Episode 111 - w/ Phil McDaniel of Eureka Brewing

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All rad and we're back. This is episode 111 of the Taproom Podcast and I'm your host Mike. This episode was with Phil McDaniel, the owner brewer of Eureka Brewing out in Gardena and what a fun time. What an honestly really great brewery and I know I mentioned it before. Their brewery, their beer Fairway Finder, easily like one of my favorite beers of last year.

Anytime louise liquor ever out in alusa had it i had to go pick one up or had to go pick some up, and you know and phil and dan were you know gracious enough to to send me home with with a few on my when i left but um honestly big shout out to dan dan reyes the he's a the head of sales over there is just really really good dude and he actually set this whole thing up for me so thank you dan appreciate it yeah but i'm excited for you to hear this one talking about his craft beer journey

we talked about you know like you know his obviously his beginning and you know, how like you know he was trained stuff like that it was just really it was just a really fun and inspiring kind of interview and also like you know him talking about you know not necessarily wanting to open his own brewery and then it just kind of happened so like i don't want to spoil anything so i hope you guys enjoy that let's see here i got to record with ezekiel and lulu of Tusa Breweries.

They also both work. She is the Lulu Z taproom manager at Brujeria in Pico. And Ezeek is one of the brewers at Brujeria as well. But it was really cool talking to them on Tuesday. I'm honestly really excited for you to hear that one. That one is a few weeks away, but I'm excited for you guys to listen to that one.

What else we got? Recorded some more taproom tales with Luis over at Level Up yesterday. That was a fun one. I'm recording this on a Saturday, obviously, because tomorrow I will be in Texas. Going back out there for work, but I'm going out to actually South Texas this time. So that should be, we'll see how it goes, but it should be fun. Actually, we're set up a brewer, a recording down there. So I'm going to be recording with the brewer Adam from Howling Rabbits down there.

So that should be pretty cool. Super stoked for that. Looking forward to trying more beer, man. I mean, anywhere, anytime I go anywhere, I got to check out the craft beer scene. So excited for that. Baseball is back. The Braves 0-2, you know, Dodgers are 3-0, 4-0, I think 4-0. They're going to be so tough to beat this year, man. They're just, you know, they're loaded. My Bulls beat the Lakers the other day, so suck it. I'm just kidding.

I mean, my Bulls suck. I mean, I feel like the Lakers obviously are, they're way more, they're just way better. But anytime the Lakers do beat the Bulls, I kind of have to, you know, throw it in my dad's face a little bit. So sorry to Laker fans out there. I'm just joshing.

My, let's see, NHL playoffs are coming I think there's only, the Avs have like 10 games left, I think, It's playoff counter time, I'm ready to go And then I'm going to the Ducks avalanche The Kings actually beat, oh no, sorry The avalanche beat the Kings the other day The first period was fun, It was a really, it was 0-0 at the end of the first And it kind of got away from them, But I'm excited, man, it's, you know, sports are back I mean,

baseball's back, it's always fun to watch I watched a little bit of the Braves game And I think I've probably watched more of a Dodger game Or more Dodger games than I have of the first two Braves games, Because honestly I kind of feel like Not to say that I can't pay attention to two teams at once But as the NHL season is dwindling down I'm paying attention way more to the Avs And then once that's over then baseball will kind of take over,

Because baseball is such a long season So I mean it'll be good And then also the Gators won, Florida won, they beat, ah fuck, who they beat the other day, I don't remember who they beat, but I was watching that game, that was a good one. My cousin's a big Gator fan, so I gotta support him. Let's see, what else we got, what else we got? You know, I was gonna get into the guests, but I will do that on the outro.

Oh, I'm going to craft beer, like the craft homebrew fest today, over in Long Beach, stoked for that.

Hopefully I get to see Hoppy Homebrewing Sheep Hound Brewing A few other homebrewers I mean I know and then also hopefully I know there's going to be like in the Pro Lounge There's going to be like Ism there Long Beach Beer Lab, Lahara So hopefully I get to see Jason and Derek from Lahara Maybe Ian from Ism.

And a few other people So I'm just going down there by myself Just to go hang out for a couple hours And get all that in before I Take off to Texas in the morning, Just wanted to I'm excited because it might be like my second homebrew fest. I think it's my second one. I don't remember. I'm kind of tired. It's been a week. All right. I'm going to shut up now.

Hope you guys enjoy the interview with Phil. And again, Phil, if you're listening, Dan, if you're listening, thank you guys so much. But yes, guys, hope you guys enjoyed the interview. Stay tuned for the outro. All right, guys, we're back in the tap room, and I'm your host, Mike. And I have a very special guest on the show today. I have Phil McDaniel, the owner slash brewer of Eureka Brewing out in Gardena. How's it going? Going well. That's good. Glad to hear it. you have a really cool space.

I walked in and I was like, oh man, like, cause I've never been here. I've had your beer, phenomenal beer. I'm having the fairway finder right now. What are you having? Same thing, fairway. That's my go-to for the most part. Love it. And so it was a collab, right? With, with Creature Comforts. How'd that all come about? Correct. Yeah. So it started as a collab. My really good friend, John Garcia, we worked together at our previous brewery, King Harbor.

And when King Harbor kind of went under, I went one way, he went the other. So I started Eureka, and then he went over to Creature Comforts downtown LA to be their head brewer, I believe. And so we're still good friends. We're always kind of chatting and texting and stuff. So it was time for Eureka's first collab. And so it was kind of easy to just reach out to John.

And we we made fairway finder the but the beer turned out so freaking good i just didn't want it to go away as like a one-off collaboration so i um we turned it into a core year-round beer so now. It's just one of our core beers. We do kind of, on our can artwork, we do acknowledge in the corner, we have a little creature comforts like Easter egg down there. Oh, that's cool. But yeah, technically now it's not really a collaboration. It's just a year-round

beer for us. Yeah. Well, it's awesome. It's delicious too. I mean, like that, like I was telling Dan, well, honestly, shout out to Dan, Dan Reyes. Thank you. This works sales for Eureka. Sitting on the couch over in the corner right now. Yeah. What did he say? He pimped you out today? Yes.

But yeah it was uh just so happened i was you went to stopped at louis liquor over in azusa, to pick up some beer because i was like they always have a really good craft beer selection and i saw that one i was like yep i gotta try that and i went back the next week to go get another one so yeah i like it yeah good stuff so man tell me how like tell me about your craft journey how'd you get started as most brewers i got started homebrewing and i

actually didn't homebrew for all that long i know some guys that were homebrewing for like a decade and then they got into it i was homebrewing for maybe just a year and i was just getting really into it really obsessed with it reading every book i could find and spending all kinds of money that i didn't have because i was just like a 22 year old or something on all this brewing equipment and i kind of had this moment where I thought,

well, I either need to completely quit homebrewing or I just need to go all in and just go for it. So that kind of sparked my curiosity to get online and look for brewing schools. And I learned that there are schools you can go to for brewing. So I figured, you know, maybe that's a good path to start a career because I was still young and I still wasn't really committed in any direction to what I really wanted to do. I actually was.

