Episode 64 - w/ Christian and Kate of Campsite Brewing - The Taproom Podcast

Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:00):
Hey everyone, it's Mike. Before we start the episode, I have a cool question
to ask. Do you own a brewery? Do your customers love trivia as much as I do?
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Geeks Who Drink Trivia is a consistently fun and low-effort way to build a community

(00:20):
of regulars, because we all need our norms, cliffs, and all that.
But we want to bring more people in as well.
So you can even turn that slow weeknight night into the busiest night of the week.
So get started with this exclusive offer from my taproom listeners and get your first quiz night free.
Go to geekswhodrink.com slash taproom and enter promo code taproom.
That's geekswhodrink.com slash taproom promo code taproom. And now onto the episode.

(00:46):
Music.

(01:11):
All right, and we're back. This is episode 64 of the Tap Room Podcast, and I'm your host, Mike.
Have a fun one today. I got to talk to Christian and Kate over at Campsite Brewing.
I mean, honestly, just a really, really great couple.
And first time ever having a husband and wife on the show. So that was pretty awesome.

(01:33):
Just hearing their story and how, you know, the kind of trials and tribulations
and all that kind of stuff that they went through just to be able to,
you know, to get the brewery going.
And, you know, realizing, like, you know, their dream and incorporating two
of the things that they love into campsite.
So it was pretty awesome.
I'm really looking forward to you guys listening to that. I will warn you right

(01:54):
in the beginning of the episode, the train, because it's right by the train
tracks, and the train does come through.
I tried to cut out as much as I can, so we'll see what the finished product sounds like.
But yeah, it's a Sunday morning.
Got the NHL playoffs. There's a game one today, the Hurricanes and the Rangers, and then a game seven.
So we have Dallas and all the Dallas Stars and the Vegas Knights.

(02:19):
So the winner will play the Avalanche.
If Dallas wins, the Avs will be going to Dallas.
If Vegas wins, Vegas will be coming to Colorado.
So it should be pretty fun. I'm looking forward to watching those games today.
A couple of other things, like Darvenham got let go by the Lakers.
I was like, wow, I was kind of surprised.
I mean, I thought the Lakers, I mean, played actually pretty damn well.

(02:39):
They just couldn't finish games from the games that I did see.
So yeah, that should be, that's kind of crazy.
NBA playoffs are going on. I'll be honest, I'm not really watching it.
I did watch game one yesterday, though, of Minnesota and Denver.
It was a hell of a game. Minnesota pulled it out.
So that should be pretty good. I kind of start to watch the playoff,

(03:00):
the NBA playoffs as it gets a little closer.
You know, to the Western Conference Finals and Eastern Conference Finals. So, we'll see.
I did do a couple of polls this week.
Oh, and you know what I forgot to mention? Yeah, Boston. Boston won. I picked them to win.
So, I mean, glad that they, you know, they pulled it out. I feel bad for the
Leafs. I mean, I feel like, I think they said the Leafs have lost so many Game 7s in a row.

(03:23):
So, that's, you never want to be a part of that stat.
But yeah, the couple polls I had this week, one of them, because yesterday was
May the 4th, be with you, was Star Wars Day.
So I did a poll. I put, do you like Star Wars, love Star Wars,
or no, there's something wrong with me.
And I guess there's a lot of, there's something wrong with a lot of people out there. Just kidding.
But yeah, 32% of the votes said, no, there's something wrong with me.

(03:46):
46% said they love Star Wars. 21% said they like Star Wars.
So the geeks who drink trivia question of the week was what is the,
what do you call it when you drop a shot of whiskey in a glass of beer. What is that called?
Obviously the options were Ironworker, Chicago Handshake, Boilermaker, Boson's Call.
This one was pretty obvious. It's a Boilermaker and only a few people got it

(04:08):
wrong. So I think it was about a hundred people were correct with the 36.
I'm sorry with the Boilermaker. And then there was only two people got the selected
Handshake and three people selected the Ironworker.
So yeah, I was kind of surprised. I figured that would be a a little bit more.
But the other question we had for this Sunday's episode was the, was summer coming?

(04:31):
Do you like, do you like shandies? Sorry, I can't talk this morning clearly.
And let's see. So for 18, let's see.
Oh no, I don't know. There was 180 said 55% of the vote said yes.
And then 45% of the vote said no.
So I was like, oh man, you got to give shandies a chance. I mean,
they got some good stuff, you know, and that's about all I have for the intro.

(04:55):
Like I said, I really excited for this, for you guys to hear this episode is
really fun with Kate and Christian, just really good people.
And that's all you can really ask for and go support, you know,
local. It's a really cool looking brewery. Can't wait for you guys to see the
real when this episode's out in about an hour or so.
So yeah. All right, well, let's go ahead and move on with the interview.
All right, guys, we're back in the tap room and I'm your host,

(05:16):
Mike. And I have a couple of very special guests on today.
I have Kate and Christian from Campsite Brewing over in Covina. How are you guys doing?
Doing great. Doing awesome. Thanks for having us.
Oh, thank you for allowing me to come down here and, you know,
have a couple of beers and chat with you guys for a little bit.
You guys have a really kick-ass brewery out here in Covina with the,
like, just the whole art, and we'll talk about that more on the show,

(05:39):
but the whole cabin vibe and everything like that is really cool.
But the first thing i always like to ask people is what
like like how did you guys get into craft beer like your journey
through the whole process how did that happen yeah it really
kind of started as a hobby as it starts with most brewers yeah and so my one

(06:01):
of my best friends him and i spent a lot of time together and and he one day
was saying like hey a family friend of mine is in a homebrew Club.
And it's really cool. They make all their own beer. And it's a neat atmosphere.
You should come with me. Oh, cool.
Interesting. Okay. Go to Homebrew Club. Hadn't really...
Known too much about homebrewing and wasn't a huge beer drinker,

(06:26):
but went to the homebrew club and really thought it was neat and was honestly
kind of blown away by all these guys who got together and made all this beer
and all sorts of different recipes.
And so after that, we kind of got talking. We're like, wow, this is really cool.
And both him and I, we love to work with our hands and do DIY. He's an engineer.

(06:49):
And so we thought like, hey, this is something that we could really get into.
And so we went on Northern Brewer and bought a homebrew kit and brewed our first batch.
And it was a wheat beer. We were really into wheat beers at the time.
I think Widmer Hefeweizen was our favorite beer.
And so we tried to make a clone of that and it actually turned out pretty well. Oh, nice.

(07:13):
And we're like, wow, this is pretty cool. and surprisingly
easier than we thought and so
it just the kind of the passion just kind of kept growing and growing and we
kept kind of expanding what we were doing and we were originally in my buddy's
house in Palos Verdes and in his in his parents house and and his parents were

(07:34):
starting to get a little little pissed off at us for having so much crap in the laundry room and
buckets here, and all that stuff.
So his uncle, oh, there goes the train. So we're right on the train tracks.
Oh, yeah, there it is, yeah.
So Devin's uncle owned a machine shop in Torrance, and he had a little front
office that he wasn't really using.
So we kind of took over that space, and we would go every two weeks.

(07:59):
We'd kind of go on a cycle. So we'd have like three batches going,
one in primary, one in secondary, and then we'd bottle another.
Other nice and so we kind of always had this rotating beer and we obviously
couldn't drink it fast enough so we just would give it away to friends yeah
of course and everybody was loving it.
And so, yeah, it started as just a, it's a really kind of fun hobby where we could be creative.

(08:24):
And I think that's what really drew it to me.
There's, there's the science, the chemistry behind it, which is appealing to me.
And then also the, the artistic part of it too, recipe creation and being able
to kind of create what your imagination wants to create in liquid form.
So that's what kind of got me started. And at the time, I was working as a paramedic.

(08:50):
My wife, Kate, and I met when we were in EMT school, when we were up north.
So we were both worked in the healthcare field.
And I had gone to a paramedic school. I was trying to get hired to be a firefighter.
Oh, wow. And during that time, there's a big hiring freeze. It was really hard
to get hired as a paramedic, as a firefighter.

(09:10):
So I was doing that for a long time and started to get burned out.
I was working for AMR in San Bernardino.
And just working through hard scenarios kind of day after day,
it really started to take a toll on me.
And I started to think, oh, man, what do I want to do? and I had had this pretty

(09:32):
amazing hobby of homebrewing. Yeah.
So I call it my quarter-life crisis of kind of deciding like I'm not happy as
a paramedic. What am I going to do?
And Kate and I kind of joke, we took turns kind of.
Supporting each other young or earlier on in
our in our lives and so she kind of said like no you should

(09:53):
you should like see what this would look like
like what would it what how would you pursue brewing and so she
had a nice stable gig as a as a
nurse and so it kind of allowed me to be like okay let's
explore what this would be so i kind of left my
paramedic job and thought let's try
it let's yeah let's see what let's see what it'll you know

(10:14):
like see what will happen and so i got
a job my first job in the brewing industry was at
socal homebrew in laverne okay so i
worked at a homebrew shop there and really really liked it really liked having
customers come in and and having a brewing knowledge and being able to share
it with them and and collaborate with on ideas and encourage new homebrewers

(10:39):
because i think it's intimidating a lot of the time oh for.
Sure it's a it's amazing how i always used
to tell them it's it's it's it's easy
to make beer or it's easy to
make decent beer it's hard to make great beer yeah but it's actually
really easy to make beer yeah and so
but like everything in life

(11:00):
when i go about doing something i i i go above 100 so i really wanted to get
a formal education in it too so i joined uc san diego's was brewing certificate
program and took their program and commuted down to San Diego twice a week for 18 months. Wow.
But it was a really neat program. I learned a lot and it was very well-rounded program.

