure to meet you, Mike Sine and Brandy. Thanks, Guy. Cheers. Thank you so much. Looking forward

to Sojourn. Alright. Yeah. There's a lot out there. I feel like, we should deputize all of the listeners. Take pictures, tag us in stuff, send us stuff on IG so that we can make an epic reel, following all of his anniversaries, parties, celebrations. And make sure you come visit us for our June beer share at Silver Branch in Silver Spring, the original Silver Branch. I want to see your beautiful faces and all the lovely beer you bring. And, we gotta build this community

one one little person at a time. Well said. That'll be Sunday 23rd, 2 to 5. RSVP is up on Eventbrite. You will see former podcast guest and perhaps future podcast guest Mike Earl there, I hope. Fingers crossed. Which means that you'll probably see some of the DC beer crew drinking Ralph beer, I hope. Fingers crossed. Alright. Love I love you all. I'll see you very soon. Come drink beer things with us. And if you're not with us, tag us. We wanna see all

the things. Right? Right, everybody? Right. Right. 2nd and third. Yeah. Yep. Atdcbeer.com. Lots of new articles for you. Lots of events in the calendar. Breweries, bars, there could be more. You could just submit them. Dcbeer.com/events. We're at dcbeer on the socials. Alright. Be well, everybody.