Interested in small business and, you know, full circle. Now that's where I'm at as well. I own a small business as well. So I decided to go all in. I found Siebel Institute online and I tried to enroll and they said I didn't have any experience, so they weren't going to let me in, but I could do an intermediate course leading up to their main course. Okay. So I signed up for that online.

And while I was doing that online intermediate course, I found a local brewery that I could volunteer at to kind of get my feet wet. And that was Bootleggers Brewing in Fullerton. Yeah. So I was Aaron Barkenhagen's first employee. When I walked in his doors, he was the only one working there, making all the beer and stuff. So I was kind of like his helper for a while during my online intermediate course. And then after that was over, I was able to go to the full course in Chicago.

So they, I took time off from bootleggers and did the full Siebel course, which is part of the time in Chicago and part of the time in Munich, Germany. Wow. That's awesome. And got back from that, and then I've been working in breweries ever since, and that's like almost 20 years now. Dang. So, yeah, Bootleggers to Stone Brewing to the brewery in Orange County.

And then King Harbor, which I helped start, but I wasn't a founder or a co-founder, but I was their head brewer that helped them build the brewery and do all that. And they gave me some ownership. So I was like an owner of King Harbor, but I wasn't really the co-founder or a founder. And then had a seven or eight year run at King Harbor. And then now we're here at Eureka. That's awesome. So Eureka came about because I have a really good friend that

I've known my entire life. I always tell people we're in the same kindergarten class together. Oh, wow. And his name's Adam, and he is my co-founder here at this brewery. We're the only two owners. It's just him and I are co-founders of this brewery. And Adam, as I was working my way up in breweries, Adam has become very successful in his own business that he does. He's in electrical engineering. So he had some money to invest, and he kept kind of bugging me,

like, we should start a brewery. We should start a brewery. That's awesome. And I was like, dude, I'm happy at King Harbor. I was an owner in King Harbor, and I was having a really good time there. And I built the place from the ground up. I didn't really want to walk away from it. Yeah. But Adam just was pretty insistent. And then a few things lined up that made it kind of appear like maybe this is the time to jump in.

And to be honest, I hated the decision at the time, but I told myself, you hate this now, but in a few years, you'll hopefully look back and realize it was the right decision.

And so i did that i jumped i jumped in head first and turns out it was the right decision so here we are at eureka almost going on five years now that's awesome man you know congratulations on that thank you yeah i mean even five years in the industry that's that's a that's a milestone man because i mean especially with breweries nowadays i feel like sometimes they can kind of go under quickly yeah it's tough it's i think the industry is on its rebound right now which

is nice where We're bouncing back. We kind of got a little saturated, as everyone kind of knows. And the problem was it was saturated with people with good intentions, but not really true professionals. So either brewing professional, background trained, or at least a lot of experience, as well as business professionals, because it's also a business.

100%. You'll, I ran into, I don't know how many breweries I ran into that were started by two guys that don't know anything about business or making beer. They just really like beer. So, so they think this time to start open their own brewery. And, um, that's what we kind of got saturated with. Those are kind of going away. And then I would say the true professional breweries are left standing. And I think that'll put our industry in a good spot.

Oh, a hundred percent. And even, I feel like there was even two, like when the boom kind of happened, people thought like, oh, this is a good investment. So they would just throw money at it and think that was going to solve, like, you know, solve their problem. But it's not, you have to have all the right people in place. Yeah, it's not, it's not easy.

There's, it's fun working within the beer industry, but it's not all fun and games. And you have to be good at what you do on the business side and on the brewing side. It's not just a walk in the park. And people either thought this is going to be what they do and they're going to love their job, or they thought, oh man, this craft beer industry is going to make me a millionaire. And neither of those two things will happen. I can guarantee you.

Yeah. That's what people always say. Brewers always say. It's like, we don't get into this because we're up for the money. Yes. Yes, it's very true. Yeah i mean i've known like known people that like one of them was like a lawyer in japan.

And was making well over seven figures and quit his job and it was just like i'm just not what i want to do you know and became a brewer so yeah and i can understand that it's not like i don't want to sound like i'm kind of talking trash about that oh not at all but it's it's just like any other profession it's not like hey i want to stop what i'm doing and become an artist like i'm no good at art like i can't paint or draw or anything so i'm not gonna just do something

that i have no skill in or no background in or anything it's yeah this is what i this is what i went to school for and trained for so that's why i'm doing it yeah and how cool is that though like you went to chicago to you know to munich and then obviously working at the places you have i mean stone and all i mean at the brewery bootleggers like i used to go to bootleggers on was it tuesdays or wednesdays for Tribune night or whatever it was way back when.

Yeah. The Fullerton tasting room. Oh yeah. Yeah. Those were, those are, those are some fun times over there, man.

The name i was always curious was it just like the light bulb going off like eureka like it's happening or what was the where the name come from yeah that's a great question and it's something i talk about a lot more than i expected to when we named it eureka yeah because we've had a lot of conversations at beer festivals where people think we're from the city of eureka so i have to explain to people. Eureka is also a word. It's not just a city.

And I even tell them, you know, Eureka was a word before it was a city. So the definition of Eureka is I found it. So like discovery, it's also on the top of the state seal of California. So this was actually Adam's idea with Eureka. I really like it, but Adam is the one who came up with it.

What we decided first was we came up with the concept of our brand and for the concept of our brand we wanted to identify with the state of california reason for that is adam and i are both from california the breweries in california we think california is pretty cool california has a bunch of cool stuff it has beaches it has mountains it has deserts it has really big iconic cities it has all kinds of stuff there's plenty that you can identify

with if you're branding with the state of california So we didn't want to be called California beer company or something like that. So what could we, what word could we use that would tie us to California, but it's still kind of a cool word came up with Eureka. So originally it was a purely California themed branding. And as we were doing our beer labels and coming up with new logos and stuff like that, we started running out of California-based, like, names or ideas.

And we kind of pivoted to have, like, a dual branding, which is now it's either our beer names and our labels and things. They're either something related to the state of California or something related to Discovery. I found it. That kind of thing. So some of our stuff is like discovery based, like Lost City of Zed. Love that one. Pills of Creation, things like that. And then other things are kind of California based, like Fairway Finder. California has a lot of great golf courses.

Sunset Saison, things like that. So that's where the branding came from. The logo is the Roman goddess Minerva. She is, if you ever see the state seal of California, There's this warrior woman sitting there. If you Google who that is, it's the Roman goddess Minerva. And her signature is a big owl helmet. So if you ever see a painting of a lady that has an owl helmet, they're portraying Minerva. So our version of Minerva on our logo is, you know, she's staring straight at

you and she has the big owl helmet with the feathers coming up. So that's the branding. It's awesome. Love it, man. And even like, you know, Lost City of Zed, that was one of the ones I saw, another one I saw after I found Fairway Finder, because I was like, well, I got to get, try more of their stuff.

And that's when I found that one. So, man, but that's fantastic. If you were to say like, like what best, what beer on tap do you think best represents Eureka? On tap here in our tasting room? Yeah. That's, that's a tough question because I, I hate when you have to just choose one. Yeah, it's tough. And you can choose a couple. Yeah, but I mean, the thing is with me is making my way through this industry. I've worked at a lot of different breweries.