(11:25):
Everything from recipe development, raw materials to finances and kind of laying
the groundwork of how to open or just start a brewery. Yeah.
So I did that for a a while and then and then
i got a job at that was then dale
brothers now last name brewing in upland yeah started

(11:46):
as as a hand bottler bottling some of
their packaged beer and bombers and then just slowly worked my way up to eventually
managing the production at last name brewing that's awesome yeah and then kind
of right before our first son was born kind of decided excited,

(12:09):
All right, what are we going to do? What's the next step? Yeah.
And that's when kind of the ideas of Campsite was born. Yeah.
Do you want to talk a little bit about that?
Yeah, tell us about it. You know, this is the first time I've had a husband
and wife on the show. Oh, cool. So there you go.
Yeah, tell us about it, Kate. Yeah, so during the time Christian was homebrewing,

(12:33):
our biggest hobbies were craft beer and camping.
Okay. I joke about how like before we had kids, we had so much free time.
Yeah. It's not a joke. It's the truth.
So we would go camping with kind of the same group of friends.
Okay. We would go together all
over like the desert. We did a lot of off-roading and overland camping.

(12:55):
And we would bring Christian and Devin's beer that they made.
Nice. And we tended to do a lot of family style meals.
I liked to cook. I would cook over the fire like a big Dutch oven meal. Oh, that's cool.
Yeah. So our hobbies were sharing food and beer with our best friends and we
would sit around the campfire and fantasize about making it our day job.

(13:15):
Like, how could we do this for a living?
And the experience of camping, of just like being in nature with friends and
being, you know, disconnected from devices and the stress of everyday life. Of course.
We really wanted to share that with people. So campsite, we really dreamt and
fantasized about it far before it was a reality or something we were even that serious about.

(13:40):
So like Christian was saying, I was a nurse. I was working in leadership.
My background's in healthcare leadership.
Okay. And Christian was working in craft beer, and we would talk about what
kind of brewery we wanted.
And the other thing we would talk about is how we would run things differently

(14:03):
as not just business owners, but employers.
And we really wanted to create a place where everybody felt welcome and really valued.
Yeah and health care it's hard to do that as a leader in health care to like
really take care of your team because there's a lot of barriers i bet so it

(14:23):
was i got on board because i would it was so interesting to me and i'm so passionate
about creating a work environment that is,
conducive to people's lives and where they're happy to go to work and you know
feel taken care And like, it doesn't, your work doesn't take away from your
life. It adds to it. Of course. Yeah.

(14:44):
So then when our son was born, we were looking at each other like, are we going to do this?
And so we, we got serious and started looking for a home for campsite.
We knew from the beginning, Christian wanted it to be a brew pub.
Yeah. You want to talk about that? Yeah, I...

(15:08):
You know, we took a lot of inspiration for Campsite from a lot of breweries in Colorado.
We have some family and friends that live in Colorado, so we spend quite a bit of time there.
And it's really interesting. In a lot of cities, kind of minus LA and even a

(15:29):
little bit San Diego, outside of California, there's a lot more brew pubs than
there are in California.
And i always just really
love that concept i really loved the
the food and beer together and especially kind
of our backstory of a lot of that kind of happening around
the campfire for us it made a lot of sense and i

(15:50):
always see the value i mean i always we'd always go to breweries when there's
a food truck and we'd go through the thing of like what food truck is there
i don't know and And so we really wanted to set something up where people could come,
they could come for the beer or they could come for the food and kind of the
synergy of food and beer together and creating the opportunity where people can come,

(16:17):
you know, come for 30 minutes on a lunch break and grab a burger and a beer
or come with their family and friends on the weekend and set up in the campground
and sit around the fireplace and sit for a while. for three hours, four hours.
Like we just wanted to create a place where people could come and share the beer and the food.

(16:37):
So the food component was always high up there on the priority.
That's cool. It also allows you to really diversify what's in the tap room.
Yes. Another big benefit is having the eating establishment allows us to serve wine and cider, too.
Oh, nice. So it really kind of opened the door for us to be as inclusive as possible.

(17:00):
So I know a lot of people sometimes maybe stray away from going to a brewery
because their partner or significant other isn't a beer drinker or doesn't like beer.
So we were like, we have something for everyone. one we
have non-alcoholic beverages that we make in-house you
know wine all that good stuff that's

(17:21):
awesome yeah yeah and so you know going back to
camping when we were deciding what we wanted campsite to look like and feel
like yeah we were actually very clear on what we wanted it to feel like we wanted
to feel very inviting we want it to feel like you were genuinely camping yeah
we We wanted it to be a place.

(17:43):
I kind of joke like we built it for ourselves. Yeah. It's made for people with families.
That's cool, though. You know, like, we want it to be a hangout place.
Fire pits were a must for us. That's cool. Which made it very challenging to
find a location. Yeah. Where you could have fire outside.
Yeah, because I didn't even think about that aspect of it. That must have been pretty tough.
Yeah. I mean, to be honest, it took a couple years to find a place that was

(18:08):
a good fit. Do you want to tell about our journey of finding a location a bit? Sure.
So we started, we live in Claremont. Okay. We found a great spot in Claremont
that we thought was like a perfect location for a brewery, just perfect.
Just south of the downtown. Good size for a little system.

(18:28):
I mean, you would have done a much smaller system there. I think,
well, we probably could have done similar five to seven barrel.
We're seven barrel right now. Okay. Yeah.
We're really excited about it. Really pumped. The city was supportive.
Oh, that's good. But we were in talks with the landlord for.
More than a year. More than a year. Oh, wow. Trying to negotiate a lease.

(18:49):
Space and it was so challenging and
so many barriers that we got to the point where we
were like okay is this a barrier or is it
a red flag yeah and yeah what is the universe trying to tell us yeah this location
and of course we we went i mean we got a conditional use permit we got everything
wow we we we really wanted it so we kept pushing even though we had we kept

(19:14):
having these roadblocks and those barriers.
It's so funny. You think it's your dream location. Yeah. And it's our dream.
It's our, you know, our new mission in life.
And then you find this location and you're working so hard towards it.
Yeah. And we were working with the city. We were hosting community events to
get support of the community because that's really important.
Working with an architect to do drawings because we were, we always felt like

(19:37):
we were so close. We were so close.
And then finally we had to make the hard decision of,
is this is this working out yeah
so we decided not to
and it was devastating i mean we felt we felt like maybe this wasn't going to
happen deflated yeah really deflated and honestly it wasn't that long until

(19:58):
we found this place in covina nice which is a hundred year old packing house
yeah it was built in 1922 wow packing houses are meant for barys yeah i mean it's just,
It gives you enough space. It's got that industrial feel.
Yeah. Amazing history. And then all the space for the outdoor seating.

(20:20):
And in the community of Covina, which is very family-oriented,
we're right by downtown, we're by the metro, it checked all of our boxes and then some.
Yeah. And really has become the home we didn't know we were looking for.
Yeah. You know, like. The home you didn't know you wanted. Yeah.
So it's a good lesson about, you know, things don't work out and they,

(20:42):
you know, they'll end up how they're supposed to.
Oh, yeah. And I think that's just life in general. Like sometimes you feel like
there's like a change you're unsure about or something like that or something
you like you dream about this happening.
And like I mentioned earlier, like taps and tailgates. I thought that was the one. Yeah.
And then, you know, people didn't like it at all, kind of fell out of love with
it. Not people, but the people that were a part of it.

(21:04):
And now this happens. I mean, I totally understand that aspect.
It's like we have to kind of pivot, even though it's something you were so passionate about.
Well, that's so interesting. thing it's it's it's such an interesting perspective
to to think you had the best and then
yeah something better comes along and it just
gave us a bit of faith in that like oh i think

(21:24):
we are meant to do this yeah and we just had to
keep persevering and and and keep trying and and the
perfect home fell into our lap yeah but we were we
were never i mean i mean we we'd i've lived in
southern california my whole life we knew we wanted to be in southern california
and yeah we'd love claremont and wanted it
to be in claremont originally but but when

(21:46):
we found this space it just it made so much sense for
us to and and also
the city of covina we can't stress enough how welcoming they've been and how
supportive they've been in our build process that's one of our big hurdles during
building was covid and that was a big challenge i'm honestly glad that

(22:10):
you know, we were building during COVID rather than just opening during COVID. Oh, definitely.
But it still slowed us down quite a bit. But it took us four years to build this place.
And, you know, we started with pretty much literally a 1920s packing house, and that's about it.
So we had to put new gas, new electric, everything, new plumbing, just the whole thing.

(22:34):
So it would have been faster and honestly cheaper for us to have just demoed
the place and built a new building, but that's not what we wanted.
We wanted the character.
We wanted the history. Yeah, you wanted those bones. Yeah, we wanted the bones. So...
Yeah, so we're really happy with where, you know, we ended up.

(22:55):
And we're really excited about the city of Covina and not only where they are today,
but they're really putting a lot into growing their community and developing
this kind of expanding downtown area.
The area that we're in, it was recently rezoned to, they called a fair district,

(23:17):
their Fine Arts Industrial Residential. So they're trying to kind of turn this into an arts district.
And they were really excited because they wanted a concept like us.
They wanted something to come in and be kind of the anchor to kind of create
this expanding downtown.

(23:39):
And so we're really excited for the future of Covina.
And just across the train tracks,
the city has big plans on building a rec center and a dog park. Oh, nice.
Hopefully a pedestrian bridge that comes over right here. So we're really excited
for the future and, and just our location being more and more accessible and
more kind of tied to downtown.

