Brewery Founder vs. Head Brewer

For three others that you mention:

Maytag learned the preliminaries of the trade from Anchor's previous owner, Lawrence Steese, and others in the industry, and was also self-taught.

Jim Koch and Steve Hindy were "brewery owners" - both started out as contract breweries, and had industry-trained brewers develop their recipes and coordinate the brewing at the contractor facilities - Joseph Owades and Bill Moeller, respectively. Owades had worked for Rheingold, Carling and AB. Moeller with Ortlieb and C. Schmidt's & Sons, among other PA breweries.

 

Re Oliver, it was his Black Chocolate Stout sample that he took to the job interview and that may well have been part of the reason he was hired. He's more publicly visible than Hindy but actively engaged in the brewing that goes on. Heard him talk a couple of time during Philly beer week. Impressive guy who knows his brewing. Definitely not a figurehead.

 

For a good read, pick up a copy of Oliver's Brewmasters Table. A bit old but has a lot more than just beer and food it talks about. I think that's where I remember the BCS story from.

 

I've been thinking about this lately as well. There seems to be a trend (maybe it's not as new as I think) of founders/owners starting a brewery and acting as brewmaster, but hiring a head brewer to actually brew the beer while the founder keeps his/her day job. I know Trillium has this model and there are others. I suppose given the costs of starting new this model makes sense, but you also get situations like Blue Lobster where the relationship falls apart.

 

I think this really depends on thebrewery and the person(s) opening it. I know homebrewers who are absolute geniuses when it comes to brewing science and they make beers that are better than the majority of things I buy on the shelves. Some of these guys I have no doubt could open up a micro and produce a very high quality product from the get go and be successful.

Here in my city we only have two breweries and the one only opened in February or March of this year. The earlier brewery is owned and ran by two guys with no professional experience and honestly a rather limited amount of even homebrewing experience. Guess what, they made below average beer for the first year they were open. I honestly quickly stopped drinking their beer because as much as I like to drink local, I like to drink good beer even better. However, I revisited said brewery earlier this year and was impressed at how much I thought their beers had improved. Maybe it was learning the equipment and gaining more brewing knowledge. Either way, the beer had greatly improved. The question is, if this brewery had opened in a city with any form of local competition would they have made it? I strongly have my doubts.

The other brewery in town went the opposite direction. Local guy with years of homebrewing experience decided he loved brewing beer so much he wanted to open a brewery. He hired two professional brewers to do the actual brewing and he just handles the business side of things, and from the very beginning they have been producing high quality beers. The thing that struck me from talking to the owner was, "I opened a brewery because I loved brewing beer and now I don't get to brew anymore." This was really strong statement to me because like every other homebrewer who dreams of opening a brewery, its because I love brewing beer, not doing paperwork.

Prospective brewery owners need to be honest with themselves about their knowledge level and abilites as a brewer. Just because you enjoy homebrewing and have the financial resources doesn't mean you have any business opening up a brewery and being the head brewer.

 

Ohhh myyyy!

Sorry. Couldn't help myself.

I think Scott Vaccaro is a prime example of a really good way to do it. Start off (as a teenager) homebrewing and then go get educated.

 

Oh, the ignorance of youth and the days of Zima and ice-brewed beer.

 

For a lot of these early guys (Ken Grossman, specifically) formal training just wasn't on the radar. Keep in mind, there were no small brewers. You didn't learn how to make beer on a 10-barrel system back then, you learned how to do it on a 200 barrel system or bigger. Back then, people who did formal brewing school were preparing to be brewers at AB or Coors or Miller et. al. what they used to call (and still do in Europe) "Brewing Engineers"
It was a much different time.

Ken was a very serious homebrewer with a savant-like skill in mechanics and fabrication. He built Sierra Nevada from scratch and then was its head brewer (and sole brewer) for years afterward. He did get some help from the formal folks, though. Dr. Michael Lewis at UC Davis would let Ken into the brewing library where he would photocopy and read anything he could get his hands on. Being a technically sophisticated guy, he learned a lot...quickly. Not for nothing, Ken doesn't do a lot of brewing these days, but he is still the chair of the technical brewers panel at the BA, can talk about fluid dynamics, engineering, and enzyme conversion with the best of 'em, and is widely respected for being an incredible technical brewing mind.

Also, oddly, Steve Dresler our current Head Brewer doesn't have technical brewing training either (although he does have degrees in biology and chemistry.) He started working at SN packing bottles in boxes and after a while they let him start brewing. The story I heard is: One day they had to get business cards made, so the handful of guys working at the brewery drew cards for job titles. Steve says it was between head brewer and packaging for him. 32 years later and he is still the head brewer. His relationship with Ken is great. Friends and colleagues for more than 30 years.

As for a modern day model... it depends. I know lots of industry people who represent both aspects. The fact is, running a brewery is a business, but without a love of beer, there is no incentive to be in the mix and vice versa. Some are great at one thing, some at both, and some managed to shoehorn it together through sheer force of will. In any case, a smart businessman knows to hire workers better than them and no one is worse-off by being surrounded by great/smart people.

-Bill