I've been trained just in brewing science from like the base, just science. Yeah. So I can really make any type of beer. Where there's some guys that are like, you know, I learned how to brew in a German Pilsner brewery and that's like what they love brewing. And then there's obviously the Belgian style brewers that kind of stick to Belgian style. And we have the English style brewers. And it's like I can, I'm open to brewing really anything. So our menu will have a little bit of everything.

Awesome. So, yeah. So that's why it's hard to narrow it down to one beer. Of course. Because we just tapped a coffee porter right now, but we also have a Saison on. We also have a barrel-age Imperial Stout. We have light hoppy easy drinkers. We have...

Brewed to style lagers like a german style pilsner and a hell munich helles so it's like a little bit of everything really that's great though because it's also because i know it can be tough sometimes especially like sometimes in big production facilities right where it's like trying to balance the creativity like maybe wanting to try out a different style but then also having you need to have your cores like you know like that's

the consistency part of it right yeah it's and And it's kind of funny with working with Dan and on the sales side and working with our distributors, they had to like rein us in because we were just making too many different beers. I love that. That's awesome. Yeah. I was like, yeah, I make like, I don't know, 20 beers. They're like, whoa, we can't like even keep track of 20 beers in our head. So they're, they've forced us to like rein it in a little bit.

So we actually don't even have as much of a variety as we used to, but I'm catching back up with, we have some small batch tanks now. So we're keeping the variety here in our tasting room with our small batch tanks. But as we've learned, when you have to put on your big boy pants and like sell beer out in the real world, you have to like listen to distributors and things like that. And yeah, so we're kind of down to about five styles, you know, that we send out to distribution.

Okay. And what are yours? Like, I know you mentioned it because you can brew all different styles and you like to do that.

But what are your, do you have like a favorite? definitely definitely as far as what i'm able to make here it's i love hops ipa guy but i love it yes but i also like drinking more volume than the average person so i don't like my abvs too high understandable so easy drinking hoppy beers i absolutely love them so that's that's my go-to right now this is our west coast pilsner so light easy drinking tons of hops oh yeah so so good i will also drink a lot

our just our west coast pale ale normandy and western a lot of that and then our pilsner isn't quite as hoppy but it's also you know a beer i like to go to but anything that's moderate alcohol and has great hop character is what i will go for first for the most part Oh yeah, that's, that's, it's like we're the same person because I love that too. Cause I do love a good like West coast or like, I mean, like a West coast IPA, double IPA or anything like that.

Those are all great. I'm not the biggest hazy person, but I love something crispy, hoppy and it goes down easy. I mean, what's better than that, right? Yeah. Cause you could drink it all year round. It doesn't have to be a specific, you know, like stouts, I feel like more winter based kind of thing, but. Yeah, and it's great that the industry is actually, like, right there as well. Because it wasn't always like that. Uh-huh, yeah. I went through, like, the IBU, like...

Like, what do they call it? Was it Fizzy Yellow Beers for Wussies? Yeah. Back in the day. But the IBU arms race is the word I was thinking of. Yeah, it was like how bitter and how much alcohol can you make your beers and all that. And then at the brewery, it was, my time at the brewery was really interesting because we were making the craziest stuff I could ever imagine. Yeah. Barrel age and stuff too, right? Barrel age stuff, super strong stuff. Belgian stuff, all kinds of stuff.

People loved it too, but it's not like, it's not a 5% happy Pilsner. Not at all. So, you know, it was, I was proud of what we made there and it was super complex and super interesting, but you would literally have like eight ounces of it. And it was so intense that you're like, I'm done. Like, that's good. That was interesting, but I'm not doing more than eight ounces.

So I feel like the craft scene is kind of coming back to, the way I describe it is like the true essence of beer, which is easy drinking and refreshing. I believe that's what beer really is. You can play around with an Imperial Stout or a Super Strong Belgian, and it can be very complex and very interesting, and there is a place for that. But the true essence of beer like over like in history has been something that even quenches your thirst.

You know, you have it at lunch because you're thirsty, not a 19 percent stout that you have to sip. So, you know, having beers, you know, when you're out and about, when you're out in your backyard barbecuing, when you're camping with your friends, when you're on the golf course, easy drinking beers is like the true essence of beer.

And other beers, again, like I said, have their place, but that what I think we all as a craft beer, like industry realized is beer is meant to be drank by pints and it's meant to be refreshing. And so you can have more than just one pint. Oh yeah. And even when it comes to like the barely stuff and you're, you're a better man than me because I would, I'll maybe like do a five ounce

pour, maybe four or five ounce pour. I don't want to, I don't want a full eight or even like, you know, anything else like that. I, and like you said, every beer, there's a beer out there for everybody. There's every beer has its kind of place within the industry. But yeah, like when you have, when you make something that good, like, like, and I'm put like, you guys, people listening can't see me, but I'm pointing at the fairway. When you make something that good, like what more do you need?

I feel like, but you know, teach his own. Everybody likes, you know, their, their own thing, I guess. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.

So going back to even before your homebrew days was there a beer that you tried where and it was just like that was like the one that was like man this is what craft beer like this is what beer could be yeah i mean as for most people my age that have been around for a while it's it's generally sierra nevada pale ale that was i mean i was drinking i was venturing out into more flavorful beer like you know another one that you hear a lot of from like 20 years ago is a new castle oh yeah

be like oh man i had a new castle and it didn't taste like you know like bud light or whatever yeah you know so i had new castle i've tried it recently it tastes horrible i've been i don't even know if they still because you never see it in stores anymore so i was like i don't know but it was like i was buying 12 packs of new castle at the grocery store instead of like Corona. And then it kind of, I had a Sierra Nevada for like the first time. And then I have a lot of family down in San Diego.

So when I was visiting family, I would have cousins that would bring six packs of stone IPA. Okay. And so, you know, trying the stone beers, even before I was a brewer, I'd try and stone beers. And I would say though, you know, Sierra Nevada and stone, things like that is what I started trying. Okay. Yeah. Well, the first ever craft beer I ever had was a double bastard. And now that was a huge mistake. Oh, geez. Yeah. It was a huge mistake.

It was like my palate wasn't ready for it. I was used to like Coors Light. I remember drinking like Amstel Light. My dad would have that or he would have like Newcastle or whatever in the house. Yeah, that double bastard just destroyed my palate. That's a tough one to start with. But honestly, my favorite one that I ever, like, oh, the one that really made me want to, like, go to breweries and stuff like that when I was a kid was, it was at Stone. It was at the World Bistro.

Mm-hmm. It was the Midas Touch by Dogfish Head. Oh, yeah. Yeah. That was, that one got me. I was like, dang. What was that beer about again? I remember the name. I can't remember. I honestly can't even remember. I don't even know if, like, you can still buy it here or not. Yeah. I forget what kind of beer that was, but I heard of it. Yeah. And I remember calling my brother and I was like, this is, I was like, I just had the best beer I've ever had in my life.

But I was like 21, I think at that time, you know? So, because we had to get, my buddies took me to take the tour and stuff like that, but it was pretty wild. I mean, but I'm always interested to hear about like, like what, what sparked it for, you know, for someone, you know?