(24:01):
Yeah. That's awesome. And I think it's so cool too, that like,
you know, you're driving down, it's industrial area, then you see the big old
log, you see a big old cabin, you know, and it's eye catching because then that's
not, you know, because obviously you're driving down the industrial area,
you see that and you're like, what is that?
And it makes you want to stop and it makes you want to look it up.
Oh, what is this place? Yeah.
So that's awesome. Yeah, we feel like we, you know, it's hard.

(24:23):
A lot of breweries being in industrial parks and having, you know,
having a space where you have enough space for a brewery, it's often not in smack dab in a downtown.
So we felt like this was a pretty good in-between of, you know,
it's only a quarter mile.
Oh, yeah. So in theory, you could walk. It's a bit of a long walk.
But it was close enough. Yeah. Yeah, so it felt like it was close enough to downtown where.

(24:48):
We had a little bit of the best of both worlds of having enough space and being
in an industrial area, but really seeing the potential of that someday it might
just be an expansion of downtown.
And so it had really good growth potential for us too.
Yeah. I think that's cool that the city's, you know, wanting like you guys to

(25:10):
essentially be like the cornerstone of all this area. I mean,
because even going back to maybe even 10 years ago, there was,
there's people, there were some cities that didn't want breweries around.
Yes. And now I feel like they've kind of like learned and they've done their
due diligence and realized like this is, you know, it's community building.
It's not just about going somewhere and getting drunk.
Yes. You know. Well, and I think that's the big difference is people are realizing

(25:33):
that the brewery scene is way different than the bar scene.
Oh, definitely. Yeah. And it, it has a lot to, to offer.
Yeah. And it's, they're family friendly. They really are. Oh, yeah. Yeah.
Definitely. And one thing I wanted to ask, because you mentioned that you like
to cook and you were cooking the Dutch oven on over a campfire.
What was your guys' favorite kind of thing to have when you would cook that
stuff? Well, good question.

(25:54):
One of my go-tos is a chicken curry. Oh, there you go.
So I would make it from scratch with coconut milk and lemongrass and all that over the fire.
There you go. So when we were crafting our menu, we really wanted to bring some
of our favorites into our menu, but make them more accessible.
So that's the birth of the chicken curry pot pie, which is on our menu. Oh, wow.

(26:17):
Yeah. Dang. Yeah. So it's. As far as I know, there's, no one's really done a
pot pie chicken curry style. Oh, yeah.
So it's kind of fun. I've never even heard of that before. Yeah.
That's interesting. But camping food is like, it's, it's gotta be cozy.
Yeah. It's gotta be. Like chili and stuff like that too. Filling,
satisfying. Chili is a must. Mm-hmm. Yeah.
So a pot pie is perfect for that. Oh, yeah.

(26:40):
It's like chili and cornbread. That's one of my favorite things to make in the
winter is chili and cornbread. I'll let it cook for like 12 hours and do that
whole thing. It's so good. So good.
Yeah. So we have chili on our menu. Okay.
Cooked with our, what beer is in it? The Blonde.
The Blonde Ale. Oh, yeah. That's got to be good. I mean, because the Blondes
are like, you know, easy to drink and they're not like too bitter or anything like that.

(27:01):
So I'm sure it adds like a different kind of profile to the chili.
Yeah. Yeah, so that's another really
fun thing is figuring out how we can incorporate the beer into the food.
That's awesome. Yeah. That's so cool.
Was there a craft beer? Because then you said you went to like a homebrew club,
but was there like a craft beer that kind of got you into like wanting to do something like that?

(27:22):
Yeah, I would say I had mentioned Widmer Hefeweizen. Yeah. I was really into wheat beer.
Not huge, like most beer drinkers, not huge into IPAs.
Oh, yeah. I think it's an acquired taste. And so, yeah, I really loved wheat
beers. I love fruited beers.
One of my favorites that we made early on was a pomegranate wheat where my buddy

(27:43):
at his parents' house had a pomegranate tree and just a bunch of pomegranates
and threw it in secondary.
And it was, you know, fruity and kind of champagne-y and it was really good.
And our friends just loved that one. Yeah.
And so we have a we have a current kettle sour on that's called Palm Peaks that's
inspired by that a little bit. I knew I wanted a pomegranate beer.

(28:05):
Yeah. And we just did it in kettle sour form. And it's really nice and refreshing.
But I, you know, I, I kind of my when I was getting into homebrewing,
it was in what, like 2013.
Yeah, 12 or so. So I feel like there was still a lot of...

(28:32):
Like, I don't know how to explain it, like a lot of true-to-style beer styles.
Oh, yeah, yeah. Of kind of... Everything's going to be bitter.
Yes, kind of more classic beer styles.
So I think if I had to say that I was going to drink one beer for the rest of
my life and I had to pick one, it would probably be Sierra Nevada Pale Ale.

(28:53):
Oh, it's a classic, yeah. Because it has a little bit of everything.
And so that was my go-to for a really long time.
Yeah and to be completely honest and transparent our
pale ale trailhead yeah which was the first beer
that we made well the first it's
not the first beer we made but it's the first beer we we put on

(29:13):
tap and so we called it trailhead to kind
of symbolize like this is the beginning yeah that's cool but it's very much
inspired by sierra nevada pale ale that's awesome so a little bit of homage
to that to one of my favorite beers of all time oh it's a classic and i feel
like Like there's so many people that I talked to that's like the one that did
it for them. Yeah. I mean, and it was one of the ones for me too.

(29:33):
I, I just, the first crap beer I ever had was a double bastard.
I'm like, this is not for me. I mean, but it was just because my palate was,
yeah, my palate wasn't ready for it. Yeah. But eventually like I grew to kind of like it.
I said, kind of like it, but it's even then it's like I could tolerate it. Yeah.
But yeah, it's just kind of crazy. Like how your palate changes over the years
and stuff like that. Cause even for years I was into sours. I was into hazies.

(29:56):
Yeah. And now it's like, all right, well, I'm kind of into the more mellow stuff
because I don't want to, you know, I don't want to have too many of the other ones that are high ABV.
And then I'm, you know, got to make sure everybody's safe.
Yeah. And it's really interesting. And I, I wonder too, as I,
as I age, a lot of my friends and acquaintances, acquaintances that I have met

(30:18):
in the brewing industry are kind of aging with me.
And it's interesting how styles are evolving and I'm.
I would kind of consider myself as a bit, not traditional in terms of like.
You know, purity law or anything like that, because I love all sorts of different experiments.

(30:38):
But I do struggle sometimes with how style guidelines start to switch and merge
and these new styles that are creating.
And our West Coast IPA, PCH, is kind of a classic West Coast.
It has a little bit of crystal malt in it. And a lot of brewers these days are

(31:01):
putting crystal malt in West Coast. But that's when I started homebrewing, that's what it was.
And so it's just really interesting.
And it's exciting to be a part of the beer industry that's kind of always evolving and always changing.
There's always a new trend. Yes, there's always the new trend. But it's exciting.

(31:24):
It's exciting and it's fun to figure out where I want to position myself in that trend.
Oh, for sure. and I mean we're still
still brand new we haven't even been open for a
year yet and so I'm really excited about the future
to come and how we can continue to push and develop and expand our beer program
here that's awesome yeah and I mean I can only like imagine how gratifying it

(31:47):
is for NBC being a married couple like you know obviously being here and having
your family and like just being able to see what this place has become and even
you know in less than a year yeah.
It's been a it's been quite a journey though
this first year yeah i mean kate and i came from
health care and brewing we haven't we have

(32:08):
honestly this is very
new for us to run a restaurant and a brewery and there has been some ups and
downs along the way yeah want to talk anything with that sure yeah i think it's
interesting how you go into it with a vision and like i said we had thought

(32:28):
about for For a long time.
Yeah. So we had like a very clear picture in our head of how campus I would
look and feel and be. Yeah.
And it's funny how many things had to go. Yeah.
Or did not work. Yeah. And like Christian said, a lot of our inspiration came
from Colorado breweries, breweries outside of California. Yeah.

(32:52):
And we were a little naive, I think, to think that we could drop something that
would work in Denver into San Gabriel Valley. Yeah. The...
Model we originally started with which was you order your food
and beer at the bar and go have a seat and sit anywhere you like there's
no table service anything like that very common

(33:14):
at other breweries like it's all bar service and and we were very intentional
with that because we really loved the guest-led experience yeah we loved like
the brewery experience and and and part of that like being able to stay four
hours short as long as you wanted and not having a server bug you and
you have to ask for the check and all that stuff. We really wanted a very casual experience.

(33:38):
So that's what led us to that original service model of quick service.
Come and order at the counter and go sit down.
Yeah, and I think when we talk about wanting to start Campsite,
it was for sure about the craft beer, but it was also about the experience you had here. Of course.
We really wanted to create an experience for people where they felt like they were camping.

(34:01):
They were drinking really good craft beer. They were really relaxed.
There's no TVs bugging you. There's no server bugging you. You're like really
connected with each other.
You're in the moment. You're in the moment. That's awesome.
However, when we first opened our opening weekend.