Yeah. And I mean, that was beer drinking that sparked it for me, but really beer making was the science of it yeah it was like reading brewing books and learning all the microbiology and fermentation and all the chemistry in the on the brew house and things like that it just like was really interesting to me so i was just it wasn't and it wasn't a lot of people kind of reference like the artistic side and your ability to express like creativity you

know honestly it wasn't even that for me it was more the science it was like wow that's what it's doing and so then i started brewing to see what these scientific like explanations like how they played out like in my backyard you know brewing and yeah that's what really pulled me in and made me read more and more and more brewing books and um so that's what pulled me into brewing. As far as beer drinking, you know, Sierra Nevada and Stone.

Oh, yeah. Do you remember the first beer you ever brewed? Like, we'll do homebrew and then pro. Yeah. First beer, I bought a kit, so I didn't do any recipe formulation. It was just a kit to brew a German-style Heffweizen. Okay. And it came out, well, I don't know. At the time, I thought it was good, but who knows what it really was.

And then i right away went like all in with a another kit but it was a clone of a belgian golden strong duvel wow so that one did not go well so i was trying to bottle condition it as well and yeah that one got a little weird but yeah started off with a half they're really easy to brew you just have to have the right yeast strain and you know about 50 wheat and then you pretty much have a Hefeisen, not a good Hefeisen, but, you know, a Hefeisen.

So, and then, like I said, I wasn't homebrewing that long. I just kind of like, I was more about studying it and learning it. And I only brewed maybe, you know, 10, 20 batches at my house before I was like Googling brewing schools. Yeah. That's cool, man. I mean, and you freaking made it. Yeah. Yeah. Believe it or not. How the hell did I get here? But even like what you, do you remember your first like pro brew at a, at a, like maybe even not bootleggers way back?

Yeah. So bootleggers, you know, I eased into it, you know, first I was just washing kegs for Aaron and then he was showing me how he brews on his system. And then. Eventually, I was processing brews for him, but they were all his recipes. I was just brewing. You don't really get into your own recipe formulation until you're basically either a head brewer, brewery owner, or you get a job as the pilot brewer or the experimental brewer at a brewery.

Like if you're like, if you're like the experimental brewer at Stone, you're coming up with recipes just to try them out on a smaller system. Yeah. But really making your own beer, you only do it home brewing and when you're like literally the head brewer. So I wasn't doing my own recipes for quite a while. I mean, we would have like collaboration meetings amongst like the brew, the production team. And we discussed different elements of like what a new beer might be that we'd

be making. But as far as just my own beers, my own recipes, it wasn't really until King Harbor. And at that point it became all my recipes. Like I was the only guy who knew how to make beer in the company. So that's awesome. I went from like trying to execute my boss's ideas to now it's all on me. There's no one to like double check my work. There's no one to tell me, like, give me a suggestion. It's like, well, I hope this is going to turn out

because like, there's no one else here. It's just me making this beer. So, so it wasn't really until King Harbor that I was really cranking out a bunch of different beers that were. Fooling my own. Yeah. And then Adam came a knocking and was like, get over here. We need to do this. Yeah. He was bugging me for years. I fought him off for at least six years. And then he finally convinced me to start our own project. There you go, man. That's awesome. And you talk about your recipes.

Like what's your kind of your approach to recipe development now? At this point, I have like so much, like so many brews and recipes under my belt and a record of all of them that you can, a technique that I like to do is I reference my previous beers to see how they turned. I know how they turned out just from my memory. I can remember. And I say, well, I like this element from this beer and I like this element from another beer and this and that.

And I can kind of just like pick and choose the, like I like the malt profile of this beer, but I like the hop varieties of that beer. And the amounts that I'm using, I'll reference like that beer came out good. I want to have about the same hop intensity. How many pounds of hops did I use in that one? And I kind of pick and choose different elements of the beers that I've made in the past. And I put together a recipe that way. So it's not as much like trials or piloting.

Earlier in King Harbor, I was piloting everything where it's like you come up with a recipe. You don't know if it's going to be good or not. So you brew a small batch. You brew like a 10-gallon batch of it to test it. Like a pilot system or something? Yeah. Yeah. And at this point, I'm not really doing a whole lot of piloting unless it's something I've never done before. So if it's an ingredient I've never used before, or if it's a technique or process

that I've never used before, I will probably do some type of pilot or some type of testing. Okay. But if it's like there's a new hop variety and I want to try it out, it's like it'll be based on previous IPAs that I've brewed and I'll insert that new hop variety. So that's kind of how I develop recipes now. And I did that because it became a necessity because the craft beer industry demands so much variety nowadays.

It really does, yeah. So you can't spend six months developing a beer. You would be out of business. A hundred percent. I need to brew it every... I tell this to everyone who asks kind of the question you're asking. I say the number one question or the number one thing, the number one statement I hear from our customers as they walk into our tasting room, they walk into our tasting room, they look up at the menu and they say, what's new.

They always need a fricking new beer. I'm like those 18 beers aren't good enough. You need like another one. You need a 19th and a 20th. Yeah. So it's like, that's just the industry. So you can't spend six months developing one beer. So that's this technique that I have now that I described where I just pull from concepts from previous brews and I just go for it and I just brew it. It was more out of necessity that I had to do that to just have to keep making variety and they have to be good.

So that's my approach nowadays. Oh, man. Well, I mean, dealing with that, obviously, like, you know, like I said, having to deal with customers coming in and saying like, we do want to try something new. What are some of like the challenges, like what biggest challenges you faced kind of along, like just your journey brewing or your brewing journey in general?

Challenges. is let's see i don't know if it's a challenge but something that kind of does weigh on you a little bit is like my first six months making beer at king harbor and i remember this very specifically that it was probably like the first time our kegs were going we're going out to bars and restaurants okay i had this like wave of panic i'm like oh no what if it's not good yeah what if it's not good Like I've been doing this for 10, at that point, like 10 years,

but, and I feel like I know what I'm doing, but this is the first time people are going to be trying this beer and you get this like panic. Yeah. So that's, that's something a brewer always deals with is how their beer is perceived. I mean, we make it with the intention of it being good. But like, I'm not like making intentionally making bad beer, but you still wonder what's the reaction going to be.

I generally have a pretty good understanding that it's a good beer when we release it, but you still have that underlying like kind of worry. Yeah. So that was something you have to deal with and overcome. And then I, I guess I do have a good answer for you. Biggest challenge is freaking selling beer. Yeah. Yeah. That's not my expertise. I know nothing about it. And a brewery doesn't exist unless the beer is being sold. So it's, you know, diving into the sales side, the marketing side and trying

to figure out what's going to work. Yeah. Working with your, your sales people like Dan, you know. Yeah. Say thank you, Dan. Yeah. Thanks for Dan is the truth because he's great at what he does and it takes a lot of the weight off, but I'm still involved in that. And I have no expertise in sales, but Dan and I have to try and figure out what's the best approach for distribution. What's the best approach for our beer lineup?