(34:22):
Our soft opening. Our soft opening. So a soft open is supposed to be where you
have your training wheels on.
Yeah. It's when you get to work out the kinks as a business.
Of course. You get to train your staff. You get to see what works, what doesn't work.
And you do that before you tell anybody that you're open so that you get to practice. Yeah.
Well, we made a mistake and we sent out a newsletter to our like 1,000 email

(34:49):
list. Yeah, we had less than 1,000 like email lists that we had gained over our.
Yeah. Yeah. Thinking like, oh, it'll be exclusive, right?
They were supporting us. they had signed up for our
email list there was only a thousand people right because also being in
an industrial place we thought well customers still
have to come to the soft open and they're not

(35:09):
just gonna like stumble upon campsites we have to tell some
people we were worried how you know how much do we tell how much do we not tell
yeah so we sent it to like a thousand people thinking like over the course of
a week a couple hundred will circle in yeah it was thousands of damn they got
post our email like newsletter got posted on facebook groups it just exploded.

(35:32):
And i think the anticipation yeah was quite a lot i mean we had been building
this place for four years and we you know we're trying to kind of showcase what
we were doing through the build process yeah through social media so i think
a lot of people were kind of blown away by what we were trying to do.
That's cool. And so, man, we just got obliterated. I mean, trial by fire. Yeah.

(35:56):
Talk about being pushed in the deep end. Yeah. And that is great.
I mean, it was amazing and very special and so exciting to have people excited.
At our brewery like it's so surreal yeah however it
wasn't always the best guest experience for our customers
because they had to wait hours to get
in sometimes because we were at capacity their their

(36:18):
beer was getting lost we were running out of food because we hadn't
purchased enough food wow yes yeah the first few weekends we we literally like
went through all our inventory of food every day so we had to get we're closing
early because we were running out wow and we had We had to get like and replenish
and reprep all the food for the very next day. And then we'd run out that day. Wow.

(36:40):
And so we had to add like, we had to buy a bunch of refrigeration and freezers.
Yeah. Wow.
Our staff was getting nailed. They were so exhausted.
I bet. They were. We were like, can you stay a little longer?
Like, please. You know, like, we'll buy your meal. Yeah. Pretty please.
Yeah. Like quickly, we were like, oh, my God, we have to hire more people.

(37:02):
We have to buy more chairs.
So, yes, it was good problems to have, but it was really challenging. Oh, I bet.
And when you talk about working out kinks, it's challenging to work out kinks
with thousands of people.
And the problems we have then are different than the problems we have now because
it's calmed down and now we have a normal guest flow. Yeah.

(37:23):
But I do have to say, I do look back on that time and think about how fun it was.
Yeah. Yeah, because we were all excited. Our management team,
we work so well together. We really enjoy working with them.
It was like very all hands on deck. Everybody here long hours.
And then after closing, we would pour a beer, get some fries and a pizookie.

(37:46):
There you go. Sit on the deck and talk through what worked, what didn't work. That's cool.
Like, you know, two thirty in the morning. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.
It's almost, what's the expression? Is it flying on the seat of your pants?
Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah. So you guys were just, you know.
And we've never owned a restaurant before, so it was very much like,
we don't know what we're doing. We're just making this up as we go.

(38:07):
Especially coming from my background as kind of a do-it-yourselfer, we did a lot ourselves.
And, I mean, I'm the head brewer, an owner, and a CEO. Yeah.
That's too much. Yeah, three jobs.
And then probably a couple other jobs came up in there, too.
And we have three kids under six. Yeah, geez, yeah.

(38:29):
So it was a lot. And wow, we learned, like Kate said, like trial by fire. And we learned so much.
But it was really challenging to adapt as quickly as we needed to.
And as quickly as the public and our guests needed us to.

(38:50):
Of course. And so about six months into us being open,
through a few different factors,
we decided to change our service model because we found that it wasn't quite
translating how we wanted it.

(39:12):
And the guest experience wasn't quite what we wanted.
I think, like we said earlier, like Kate said earlier, we had this vision of
what we thought our guests and our community wanted.
But it was a brand new concept that no one had ever really seen or felt or been a part of.

(39:34):
And it's very important to us to support our community and our customer base.
And so we knew that we wanted to, we had to make sure that it was the right
choice. So we waited for about six months.
And then we said, no, you know, we're getting a lot of people that because we

(39:57):
were so busy in those original times, people would come with like a date, right?
And they would go order their beer and go sit down.
And the problem is like, so the line's long. I got to get up. I got to leave my date.
To go back in line or I got to bring my date and then we lose our table.
And so it didn't quite translate as we wanted.

(40:20):
And it was really important to us to figure out how do we still maintain that
guest-led experience and not go straight back to a traditional restaurant service model.
In the brewery atmosphere. We're a brewery. That's what we wanted.
We wanted to open a brewery that had a restaurant. Not be a restaurant that makes its own beer.

(40:40):
And I think because we have such a strong culinary program with our chef junior,
I think a lot of people saw us as a restaurant that makes its own beer,
whereas we always saw ourselves as a brewery who makes our own food.
And so we just had to kind of figure out how to pivot and change that.

(41:00):
And so that's when we came up with the QR code ordering model because we really
still wanted that guest-led experience.
Now when you come to campsite nine times out of
ten it's open seating we really only switch to like
helping guests find a seat when we're at our peak capacity but
it's pretty much you come you show up you you can sit at any table

(41:20):
any fire pit inside outside on the patio anywhere and there's a qr code on every
table you scan the qr code with your phone and all our beers all our food is
there with pictures and descriptions and you awesome you you order and pay all
on your phone and then And our team runs the beer out. Our team runs the food out.

(41:41):
And so we felt like that was the best model to kind of accomplish everything
that we were trying to accomplish.
And we feel like we've gotten pretty good feedback. And I think a lot of people
are liking it. That's good.
But what we've really identified is, you know, we can't make everybody happy. be.
But it's just trying to make the most amount of people happy while still maintaining

(42:05):
what we want out of the experience we want our guests to have.
That's awesome. Yeah. And I think I want to talk about our one other thing we do that's different.
That's not super typical in this area.
It's our service charge. Okay. So we both have worked in hospitality before.

(42:25):
And I think what What a lot of people don't know is legally in California,
when you tip a waiter or a server, the tip only can go to them.
The business cannot dictate where tips go.
So it's a lot of places it is the culture to share tips with like the backup

(42:46):
house, the kitchen staff, the bussers, that sort of thing.
Yeah. But we can't mandate it. And usually it's a very small percentage of the
server's tips. Okay. You'd tip out like.
When I worked at kind of an upscale restaurant as a waiter, you know,
you'd get maybe $200 in tips and maybe tip the bartender out $40 and the kitchen staff maybe $20, $30.

(43:12):
So it's really only 10% of your tips that you'd pass back to the kitchen.
And if you, we looked at it, we tried to be really calculated with it.
And we looked at, like, okay, how much does a server typically make,
including tips, and how much does, say, a dishwasher make?
And it's an astronomical difference how much servers typically can make with

(43:33):
tips. More than twice. Yeah. More than twice. Yeah.
And that also translates to the brew team. So the people who make the food and
the people who make the beer make an hourly wage that any brewery or restaurant
owner will tell you, with our margins, you can only pay them so much.
Yeah. I mean, nobody gets really rich doing this.

(43:54):
And the people who make the most money are the servers.
And like I said, it was important to us to make a business that was run a little differently.
We feel like as business owners, you have the opportunity to really...
Can impact and live through your values. Yeah.

(44:14):
So for us, we wanted to be employee focused and we wanted to take care of all of our employees.
That's awesome. And the way for us to legally do that was a service charge.
So a service, we do a service charge instead of a tip.
It's an 18% added to your bill, your food and beer bill. It is optional.
A guest is welcome to say, hey, I'd like to take that taken off.

(44:38):
But the service charge goes to us, and then we get to decide how it's distributed,
and 100% of it goes to our staff.
That's awesome. And we distribute it to the servers, the kitchen staff, and our brewers.
So it's essentially everybody on the team gets a portion of the sales.
That's really cool that you guys do that. And our big goal there was to make it more equal.

(45:00):
Yeah, of course. We kind of felt that the way that California does its tipping
is it's, it's, it's not fair. And honestly, it's not fair.
It's not, it's not equal that we really found that, like,
how can you, how can Brewer, who is working with chemicals and,

(45:21):
and temperature and hot environments and, and lifting kegs and doing all this stuff,
how is a human who's working at the hardest they can work? Yeah.
And a, and a cook who's like flipping, flipping burgers and frying fries and
just, it's 120 degrees on the cook line.
Like, and then, and then nothing against servers, but then the person who pours

(45:43):
your beer and walks it out to you gets twice as much money because that's the
person who walked it out to you.
That doesn't really make sense to us and we really wanted to support all our
staff and through this whole process and hiring our kitchen staff most kitchen
staff come having two, three jobs whereas.

(46:04):
About maybe half our kitchen staff this is their only job because we are actually
able to share some of that tips with them so they don't have to go get two jobs and.
Yeah and I think it's And it's hard for a lot of our customers.
They don't understand it. They see it as mandatory tipping, which we totally understand.

(46:26):
It's been hard to get our message across that it's not mandatory.
You can remove it. Even with the QR code, you can ask a server and they'll remove it for you.
But it is just our way of doing things a little differently.
It's not uncommon. It's just uncommon in this area. Yeah.
It's new and change and new things are challenging and...

(46:47):
Infusing. Yeah. But you want to support the people that are working their tails off.
Yeah. And be able to, whether it's the brewers, the people in the back,
because, yeah, being on a cook line, I'm sure it's like, you know, crazy back there. Yeah.
Yeah. And none of it goes to campsite. It's all distributed to our staff. That's awesome.
I think a lot of people feel fearful that it goes to the company.

(47:08):
Some restaurants do do that. The service charge does go to ownership.
It kind of puts a bad taste in customers' mouths. Yeah. That is not our intent.
Our intent was like, how can we get creative?
And we also really, it was our intention to be very transparent about it too.
There's a lot of ways where us as owners could have figured out how to essentially

(47:34):
get that money from our customers and funnel it to our employees.
And a lot of people criticize us for like, well, why don't you just increase your prices?
And we thought sure we
could charge 18 more on all our
prices and do a zero tipping model yeah but
then a lot of people have issues with not tipping and they

(47:55):
want to tip on top of that so then it would be tipping 40 yeah because they'd
be tipping 20 and then 20 or 18 and 18 so we thought like hey let's put a big
thing that says service charge and try to explain it so that we we could have
competitive pricing and we're not we're not trying to hide this service charge
anywhere We're putting it right on the tab.

(48:16):
That also, we felt like, is more transparent than burying it in the prices.
Yeah, that's good. One of our values is transparency.
And so we really wanted to be totally upfront with our customers and say,
hey, this is this thing we're trying. That's awesome. If you'd like to do it, do it with us.
But I think in the beginning with really long lines, not as great service because
we didn't have enough staff and we had really too many people here.

(48:40):
And then the service charge.
Hard on a lot of customers. I bet. And we had to ask ourselves,
what can we do to change and what is too important to us in our value system?
And we went into this wanting to do what's best for our community and do what's

(49:01):
best for our campsite community.
And our family, our employees that are so quickly becoming our family.
So the service charge stayed and we just wanted to create an environment where
the guests felt more taken care of, which is why the QR code helps because they
get more service and then manage,
make the guest experience better, but still do what's important to us,

(49:24):
which is taking care of our staff.
That's good. I mean, I think the QR code model works too, because in internet,
like you said earlier, like not feeling pressured by, you know,
somebody like, oh, you can go whenever you want kind of thing, you know.
But, you know, I feel like in restaurants, they come drop it off for a reason,
you know. But I think that's really cool that you guys do that.
You know, for everybody and not just, you know, like servers and stuff like

(49:48):
that. So that's cool. Thanks.
Yeah. But we mean, I mean, we mean what we say. We really wanted to create a
fun atmosphere where you can pretty much stay as long as you want.
Yeah. And people stay for like an hour.
Yeah. They like post up, they come on a Sunday morning with their kids and they
spend, hang for the day, which.
That's cool. Honestly, it's so cool for us to see. Yeah.

(50:11):
That's what you wanted. With the camping kind of thing, like everybody around
the fire doing all that sort of thing. Take your time. Yeah.
That's awesome. Do you mind if we grab one more beer? Yeah, sure.
Sweet. What would you like?
All right. And we're back. I got the PCH. I'm excited to try this one.
I did have your West Coast Pilsner earlier, and that was delightful.
Awesome. Glad you liked it. So, so good.
I'm going to jump into this one. But what are your kind of favorite styles to brew?

(50:34):
Route so starting kind
of broad and and narrowing narrowing our way down
and in i would say ipas and sours
those are my two favorites i really
kind of like the science of
sours and and i'm a
fan of clean fermentation okay so

(50:57):
we brew almost exclusively american
style beer and i know that american style beer
came it didn't you know it came from other beer styles
but but i really you know
being on the west coast i i really like west coast
style beer so yeah so i i really like west coast ipas i think they're i think

(51:19):
they're really fun to make and that balance between malt and hops is exciting
to play with and and to kind of balance and then i really like hazy ipas okay Okay.
Kind of when those started kicking off, I was a little hesitant in the beginning. Yeah.
But when I kind of started having a few of them, I was like,

(51:41):
oh, wow. Yeah. They just taste so good. Yeah. They just taste so good.
And it's all that yummy hop aroma and flavor with not a lot of that punch in your face bitterness.
So, yeah, I would say hazies and kind of what you can do with biotransformation hops.
And I love, one of my favorite things is handing someone a hazy and saying,

(52:04):
wow, what fruit did you put in this?
It's like, nope, nothing. That's all hops and yeast. Yeah, maybe so. Yeah.
So that's really fun. But kind of the science and chemistry behind sour is really interesting.
We actually have a kettle sour going in the kettle right now. Oh, nice.
And it's just really neat and fun. fun and to be able to play with different

(52:28):
city levels and, and the sours that we do here so far are all fruited sours.
So kind of figuring out what, what fruits go well with them and, and flavors.
And I love the combination of kind of sweet and sour.
And I'm really excited to also kind of push forward our barrel program.

(52:48):
We have, what was really neat about our location in this old packing houses, we have a basement.
It's the same square footage as the upper. So we have 4,000 square feet of basement
space where we turned it into offices, and an employee break room,
and our big walk-in refrigerators down there.
But we have a small event space down there called our Barrel Room.

(53:11):
So we have a couple bourbon barrels down there.
Oh, nice. And for our anniversary party that's coming up on May 18th. Okay.
Which we'd love to kind of put a plug in there for. Oh, definitely.
Yeah. I'll do that because this episode will be out in, what, I think three weeks?
Awesome. Cool. Perfect timing. Perfect timing. So we're doing,
we're throwing a big parking lot event where we're bringing all the kitchen

(53:34):
crew out of the kitchen and we're cooking all our food out in the parking lot
that's cool and we're going to have multiple pour stations out there and just
kind of have a have music and just trying to,
try to showcase what campsite's all about and we're adding
our target is 10 but we might
get more additional beers on tap kind of
spread out throughout so and one of

(53:57):
the big things we're excited about is our first bourbon barrel aged release
okay um so we have a bourbon barrel aged stout that
we're planning to release on the anniversary day yeah are
you gonna bottle beer right first ever bourbon
barrel aged beer yeah nice are you gonna bottle it we are okay because
i know those like anything bourbon barrel age they always those fly off the
shelf yeah yeah so we're really excited about that but i also i feel like it's

(54:24):
it's still it's been less than a year i feel like i still have so much to grow
and so much room to develop our beer program.
And we haven't even touched the surface of distribution or anything.
It's all in-house right now. So we're really excited about the future and what
holds for us. And hopefully win some medals.

(54:45):
We submitted some beers to GABF this year and got to the final round but didn't get any medals.
And we submitted some beers to World Beer Cup coming up soon. In Vegas, right?
Yeah, fingers crossed. We're going to CBC in Vegas. i guess awesome so yeah
i'm really excited about where where the beer program will
take us that's cool man one one thing when i love

(55:07):
talking to brewers is like it's never good
enough yeah like i mean that then to me that's that's what this show is about
for me too it's like that i may have a phenomenal episode at least in my eyes
it'll be a great episode and people sometimes will be like hey it was great
episode whatever but i it's never good enough like i want it to be better and
that's why i love like like a brewer's mentality because it's not if you're

(55:28):
You're getting complacent.
Like, you know, you're not growing anymore.
Always pushing. One of our big core values is excellence.
And to me, that's continuing to push the envelope and continuing to learn,
grow, be better at what we do.
Yeah. I mean, that's what it's all about. It's about, you know,

(55:48):
growing and just wanting to make better beer or make better product,
but also, you know, make, you know, make something out there or put something
out there that the world's going to love too. Yeah.
That's so cool. That's awesome. Do you like craft beer? I'm assuming you like
craft beer, Kate. I do. What are your favorite kind of styles you like to drink?

(56:10):
This is a cheating answer because it's almost everybody's answer at Campsite,
but our Honu Hazy is one of my favorites.
It's just so good. It's tasty. It's juicy.
The can is beautiful. Yeah. So we always have a four-pack at home in our fridge. There you go.
Yeah, but I like to try everything the guys make. That's awesome. Yeah. Yeah.

(56:33):
Did you, when you guys would go camping, so it was like the,
you said it would be like your Heffs and stuff like that.
Was that kind of got you into the beer scene or were you into beer before that?
No, I think it was getting into beer with them. I mean, I would go with them when they would brew.
She would help us bottle some. Oh, that's awesome. But anybody who's homebrewed
knows that bottling is so labor intensive.

(56:55):
So sometimes I would be like, oh my gosh, are we really, that's how we're spending our weekend. Yeah.
Isn't it crazy though too, even like the canning stuff now, like you can buy
like a smaller, smaller canning lines, but like before you had to buy,
like they'd even going back to like 2010 probably.
And before that, like if you wanted to can your stuff, it had to be like,

(57:16):
asking that coke would you coke and pepsi would use this isn't a coke
sponsored episode or anything like that so but yeah
something like that like it's kind of like it's crazy now
they have you know they make these smaller canyons to be able to do that yeah
it's crazy how far the industry's yes and just that right continuing to push
and develop and and evolve yeah and you know there's all these you know there's

(57:39):
always something new happening and there's all the different trends You know,
it's kind of funny, though,
our most recent pregnancy with our youngest child,
very similarly correlated with the how long we've been open.
Okay. Kate actually, until very recently, until two months ago,
hasn't really been able to have much of our beer.
Yeah, we found out we were pregnant with our third a month after we opened. Oh, wow. Yeah.

(58:03):
So to be honest, I had like the first 10 beers.
And then now that I can drink again, we're like, have like 24 on the board.
I missed a few in the middle. Playing a lot of catch up. Oh, that's cool.
I mean, and I know, I just feel like it's like what you guys are doing right

(58:23):
now. And obviously this PCH is really good.
And I love that golden, obviously hue to it. Yeah, it's kind of a,
I mean, I don't know what you can, it's, it's more traditional West Coast.
I was gonna say like a throwback. Yeah, yeah. But that's, that's really good.
It's super smooth and I love the lacing on there. Just saying there. Yeah.
You know, it just, I don't mean, I love craft beer, but I love hearing people's stories behind it.