What beers should we make? Should we find other distributors in other areas? Like I'm talking about all the sales stuff and I've probably said this four times already, but that's not my expertise. I'd rather just be brewing beer, but yeah, that's the biggest challenge because it's something that I'm not very good at and don't know much about, but I have to, I have to figure it out. Yeah.

I mean, being a business, I mean, a small business owner, you got to, you know, I feel like you have to like eventually kind of like mitigate certain things to, you know, to certain people. Because if it's not your expertise, you want to make sure, like you said earlier about businesses kind of, I mean, breweries floundering because they may not have that side of it. But if you have the right people around to be able to help with those decisions

and to make those choices, it makes life a lot easier. Absolutely.

Yeah. That makes a big difference. And I'm finally learning that because I used to just say, I'll figure it out. I'll figure it out. And then you realize you have a list of like a hundred things that you said you would figure out and you still haven't gotten to it. Yeah. And you get in some good people and you realize how all those things start getting taken care of. And you're like, that is really important to have like the right people here

working hard and helping, you know, grow the company. 100%. And even like going back, just going back again, talking about how you were, you know, going to school, you went, you know, Chicago, Germany during that time, did you have, were there like brewers or breweries for that matter, that maybe influenced you like along the journey along the way? I mean, when I was first getting started, the craft beer industry was very different

than it is right now. a lot of big established craft breweries and. Yeah like core beers were the thing like at stone i think 80 of our production was stone ipa oh yeah so i was more about you know professional production of beer you know quality um having you know quality control in place and all that kind of stuff it wasn't as much about flashy marketing and a bunch of new beers and trying to be the cool kid in town it was like yeah how do we make good professional beer that has high

quality. That's what I was really focused on. So looking at breweries like Stone and like Sierra Nevada, where you see the technology they have in their lab and the technology they use in their production floor, their brew houses are amazing. Most of them are made in Germany and are like, do all these really cool advanced things. That's what really got me excited about, about the, about brewing and craft beer. It's awesome.

And now it's like, you can, I've come to find out you can make great beer and have a huge fan base on a tiny little brewery. Like there's some small little breweries that make amazing beer and they have a, like a devoted, loyal fan base. And so now it's more about like creativity and, you know. Trying new techniques and trying to make, You have to try and be the cool kid in town now with using the new hop varieties, using new techniques, different flavor profiles, doing all that stuff.

So that's more of the focus now is innovating in beer and making new flavor profiles that people have never tried before. That's what it's about now. Yeah. It's like Crush. Everybody's using Crush right now. Uh-huh. Yeah, Crush, Crush Cryo, all that stuff. Yeah. That's in our Cali Double. Have you had Cali Double yet? I have not. You should take a little taste of it. That has a crash. Should we, should we grab another beer before we get set? Yeah. Yeah.

I'll take a fairway and get them like a little taste for a Cali double. It breaks my, um, are we still? I'll hit pause. All right. So we got a couple of fresh beers. Thank you, Dan. I'm going to try this Cali double beer. This is all the question. Be careful. Yeah. Describe it. Like what I said. Paint a word picture. What we were saying when we turned off the mics was I, this one, I broke my rule about moderate alcohol. So this one is 9.3.

Crush is a new, great, just super flavorful hop. I get like tangerine out of it or even like orange creamsicle a little bit. Oh, yeah. That'll do the trick right there, man. Yeah. So just packed full of hops. We use so much hops that we're using some hop products as well. So cryo, some hop extracts, an extract called incognito. Oh, yeah. Because when you use so much hops, you actually have all that plant matter that's also part of these hops.

And if you want a really intense hop impression, it ends up becoming too much plant matter in your beer. Yeah. The hop, the ground up hops. So you have to find other ways to get that hop flavor into your beer. So Cryo is a great way to do it. And so is Incognito. So this beer has both of those as well as a ton of just standard T90 hot pellet. Okay. No, man, that's, that's really good. Yeah. I like it. Yeah. I don't drink a lot of it, but it's definitely good.

It's there, right? It's there when you need it. Yeah. Um, one thing I was up to have, like to ask everybody, like anytime I talk to someone is like about the craft beer community. Cause to me it's, and I know we talked a little bit a second to go off air about like how So this is where I always wanted the show to go. And honestly, I wasn't, when I first started, I wasn't sure if, if people are going to be like, yeah, come down and record at the brewery and stuff like that.

But they were so welcoming. Oh yeah. And like, I would say like 95% of the, the craft beer community is really good. There's always, but everything, there's always bad apples in every family, right? But what does the craft beer community mean to you? So I agree with your analysis that the craft beer community is very, very welcoming, collaborative, where we like working together with each other. That's why brewery collaborations are so popular. Oh, that's great.

And it is a friendly industry, and it kind of blows other people from other industries, blows them away. They're like, what? Oh, 100%. Like, you're good friends with your direct, like, competition. Yeah. Yeah. And when people tell me that, I'm like, yeah, I guess that is kind of weird. Yeah. But it is true. Like literally every brewery around here, I know the brewers really well and I can even, many breweries, I'm good friends with them as well.

And we hang out together. We'll sometimes they'll walk into my brewery because they either needed to talk about something. We always share materials with each other, which will blow other people, other industries away. Yeah. But like if brewers like, oh shit, I was brewing this beer and I ran out, I need one extra sack of malt. Yeah. And they'll just show up at my brewing like, can I borrow a sack of malt? I'm like, yeah, sure. Go ahead. And then the next week they'll return it or bring it back.

And it's, we do that all the time. Earlier this week, I needed to run over to my buddies at two coast. Cause I ran out of a certain chemical that we use in the brewing process. And he was like, yeah, he just pulled out the jug and filled up my little container. And that was it. Yeah. And it was kind of funny. There was a, another person there that's kind of new to the industry. And he had this like weird look on his face. Yeah. What are you doing? Yeah. It's like, we do this all the time.

Like chill out. Don't worry about this. Don't worry about it. I just, and I had just let them borrow a bunch of cardboard trays because they had a canning run and they ran out of cardboard trays. We're always just letting, you know, sharing. So it is weird, but it's, that is the industry. And it might start getting away from that. It's definitely, you could see it start to shift a little bit when it got tough for everybody.

And breweries start closing. you're not everyone's not in as much of a good mood as they used to be yeah so you'll see it you know not sometimes not as much but my friendships have already been established so i'm already friends with almost everyone around here in the industry so it just doesn't change what i will say is when you do get those people that i i don't know did you use word bad apple Yeah. Okay, so I didn't say it, you said it. Yeah, it's all good.

But when you run into those bad apples, quote unquote, they're usually someone from outside the industry. Someone who's an attorney who wants to quit doing law and start a brewery, and then they'll be all standoffish about stuff. And you're like, oh, it's because you haven't been around for a while. We all just work with each other. There's no sense in... Being in a bad mood all the time. Oh, yeah. I mean, that's why I would say it's the best industry in the world.

Like, because I didn't know like a ton about the industry, like coming into something like this. I was just, I just loved craft beer. And, but to see like the collaboration and like, you know, someone's like, hey, I don't have any Sabro. I always joke around about my buddy, Abraham over in La Bodega Brewing in Whittier.