(58:49):
And it makes it that, it makes the beer that much better. Yeah.
Because you want to support people like you guys.
Like everything you had to go through to can even like, and you also hear,
you know, people say that like, you know, they, because everybody was had a
job before they started, they decided, Hey, I'm going to do this instead.
And for you guys to be willing and having that support system.

(59:11):
Be willing to chase your dream. I mean, that's, you know, that's what this is all about.
Yeah, it really is. And I think it's neat. I think that's why craft beer has
grown so much is because you can, you know, you can come to a place like Campsite.
You can walk up the ramp here.
You can peer in these giant windows we put into the brew house.

(59:31):
Yeah. So that you can see that, you can see myself and our two brewers putting
in the blood, sweat, and tears beers to, to, you know, hand make this,
this beverage for you that, you know, when you're looking at it,
like has more of a soul than just some big factory, just pumping out beer.
And yeah, we're just, we just want that to translate. And we just,

(59:53):
we just, we just want to make really good, good beer, the best beer we can make
and just make everybody happy and, and enjoy it. That's awesome.
Yeah. I think there's a lot of grit in the craft beer industry.
Oh yeah. Because to open a brewery takes a lot. Oh, for sure.
And any craft brewery has had some trials to get open because there's a lot

(01:00:16):
of obstacles, like with the city and all the equipment, and it requires a lot of funding.
Yeah. So to get to the point of being open, you really feel the love in it because
people have had to overcome a lot of barriers.
100%. And I think that's what we love about the industry is it's the passion. Like, you feel it.

(01:00:36):
Yeah. And pretty much any craft beer, craft brewery you go to,
you can, you can see the passion, you can see what they value.
You can like, you can get a feel for who makes the beer there by the kind of
beer they make and the quality of it and the environment they've created there.
Oh, yeah. And that's how I was going to ask, like, what do you guys love about the industry?
But I mean, that's like, you know, and I also love like the,

(01:00:56):
like everybody willing to help.
Yeah. You know, and you get like, you'll get friends and family to,
you know, like, because you're a DIY guy, like you were saying,
like, sometimes you need friends
and family. Like, Hey, could you do drywall or something like that?
You know, I mean, we, we, my dad and I, we really feel like we kind of built
this brewery with our bare hands. Cause we were awesome. We were the first people here.

(01:01:17):
This was an old essentially like an animal wholesale feed warehouse.
And we we, my dad and I did a bunch of the demo just by ourselves.
We were just here knocking out wood and, and we w we, yeah, we really kind of felt like we.
Blood sweat and tears and that's awesome um and yeah

(01:01:40):
i think the brewing industry as a
whole the camaraderie the the just the willingness to help and is is tremendous
and nothing like i've ever experienced in any other industry i've been in i
mean to be honest this was new and and you

(01:02:00):
know, it's, it's challenging running a brewery and managing production on a brand new facility,
especially one where, you know, a lot of breweries kind of start smaller and
work their way up where we kind of took a big leap and kind of went all in and
started with our seven barrel system and with this,

(01:02:21):
this big restaurant that we,
we needed to make sure we had enough beer.
Year and through the through the past you
know 10 months i it's hard to stay
on top of inventory and enough in enough grain and so
i'd be calling claremont craft dales and arrow lodge be like guys do you have
an extra bag of this or for short this and everyone has been so helpful and

(01:02:42):
and so supportive and it's just it's been amazing and both great breweries i
love because you guys would be i was because you mentioned being from claremont
they had their was it pepper and peaches Yeah.
Recently. Yeah. Oh, that was, yeah, that was good. And it won a medal,
I think at the brewers cup, right? Yeah, it did.
Yeah. Yeah. When we started home brewing, we lived across the.
Oh, okay. Yeah. So that was really our first craft brewery, to be honest, that we went to.

(01:03:06):
And I mean, what a starter brewery. That was really what we would go there on
weekends for the food truck and the beers. And they have a great vibe.
So that really honestly sparked the like, I want to do this. This is fun.
It's kind of funny. I tried to work there twice. Oh, did you? Yeah.

(01:03:26):
What were you trying to do there? Well, the first job before I got hired at Dale Brothers,
they were hiring a delivery driver oh okay and i i
sat down with them and actually actually a really good
business lesson that i learned from them is they
said we we love you we think you would be a great delivery
driver but we know that you want to be a brewer and so we're not going to hire

(01:03:48):
you for a delivery driver position to then just fit you yeah lose you a drill
driver to try to make your brewer so like yeah come back and apply when there's
a brewer position i was like yeah I just marked my foot in the door.
That's how I ended up at Dale Brothers. Okay. And then, yeah,
so it's just kind of funny how everything kind of comes together.
But we use that principle now. We do, yes. Because when people are interested

(01:04:11):
in working in the brewery, we're like, okay, well, what's your goal?
Yeah. Because we, you know, we want to hire people who are interested in growing in the industry.
Oh, yeah. Not just like doing it for fun. But you also, like,
you want people that want to chase, you know, chase something.
Yes. They're willing to chase their dreams like you guys were.
And that's the other thing that we've learned is not necessarily.

(01:04:34):
I mean, obviously experience is a big part of it, but hiring for drive,
determination, and character.
Oh, 100%. Because there's a lot of
what we do on the brooding side and even
in the front of the house that if you have the
right mentality and drive you can

(01:04:55):
teach anybody anything yeah i like to
joke that like you could you could you could teach a monkey how to operate the
brew house if it's an automated brew house right yeah there's just all you have
to do is certain temperatures at certain times but but it's that it's that it's
that charisma it's that character it's that dedication attention to detail that

(01:05:17):
really sets an employee apart. It's that want, that wanting kind of more.
And that's cool. I mean, it's cool that you guys do that because not,
there's, I mean, corporate America. Yeah. Not a lot of, they don't,
like, they just want another number.
Yeah. You know, and for you guys to care so much about that aspect of it,
and obviously the employees you already have.

(01:05:37):
I mean, to me, that's, that's cool as shit. Like, I mean, cause not like,
you know, there aren't a lot of people, not a lot of companies,
I should say, are out there that are willing to do that.
They'll be like, oh, you want to be a server? Just go, you want to be a beer
tender? Go ahead and do that. Yeah.
And one thing I love too is, you know, when you go to a brewery is like,
like beer education and the beer knowledge and like, you know,
talking to a beer tender, because we had mentioned before, like you wanted to,

(01:06:00):
you're able to serve wine and cider. Yeah.
You want to be able to cater to different groups. Like, you know,
it doesn't have to be, but then also like you may be able to get them in with
your wine, but then they may find their gateway drug in a craft beer. Yes, exactly.
And, you know, be able to find stuff like that. And like, it's not,
not every brewery has that. Sometimes it's like, oh, like, you know,
cause you will get people like, and I've been in breweries where I've heard

(01:06:22):
people say this and I'm like, oh, like, what do you have that's like Modelo?
Yeah. Or what do you have that's like this? Or, you know, something like that. But then they try one.
Yeah. And then they, maybe they're like, oh, I'm going to go back and have that
again. And then they, they come back and they're like, you know,
I'm going to try something different.
Yeah. And if you can kind of guide them along their way, I just feel like that's, that's really cool.
Like, yeah. And I feel like most, that's how most people's stories with craft

(01:06:46):
beer is like, yeah, I tried Blue Moon.
I tried like right it's like the exploratory journey
of yeah oh and and how your palate develops and
how you like start to kind of like
work your way up oh yeah crave more and more face punching bitterness like yeah
and then it's like yeah it's that palate development yeah do you remember pyramid

(01:07:06):
yeah yeah that was like my go-to when i was a kid i mean i was like 16 17 i
wasn't supposed to be drinking but you know it happens yeah yeah but pyramid
half was That was my go-to.
Yeah, my buddy Devin has a surfboard pyramid. Oh, does he? Oh,
that's awesome. In our original garage that we were brewing in.
Oh, that's cool. And you said that was in Palos Verdes? Yeah.

(01:07:27):
Did you guys ever surf or anything like that too or no? Yeah.
Oh, okay. Yeah, I wasn't a big surfer. Oh, okay.
Just happened to live there. Yeah. No, I used to surf as a kid. Oh, cool.
I used to surf in, I mean, I haven't surfed in probably like 10 years.
So if I got up, I'd probably eat it so hard. Yeah.
Yeah what do you like because one thing I always like to ask actually no this

(01:07:48):
might be the first time I've ever asked a brewer like what kind of trend do
you do or do you see another trend coming because I know there was like the
haze craze yeah they call it like the summer of shelters and stuff yeah.
That's a great question I don't necessarily see some like big looming,
craze about to boom yeah I do still think we're I think the two that we're still

(01:08:10):
in are, I think seltzers are still big.
Oh, for sure. I think it's really cool that craft breweries can make their own
seltzers and then flavor them in so many different ways.
I think it's just another vessel for creativity.
Yeah, they're almost making them like craft cocktails. Yes. So yes,
I think that is the next segue of the seltzer craze is how breweries are trying

(01:08:37):
to diversify themselves,
to be more competitive with bars and all these things and, but still holding
on to that, that craft and that, that house homemade. Mm-hmm.
Quality and that's actually something that another little
shameless plug that we're working towards towards pushing so at
our anniversary party we have our

(01:08:59):
barrel room it's our event space it's downstairs it's holds
about 25 people it's very kind of intimate and exciting and that's cool our
plan for the end of this year is to kind of kind of transform that into a speakeasy
oh yeah And so we want to do a craft seltzer program and,

(01:09:20):
and almost treat it kind of like a little mini bar,
but it's made with all our seltzer base and fermented spirits.
So we're really excited about that. And we're kind of debuting some of our,
some of our craft cocktails at our anniversary party.
So if anyone wants to. Do you got to make like a door with like,
that looks like there's a.
Oh, we'll show you. Oh yeah. We'll show you. We'll give you a tour.