He was joking. We always make the joke. like he's the guy's like gotten you saw bro because you know because he runs out yeah and stuff like that but i mean like if you look at an industry like wine it's so inclusive and or not inclusive like exclusive is what i meant to say it's so exclusive it's like no this is our thing like get away kind of thing but in craft beer it's like no like like i said like, like not even just the people i've talked to just people like i've met in passing

when i say like the bad like there's always a bad apple on every family in every family tree but there's.

Every like almost everybody i've met it's just been so genuine and so nice and they just they just want they what's good for one brewery is good for their brewery yeah and i and i think that's the root of it i i was thinking back as you were speaking just now it's like why is it like that i'm like i just explained it but why yeah and now you just helped me remember i i just forgot but it was because originally you know 15 years ago the like the marching order or the the war cry for for craft

beer was it's us against big beer yeah so it's as long as were chipping away at big beer and, Budweiser, Miller Coors, that's good for all of us. So we saw ourselves as an industry and we would always get the percentage. It was like 5% of beer is craft beer. And then it was like 7% of beer is craft beer. And then it was like 12% of beer. And it was like, all we cared about was growing that craft beer percentage.

100%. And the enemy was Budweiser. Yeah. Not like the other brewery around the corner. So now craft beer is like not as foreign as it used to be, you know, 15 years ago or a while ago, people didn't even know what craft beer was. So it was about like educating people on beer can taste different than Bud Light. That was like, that was a big stone kind of was one of the breweries that really

led the charge on that. Like not only do we make this beer, but we go around and we explain this beer to people who've never tried it before. Yeah. You know, you're going into bars, you're holding events at bars, tap takeovers, keep the pint night. Yeah. Where you go in there and it's like, this is beer. It might be very flavorful and taste citrusy and more bitter than what you're used to, but it's still beer. and that created that family mentality of craft beer.

Yeah. So that has to be, there's no other explanation. That's the root of where our, you know, collaborative kind of atmosphere is in the craft beer industry. Oh, 100%. And you mentioned like the education part. Like that's, to me, you know, that's so vital like to any brewery.

And I know like maybe some breweries take it seriously, see some maybe some don't you know but it's it is it's it's really vital to to the industry because you have if you have somebody walk in and you can tell them like they'll ask they've never maybe they're just showing up because their friends are there they're their friends are craft beer drinkers and they're not they come in they see a tap menu that has 18 20 beers on it

right and they're they might be overwhelmed but if you can kind of guide them to what they might like, that's, you built trust. Yeah. You built trust and that's going to make sure they're going to come back. And then what, what, you know, what else they're going to do? They're going to tell their friends like, Hey, we should check out this place. I went there last time and they told me about this crazy, crazy beer.

And I tried, it was really good or a seltzer or anything or a size on anything. Mm-hmm. How does that make, like, do you, like, I'm assuming it, cause you, you care so much about it, like the, the beer education part of it as well. Yeah. And it's not as, as I would say is not as critical as it was 20 years ago, but it still is important. And I, every single day we'll get a, a customer walk in the door that it's their

first craft beer. So that, for us, it's about having our servers, our staff, you know, I mean, they work here because they like craft beer. So it's very easy for them to talk about beer, but they know they're at a craft brewery tasting room. So they're expecting to have conversations with people about beer, talk to them about the different styles, the different hop varieties, all the different things.

It's not a they're not working at the beer card at dodger stadium where they're just trying to like fling out as many beers as possible so we all know it we expect it we like it we like chatting with people about beer if i'm running around the brewery working and the taste room opens it's pretty common for me to get snagged by a customer that with a question and then yeah Late, you know. 20 minutes later, I'm still there talking to customers about beer.

I'm just chatting with them. They have questions. I get on, on a roll and I don't know when to shut up. And now I have a lot of work that I still have to get done. But yeah, we're, we're ready to talk, educate, just have fun conversations about beer. Oh yeah. That's, we do that every day. Yeah. There's a beer out there for everybody. I always, uh, one of the things I've been pushing for probably the last like six months is, The hashtag, just find your beer.

Oh, yeah. There's a beer out there for everybody. Yeah, that's the truth. Because there's so, there's always, every brewery has one or two beers that they'll like tell other brewers about. Like, this is the beer for people who say they don't like beer. We have a few. And every other brewery has a few where you get someone who comes in. They're usually like a friend of someone. Yeah. Who, the person's there for craft beer and they brought their friend with them.

Okay. And that friend will go up and go, I don't like beer. And it's like, oh, here, try this. And they're like, oh, I like this, but I don't like beer. And I go, well, I got news for you. You do like beer because that's beer. Yeah. And you like it. It just doesn't taste like Bud Light. Yeah. So, yeah, that's always fun. It's blowing people's mind when they think they don't like beer and you give them the right thing. And now they magically do like beer. Yeah.

And then eventually, cause that'll open up their palate too. Like, you know, they'll have that, have that, you know, so many times over and then maybe they'll want to try something else, you know, the next time. And then that could open up a whole, that's their gateway. I always call it their gateway beer. Yeah. Yeah, for sure. Just a couple more questions I have for you. One of the ones I always love to ask is like, what's your worst brew day you've ever had? Oh, so many to choose from.

We had one recently where it was a fresh hop beer. And are you familiar with wet hops or fresh hops? Yeah. Yeah, so wet hops are basically unprocessed hops. Typically, when a hop harvest happens, the hops get immediately dehydrated because they have a really high moisture content. And they will, as soon as they're harvested, if you just leave them, they will start developing mold and rotting because of the amount of moisture they have within them.

So at a hop farm, as soon as they harvest, immediately gets dehydrated.

But if you want to see what hops taste like without being dehydrated you can use them you just have to brew with them within 24 hours yeah or else they start going bad so i don't do it every year but certain years i'll do a wet hot beer and we decided to do one last year and we had the wet hops we actually harvested some hops here in socal we harvested them ourselves brought them back to the brewery late at night after the harvest, put it in our cooler.

And I was like, next morning, you got to wake up early, come, we're going to brew our wet, hot beer. Okay. I got there, I got to the brewery the next morning and started the brew and we had some equipment fail, like pretty major. And I was brewing a wet, hot beer, like any other beer, I'd be like, oh, well, let's, let's pause this. Let's work on this equipment and we'll brew it tomorrow but it's a wet hot beer you gotta brew it right then so it was my grain auger.

Crapped out it got some debris stuck in it and i so badly just wanted to postpone the brew by one day and take my time and fix all the equipment get all situated and fire it all up the next day but i couldn't it was wet hot beer so spent half the day fixing everything started mashing in starting the brew like mid-afternoon and then finishing the brew like past midnight just so I could get it done that day. So that sucked. That was one thing that sucked. Yeah, that's rough.

I mean, that's the first one that pops to mind just because it was so recent. But I've had a bunch of crazy stuff happen. Stuck mashes, I'm sure.

Yeah. the brewery luckily the brewery had a pretty massive team of brewers and we're we ran 24, 7 essentially so if something bad happened you weren't stuck there for the rest of the night because we had enough brewers that you someone came in to relieve you yeah so when things when shit hit the fan at the brewery that brewer and i wasn't even a shift brewer i was the lead brewer So I was in charge. But if shit hit the fan, it wasn't like we all had to stay there until...