(01:09:42):
It's going to be pretty neat down there. so i
do think that that craft cocktails are
a are a big expanding area
and i i think in terms of the most amount of growth
we'll probably see quite a bit there and then also
craft loggers they it's been kind of
on on the boom recently yeah loggers and

(01:10:04):
pilsners are coming back yeah and i'm so happy about
yes and it's actually interesting because it's funny as i was mentioning earlier
like the brewers and the people in the brew community that i've community that
i've kind of grown with as a brewer you know i'm now approaching my 40s we're all kind of.

(01:10:25):
Looking at it like man i can't drink like the big heavy ipas that we used to
drink yeah i feel like man i want to be able to drink more than just one beer
so i feel like all the brewers are kind of I'm like,
oh, those lagers are really nice because I can drink more of them. And they're so nuanced.
And like, so I think, I don't know if that's just like the generation of brewer

(01:10:48):
I'm in is kind of going that way. But I think that's fun and exciting.
And I think that's really kind of putting, kind of comparing apples to apples,
what craft brewers can do with big brewers.
Oh, yeah. It's really exciting. And I feel like, cause it's not like,
cause I feel like was stone way back when, and I'm sure that they kind of had
to do it that way, but they would always put on the thing like fizzy yellow beers for wussies.

(01:11:11):
Yeah. But I mean, like, it's so like the way it's done now and the way people
like the way brewers are doing it, like even like your, your West Coast Pilsner
was phenomenal and I can't wait to try one of your other Pilsners.
But like, it's completely different. Like, and people think it's,
you're only going to get a certain like profile from it or it has to be like,
tastes like one of the big boys.
Yeah. And it's like, no, you, if you're, if it's done right and it's done,

(01:11:37):
done really well, then, I mean, it's going to, it's going to fly off the shelves
too, because I've always felt like that's like the pilsners and lagers are the brewer's beef.
We joke that like, oh, yes, we have a new shifty. Yeah. This is our new shifty beer.
Nice. Our Mexican lager with lime is called Sabor del Sol.
Okay. So the brewers hand zest 150 limes. Oh, damn. Into each batch.

(01:12:03):
And you really taste it. And it is comparable to a Corona with lime, but way better.
Yeah. Because it's hand brewed and hand crafted.
And I mean, talk about the gateway beer.
Oh, yeah. For beer drinkers who are traditionally drinking the Coronas,
Coors, the Modellos, you know, when they come in and they're like not into craft

(01:12:28):
beer, it's like, well, try this beer and tell me after.
And that was important to me is a lot of people ask like, well,
what kind of beers do we brew?
And we literally brew almost one of everything.
I mean, sticking to kind of exclusively American style beer. Yeah.
We've got a lot of, or a few amount of people asking us for Belgians,
but it's just not, I don't really like Belgians. So. Yeah.

(01:12:50):
It's one of the perks of owning your own brewery. You don't have to brew anything
you don't want to brew. I'm with you.
Yeah. I mean, I like some Belgians, but I just don't drink them enough.
There's a time and a place, but I ain't gonna.
Even like wild ales. I do like some wild ales. Yeah. But I mean,
like I actually have one that I've been, it's been sitting in my fridge for
a little, for a while that I'm going to crack open today. Nice.
But we, we really wanted a little bit of everything. thing. Yeah, of course.

(01:13:14):
And, but to also kind of elevate it.
I mean, I knew going into it that like Browns don't really sell well. Like.
But so what can we do to our brown to make it interesting and exciting and craft?
And so we infused it with espresso and coconut.
And now we have this really unique, exciting brown that's so complex.

(01:13:40):
And it's got layers of coconut and coffee.
And it's very popular. A lot of people love it. And that's awesome.
So it was one of it was it was the first brown recipe that we came up with.
And it hasn't left since because why like why change that? I mean,
we eventually will, because that's, um, that was one of my big goals in terms
of kind of building and developing the, the brew program that I wanted.

(01:14:02):
We, we could have put a 15 barrel system in and with a few fermenters and just
started to, to pump out some core styles.
But I really wanted to brew new beers, rotating taps.
Experimental stuff, which this first year has been a bit more of just building
up our board and getting all those beers on draft.

(01:14:25):
I mean, when we first opened, I think we had six or eight beers,
and now we have 22 beers on draft.
That's awesome. So now that we've kind of built that up in our first year,
we're going to start going through and kind of rotating and seeing like,
okay, what kind of new styles can we do here and there? But we really wanted
something for everybody.
So we have, we have lagers, we have wheat, we have blonde, we have sour,
we have a couple fruited beers, we have a brown, we have a stout,

(01:14:48):
we, you know, kind of have a little bit of everything to really appeal to the
most amount of people as we could.
That's awesome. I mean, and that's a, you need to be like, cause there's,
there were, I mean, at least way back when there was breweries that weren't
like willing to like, oh, I don't like this style. I'm not going to do it. Yeah.
But I mean, like you have to have all that, you know, you have to,
you have to be able to have everything or at least not everything but different

(01:15:11):
things on the menu to accommodate for different people and like I mentioned
earlier it's cool that you guys have Wine Insider too yeah.
Thing i always love to ask before we finish we have a couple other things i
want to ask but one more thing you guys have like when it was getting crazy
when you guys first opened because like you know the mailing list and all that
sort of stuff did you guys have any fun tap room stories when that was going

(01:15:33):
on or interesting they don't have to be funny but they could be interesting,
or any type of tap room story really trying to think of a specific.
Hmm that's a great question yeah it is a good question i mean the opening kind
of is our crazy I guess so. Yeah.
I mean, honestly, there was like the I don't remember if it was the day before

(01:15:57):
our grand opening, before we really figured out that the crowds were a problem.
This sounds silly, but we it took us a minute to realize we can control the
crowds because we were so in it that we were just going through the motions
trying to serve everybody.
Trying to accommodate right like oh my god all these people

(01:16:17):
are here like how do we take care of them so you
know the the kitchen is swamped the the the bar is swamped the kitchen is like
like we need to close we need to close yeah we're out of food yeah and there's
people like sitting on the walls like sitting on the stairs just like with nowhere
to go and it it wasn't until like Like, midnight that night, we were like,

(01:16:39):
maybe we need to control the flow of the water into campsite so that we aren't overwhelmed.
And the food does come out on time, and the beer does get delivered cold and
isn't just getting lost.
So it's kind of funny the things that are now common sense and honestly not a problem.

(01:17:03):
I mean, we still hear from people like, oh, yeah, I went to you guys in the
beginning. But, you know, I don't want to deal with the crowds.
Yeah, I haven't been back since because you guys were so busy. Yeah.
Yeah. Come on back, Waterside. Yeah. Yeah. Lying since a while. Yeah.
So, yeah, it was just mayhem. I think that was really what it came down to.

(01:17:27):
And our team really grinded it out.
And, I mean, we're so grateful for the team we had and everyone who put in the
extra time and effort in that beginning.
And like we said, sitting debriefing at 2.30 in the morning,
you have to figure out, like, oh, my God, how can we allocate the resources

(01:17:49):
we have to try to make the next service as best as we can with,
with, with what we have. Yeah.
I honestly think that's, that might be the coolest part of it for me.
The, like the, the sitting outside at two 30 in the morning. Yeah.
Having a beer and thinking like, man, like, well, cause obviously you guys were
killing it right off the bat, but like being able to say like, Hey man, how could we,

(01:18:11):
it's even then like, you know, like you, cause you guys could have said like,
Oh, we'll just get more staff or whatever, but like you're to, to do this or do that.
But you were just like, you guys were willing to want, or you guys wanted to
make the, have the best experience ever for the customer and stuff like that
and how to make it better for them.
We're so lucky. I mean, our general manager, Jonathan, is very experienced in

(01:18:35):
the craft beer industry and hospitality.
Our chef junior is an exemplary state-of-the-art chef. We're not really sure how he nailed that.
He's basically like French trained. Oh, wow. Wow.
Extremely professional, creative. And so we came in with our experience in the

(01:18:55):
medical field, working as brewers.
Christian poured in the taproom. We worked in restaurants, but it's a lot different running a restaurant.
Yeah. So all of us coming together, the collaboration was so fulfilling.
I mean, those are my favorite memories is 2A and eating cashews,
you know, drinking beer.
Cashews are great. Cashews and beer, honestly, I think they're better than peanuts. Amen. Amen.

(01:19:20):
And then, I mean, to be honest, I think our medical experience helped us because
it was triage. It was. Oh, yeah.
It was like. I didn't even think about that. Yeah. Like having to deal with
like the influx of like patients and stuff like that, I can imagine.
Yeah. I mean, my background's critical care. So it was like.
Oh, yeah. It was like, what's our. Yeah. Who's, who's.
Kate's like, this is just a Tuesday night for you. Yeah.

(01:19:43):
Yeah. Pretty much. Yeah. Yeah, like, where are we bleeding? Where are we hemorrhaging?
And how do we stop the bleeding?
But we, it was so fun. I mean, it was stressful. Like, I can remember some moments of tension.
And then we'd work through it. And now it's nothing. I mean,
it's. Isn't that crazy, though? Like, you guys both being in that field.
And, I mean, having to deal with that kind of stuff on a daily basis.