We fixed it. It was like that bird did the best he can to get things going. The new brewer shows up for his shift. We update him on what's going on and he takes it from there. Yeah. So it's not as bad as like working for 20 straight hours because there's no one out. There's no one coming to relieve you.

Yeah. So the brewery had a bunch of wild stuff that we did and stuck mashes every week for some crazy stuff we were trying, but it didn't, like, take a toll on any of us because we had a great team. And whatever was happening, the next brewer coming in, we would update him, and he could handle it. And then he would handle it, and then he got relieved, and it was just a 24-hour kind of cycle. So crazy brews, but it wasn't tough on us or anything.

I was looking at the shirt you wore, like your brewer shirt that you're wearing, and it's Discover Great Beer. And it just makes me think of Find Your Beer. Like, I love that. Like, you know, because you've got to get out there. Like, you know, and if the show motivates one person to get out there and just start their craft beer adventure or, you know, or their craft beer journey, homebrewing. Maybe just getting into craft beer.

Like maybe they tried something you had here and then like make someone a venture out to try different breweries. Yeah. You know, that's the fun part about beer. I mean, I complain about having to have so much variety, but that is what makes it pretty cool because there is unlimited amount of things you can try. It's just like, it's never ending.

There's so many beers to try. Oh, yeah. I was going to quote Palpatine from Star Wars and like unlimited power, but it's unlimited beer. There's so many different things out there. Yep, yep. Last go, three more things, I promise. I know I said two more earlier, but I'm going to go to three more. I've got a cold beer. I'm fine. There you go. One of them is Desert Island beers.

If you had a chew, you could pick like either one specific craft, like a craft brewery, like a specific beer or a craft style, and one domestic. What do you mean by domestic? Like it can be like any macro. Oh, macro. Yeah. Gotcha. Macro, I have a few. Negro Modelo. Okay. Is good. And that's actually my inspiration for our Amber Lager, Tacos and Beer.

Love it. it's like a amber lager but it's really like a mexican style amber lager and it was negro model it's like what other macro can you just buy at dodger stadium yeah that has that much flavor like pretty much every other macro is just light lager oh yeah so that for macro although that's not domestic that's mexican but it's it's macro yeah oh yeah it's for sure yeah desert island beer. I do have one favorite beer. I know I say I don't like choosing one.

I do have one that I say the same beer every single time someone asks me. It's Orval. It's the Belgian. Okay, yeah. I love Orval. It's. Very flavorful, extremely complex, but it still can go down easy. If you treat it as an easy drinker, it can be an easy drinker. If you want to pour it in the Orval tulip and sit there and take in every component of the aroma and the flavor, you can do that as well. And it holds up doing that.

And on top of it, it's Britannomyces bottle conditioned. So it evolves. So you can have different experiences with Orval depending on how old the beer is. Fresh Orval is really great because it's actually fairly hoppy. They dry hop that beer. You don't really taste it normally, but if you get a hold of a really fresh Orval, it's hoppy. And you're like, oh, this is a cool hoppy beer.

If you get a hold of an Orval that's two years old, you're going to get all these Bertanomyces flavors which are really complex extremely interesting not overwhelming but just creates an insanely complex beer so there's so many things about that one beer that it does really well can be an easy drinker can be a complex enjoy it slowly yeah and there's different versions of it fresh orval is different than a two-year-old orval so it's just the perfect beer in my opinion doesn't hurt

that i went to the brewery in brewing school love that and met the brewmaster and we were in the brew and in the brewery and he's showing us everything so i wouldn't say i fell in love with orval being there because i already really really liked it But I mean, after really liking it and being able to visit the brewery, that's it.

I tell everyone the exact same beer, Orval. That's awesome, man. How cool is that? It was cool. Yeah. Yeah, I love it. Don't get to drink it that often, but it's hard to find sometimes. BJ's used to have Orval on their bottle list. Oh, dang. And they would sell it for $7. And most of the waiters or the bartenders didn't even know it was on the list. But every time I used to go to BJ's for dinner with friends or whatever, I was like, I'll take an Orval.

And they're like, what's that? And I would have to point at it on the menu. They're like, oh. They'd go, let me look. and they'd go back and be like, oh yeah, we do have it. I get my $7 Orval every time I went to BJ's. Get an Orval on a Pazooki? Yeah. We were just doing a sales pitch at BJ's like two weeks ago and I asked them, do you guys still have Orval? No. I was like, damn.

You know what was one when I was younger that my grandpa used to drink and I would always try to snake him when he had him was Michelob Amberbach. Oh, Amberbach. I used to have that. Yeah. That was one that was like, it was complex. It's kind of like a Negro Modelo. Yeah. Yeah, it's macro, but it has some flavor to it. Oh, yeah. Yeah. My domestic ever, gosh, Desert Island Beer is hams. Oh, I've had some hams. Yeah, it was Coors Banquet before, but it's hams now.

Nice. I will give a thumbs up for Coors Banquet as well. Yeah. Better than Budweiser and better than any of the lights. The one the one beer I can't drink is Bud Light. Yeah, I can't. There's just some, like out on the golf course, I'll have Coors Lights. I'll have Miller Lights. Coors Banquet. But I don't know the last time I stomached a Bud Light.

I just can't have that beer. Yeah, even like Bud Heavy now, like I can't really, you know, I don't know what's not called Bud Heavy, but everybody calls it Bud Heavy. Like it's just not for me. I feel like Coors is so much better. Yeah, I agree. Unless you want to be a sponsor of the show. Second to last question, favorite food to pair with a beer. Oh yeah. I saw that on your list. I am not a huge beer food pairing guy. Okay.

Because when I eat, I don't drink beer. Oh, gotcha. Okay. And when I'm drinking beer, I don't eat. I guess that's the same thing. I love having beer and I'll have, I'll usually have my pint sitting right next to my plate. Like when I'm at a restaurant and I'll like woof down my food and then move to the beer. I don't really do a back and forth. And like, even when I'm like at home, just eating dinner real quick, I don't even like pour myself a glass of water.

It's just food first. Yeah. And then later on, if I'm thirsty, I'll have water. And then later on in the night, I'll, I'll open a beer. i don't really do the whole pairing i know that's kind of weird because no not at all beer food pairings are a big thing and i've really forced myself to like try and wrap my head around beer food pairings because people always ask you that like oh what should i pair with this and i'm like.

I don't know yeah and see and i don't even mean it in that way i mean it in the fact like because the question used to be what would you choose to have with the beer wings pizza tacos or like burgers that's good so i mean i'll say one first answer beer food pairing sushi and saporo oh yeah that's always i love sushi if i'm ever at a sushi place i only order support or asahi but yeah i go for saporo first yeah but if i'm eating food and or if i'm

drinking beer and i want a food or however you phrase that i mean i like spicy stuff oh same because then the beer will wash down the spice yeah so it's like oh it's a little spicy add a little beer oh it's good then you eat again oh it's a little spicy add a little beer and like you kind of go back and forth yeah i think they say hoppy hop character accentuates spiciness so maybe not a hoppy beer for like a spicy like spicy salsa on a taco or something but.

I don't know. It's because I'm going to drink the beer that I want to drink. Like on a, if I'm in a restaurant, there's a beer menu. Yeah. I'm going to choose the best beer that I really want to drink right now. And it doesn't matter what I'm ordering to eat. That's true. So I, that's kind of how I approach it. All right. So I'll ask you this. I'm like, do you like tacos? I'm assuming. Yeah. What's your protein? Oh, that's a great question. Yeah. I've heard people debate this.

So asada is great as long as it's done well you hate ordering asada and it's dry and like they like just killed it yeah i don't know when it's super fatty for me it's like i don't like oh yeah you get the gristle in there yeah it's like yeah not chicken chicken's fine but there's more interesting so i mean i'm not a big pastor guy but i am a carnitas guy oh carnitas are good yeah So I would say if it's like top-notch asada, I will go with asada.

If not, I'm looking at cornitas or chorizo. Oh, right on, brother. Snap. So, yeah. I love chorizo. So chorizo or cornitas. That was a joke. So that's my answer. But, I mean, really great asada is very, very good. When it's done right, it's great. Oh, yeah. I've been, this is, I'll tell you off. I'll tell you off. I was going to try to play with like an Asada, like putting it in the smoker, just to try to toy with it a little bit, but I'll tell you about that off.

The last question I'll ask you is, and this is from Mr. Drennan himself, Daniel Drennan. DFD. Oh yeah. Fucking guy, man. I love you, Daniel. I'll tell you some stuff after. I'll fire too. He's, he's such a great dude. The, if you had to describe yourself in one word. He told me he's like, use this question at the end of every interview. So I was like, all right, I'll do it, bud. One word. Oh, yeah. He did make me do that because he did an article on me. I would say curious. Okay.

Love that. Because curiosity can lead to so many more things than just being curious. Because curiosity leads to learning. Yep. Learning leads to doing great things. Yeah. but you'll never get to that point if you weren't curious first 100 and and it's not like tooting my own horn i just find.

Myself curious constantly like i'm literally just walking through the brewery and i'm like what the hell was that sound and i have to go over and figure it out i'm like oh this tank is having an issue it's got a leak gotta do this bing bing bing and like it's just curiosity rather than just walking through the brewery and not caring what's going on and it's like i'm curious everywhere like i'll be driving on the freeway and just be like what's up with that truck it looks

like he's got uh one of those wheels and then oh he's carrying a heavy load so probably it's just like i'm curious about everything that's great so i found that it's helped me being curious leads to good things beyond just that curiosity so curious that's great man i mean i think that's what i told dft too there you go but even like talking about like the the cars on the road like because i work in commercial auto insurance that's my full-time job okay so i'm always looking at

like i'm like if i could snap a picture of like something that i don't normally see like it's because i like to i train people uh-huh like how to assess risk like kind of like in along came poly oh yeah you're that guy yeah so i'm like tell him like this is what you do blah blah so if i see something random on the freeway i'm like snap because i can take that to my class and me to be able to do that and be able to educate them and stuff like that. But man, this has been super fun.

Thank you so much. And thank you, Dan. No problem. Hey, Dan, wake up. Yeah. And don't worry, I brought my little lapel mic so I can make Dan say something, too. So we'll do that after the fact. But everybody, if you're in the area or if not, even if you're just coming down to L.A. to visit off of 139th and Harvard. Yeah, we're in a little cul-de-sac that's Harvard.

But we're basically you'll find us if you were between normandy and western like our beer name, and 139th which is right near rosecrans yeah so and i actually live off of rosecrans but in bellflower so a little further down but no nobody listened to that nobody can find me please, no but this has been super fun thank you so much phil no problem you make fantastic beer thank you appreciate it and everybody got to come down try i mean fairway finder i i've ever posted a picture of it too it

was probably one of my favorite pictures i ever got of it because i had like my my uncle hadn't cut his grass so i was visiting him i took over the four pack and i got a shot of it i'll show you after but you got to come down and support remember always want to support small business support local drink local find your beer and cheers phil cheers cheers thanks dan. All right, guys, I hope you guys enjoyed that. Like I said, thank you to both of them.

I really didn't even have to edit this one. This was perfect. Just super grateful, obviously. And I know I say it all the time, but I'm just grateful to the community, to the people that have allowed me to go into their establishments and hear their story. So thank you. All right, what do we got coming up? Let's see here. Next week is the, oh, gosh, why can't I?

Oh, sorry, Artifacts. with john i'm super stoked for you to hear that one and then also we have oh then it is the uh chris from bonaventure and then i believe it is sandra from innovation and then also then the twosome episode so we got uh the next four weeks lined up and then howling rabbits would be the weekend after a week after that also branding for breweries i will be doing that one we were supposed to do that during the week but then all of a sudden my my schedule got really thrown off

from work this week so i had to post we had to postpone that one i've got some other stuff coming up i got some irons in the fire and some that i'm pretty excited about but i don't want to say anything just yet till it's like locked in but man i'm just i'm just really excited and i'm, i'm like itching to get a round table together i really want to do that soon so whenever, we have i mean if there's anybody out there you know that wants to wants to

do around like a Brewer's Roundtable or anything like that. I'm so in. I don't know. Male, female, it doesn't matter. It's like whatever you guys want to, whoever wants to be on can be on, but I'd love to put something together soon. And it'd be cool if we could be going to get a mixture. So that'd be, that'd be pretty fun. All right. Well, I had to go get a haircut in a bit. Start getting ready, doing all that jazz.

Like I said, I'm super grateful for you guys. Thank you. And I've been on the, I wanted to mention, we're up to on the, let's see here. On the taproom for Spotify, we are up to, let's see, 97 five-star reviews. You know, I hate asking, but if there's anybody out there listening on Spotify and you're still listening right now, if you could, it would be greatly appreciated to put a, click on that five stars after listening to an episode. It really does help,

put the show in front of more eyeballs. And if we can get more people listening, more people wanting to go to craft breweries and go, you know, start their craft beer adventure or their craft beer journey. Then everybody wins. So, all right. Well, uh, I hope everybody has a great week, but you will hear from me next week. And if you're not following on Instagram, why not? I mean, it's at the taproom podcast on Instagram.

Oh, you know what? Last thing we got some, so some of the, I'm going to give away some of the Taproom Tales episode titles. Next week is going to be April Fool's Day. I'm going to be editing that on the plane tomorrow. And then after that, it's the theme song. And then I believe we're going to do a WrestleMania. We haven't shot it yet, but I think we're going to do, that'll be the theme song. And then the one that got away, I think is going to be that one.

And then I think we're going to do a WrestleMania episode. Yeah, but I think we're going to shoot that when we get back.

But we also have one, like the Hangover. we also did one called Mike's seat or like my seat so we got some good ones coming up I'm gonna be working on some more we're gonna have one called opposite day it's gonna be it's gonna be great so and honestly thank you to all the people that are watching those videos if you can, comment on them share them like them do all that jazz please just because I mean it's been like kind of crazy how it's kind

of taken off so just super appreciative thank you guys so much I hope you guys have a great week have a great Saturday have a great Sunday and don't forget to get out there and support local drink local. Music.