(01:20:07):
And then you come into this. And it's like, you're putting out the bleeding.
But you're putting out the bleeding and doing something different.
Yeah, it is different. And that's, you know, that's, that's pretty cool because
there's like, you're used to that, you know, that fast pace kind of,
because if you're a nurse, like you have to be, or a paramedic,
you have to get there as quick as you can.
Or if you're a nurse, you have to, you know, I'm not going to pretend to know

(01:20:27):
medical terms, but you have to do something to be able to stop the bleeding.
Yeah. I just feel like that's like, that's.
Damn cool and like I've never had anyone on the show that's had that kind of
background and to be able to hear what you guys did and to go from that to this
and I think that's pretty pretty badass.
I think it translates to hospitality. I mean it's kind of the same.

(01:20:49):
Yeah. Except it's easier because when somebody's having a hard time you just
buy them a beer. Well that's true.
Just oh sorry. Here have a beer. And then boom everyone's happy.
Yeah. And we're good. Yeah.
It's a lot more easy way out. Oh, yeah. Yeah. Well, a couple more things.
Yeah. One thing I was about to ask is, I mean, but I know you guys have a full kitchen too.

(01:21:12):
Do you guys do like brunch or anything like that? Yeah. Okay.
Yeah. So when we first opened, we tried to keep it simple.
But then only a few months after we opened, we rolled out on Saturday and Sunday, we have brunch.
So we open, we normally open at 11 for lunch. Okay.
But on Saturday and Sunday, we open at 9 a.m. Okay. And we have a different

(01:21:33):
brunch menu until 2. Yeah.
And the brunch menu is pretty phenomenal. I mean, all of our menus, we try to rotate.
We try to do some specials every month and some new stuff.
But, I mean, the amount of attention to detail that Chef Junior put into our brunch menu.
I mean, we have these amazing toasts where he hand makes the ricotta cheese.

(01:21:57):
Oh, wow. Yeah, it's pretty next level.
And he just started a breakfast sandwich where
it's house-made sausage yeah eggs bacon on
a ciabatta all right well you got my money we have
these new hash brown rings that are really good oh dang are they like onion
rings but hash browns yeah oh well yeah there you go we'll just throw it on

(01:22:19):
my sandwich yeah so i think that's that i think that's part of what we're trying
to do we're We're trying to kind of continuously evolve and update our beer
program and our food program.
And one of the other things we really want to try to do and grow and develop
is our kind of our beer pairing dinners.
We have this really neat, intimate space down in the barrel room.

(01:22:42):
And we have what we call our shed, which is the metal corrugated building right here.
It's our kind of flexible use space that we can do. You can rent the whole thing
out for 100 people, but we're trying to do more fun culinary and brew things together.
So we've done, I think we've done two now beer pairing dinners where Chef Junior

(01:23:07):
has created like a really fancy four course meal and we pair beers with every course.
And it's gotten some pretty good feedback. Yeah.
Just really excited about kind of all our opportunities to
to grow and expand but that's that's that's one
of them that we're that we're really excited about is not a lot of places have

(01:23:28):
the opportunity to to you know have a kitchen and a brewery and be able to bring
those those two together in a in a in a more upscale environment than a lot
of other breweries can do oh for sure Yeah.
So it's a kind of a, it's a, it's a fun experience.
And, and one of the other things that we're, that we're really excited about

(01:23:50):
to continually expand, which we didn't open within the beginning is our events program.
So we have two event spaces downstairs in the barrel room and,
and in the shed that, you know, we can have big parties and you can have a private
space and it's really neat.
So that's something that we're, we're really trying to push and grow into this year too.
Do that's awesome because so you guys have the anniversary coming up but you

(01:24:12):
like kate had mentioned like mentioned to me off every little bit um you guys
do paint nights and stuff yeah
we're constantly trying to fill our weeknights and weekends we we have music
now we have live music on fridays and saturdays no we're trying to fill that
more and more as we come into our peak season we have paint nights we have trivia

(01:24:33):
on wednesdays yeah we're gonna start speaking of The Geeks Who Drink.
Yeah, you mentioned us on the last podcast. We're like, sweet.
So yeah, we have that every Wednesday. We are now alternating between.
On Thursdays we're going to have karaoke, we're going to have comedy night.
So we're trying to do fun things to bring people out.

(01:24:53):
That's awesome. And just kind of, you know, that's part of what we wanted is
just to create a spot for the community to come out and enjoy.
That's awesome. Do either one of you guys do karaoke?
I was curious well Kate's pretty decent at it alright we did it at we had it
at our staff Christmas party oh that was a blast and what did you sing? Kate.

(01:25:19):
I'm a 90s baby. It's usually John Bond, like living on a prayer.
So fun. Yeah, we have a couple staff that get really into it.
And it brings me nothing but pure joy to see everybody coming together.
We have two DJs on staff. We do.
Yeah, one of our cooks is a DJ and one of our brewers is a DJ.

(01:25:41):
So it's really fun to have them collaborate at our Christmas party.
That's pretty damn cool. Yeah, it's really cool.
That's all right. Do you guys have any other events coming up after?
Well, because the anniversary is May 18th. May 18th is the anniversary.
Yep. Tickets are on sale on our website.
You know, it's like a lot of breweries. You get a taster glass.
You get to taste up to 30 beers on tap and try our food and really explore all of campsite. Love it.

(01:26:06):
We'll have pouring stations throughout the whole property. So in the parking lot and the campground.
Okay. You can go down to the barrel room, which is normally closed,
so guests can really explore all of Campsite.
That's cool. We're a sucker for a theme, so our theme is Mile 1 because the
journey's just beginning. Yeah.
So guests can kind of explore the journey of Campsite. Yes, that's May 18th.

(01:26:31):
And what else do we have going on? We've got a lot of stuff going on.
Yeah, we, I mean, the, we kind of have all the normal holiday events.
So, Cinco de Mayo, we're doing an event.
Mother's Day. Mother's Day. We're kind of doing a special brunch.
Nice. A mimosa fry. Yeah. There you go.
So, we're just trying to fill it in. And later in the summer,

(01:26:52):
we're going to, we want to do like a fun kind of summer camp themed event.
That's cool. Because, you know, growing up camping and going to camps,
you know, summer camp is a big kind of fun outdoor vibe. Yeah.
Want to do an adult, adult beer focus. That's awesome. So there'll be more to come on that. Okay.

(01:27:15):
But we're excited. We're excited about just events and just,
just growing and figuring out what works for us and how to just continually
improve and grow. Yeah. What it's all about. Yeah.
And when you mentioned summer camp, the first thing I thought of was if you
guys remember the movie heavyweights. Yes.
One of my favorites. If I could have a big blob.

(01:27:36):
That would be pretty awesome. Go-karts in the parking lot. Oh,
yeah. A little Mario Kart. Yeah, exactly. There you go.
But this has been super fun for me. And I really appreciate you guys letting
me come down and talk to you guys and, you know, pick your brains a little bit
and hear your story and how much you guys, you know, truly care about not just your staff,

(01:27:56):
but the product, the building, everything.
I mean, I feel like that's sometimes you don't necessarily get that.
But, I mean, I feel like from you guys, it's fully transparent and it shows,
you know, 1,000% how much you care about your brand and, you know, the people behind it.
Well, thank you. Yeah, I really appreciate you coming out and interviewing us

(01:28:19):
and giving us the opportunity to share our story.
Oh, yeah. We love to talk about Campsite. Yeah. I mean, it's our baby.
You know, we say we have four kids and this is one of the biggest ones.
Yeah, that's awesome. But, you know, we're super happy with the family we've created,
and we're just very grateful for all of our staff and family who have supported

(01:28:42):
us through this journey, and that we've supported each other through the journey.
And so we're just very, very grateful for the people that have helped us get this far.
So I wanted to say thank you to all of them. Of course.
All right. Well, thank you guys again for being on the show.
I'll tell you about that after.
I was so we had we went over everything I'm gonna have to cut this part out

(01:29:06):
either way it's fine but no but thank you guys again I really appreciate Kate,
Christian and make sure you guys come down so it's off of Front Street,
and in between Citrus and Barranca on Front Street in Covina,
and it trust me if you're driving by you will not miss it it's a you know big
ol' looks like a big ol' log cabin with some kickass siding on the side so make

(01:29:28):
sure you stop by grab a beer grab some food maybe come down for brunch on a
Sunday, if you're into brunch.
But make sure you come. Thank you, guys. Thank you. Cheers, TapFam.
My name's Rachel. I'm the lead beer tender here. I would say my favorite beer
on the menu is the Cold Front IPA.
And my favorite thing about being here is definitely the staff.

(01:29:50):
We're a big family. We all get along. We all work really hard together.
My name's Nate. My favorite beer at Campsite is Cold Front's.
And everything else. Thank you.
So my name is Will. One of my favorite beers here is the Firewatch.
I love reds. I like the bite at the end and the bold flavors.

(01:30:11):
But it doesn't like overpower like your palate.
And so that's why I like it. It's a bold flavor with a small bite at the end.
And it's still good enough to keep drinking.
Doesn't feel like overwhelming or nothing like that. So that's one of my favorite
beers. What do you have there?
That's a family. Everybody works together. It's a good management atmosphere.
Atmosphere, good footwork atmosphere, just overall, just like it's great atmosphere.

(01:30:34):
I haven't worked a job that I like this in a minute. So it's just been amazing food.
Everything's been good. Yeah. Hey, what's up everybody.
This is Daniel Saviles. I'm over here at Campsite Brewery. I'm the pastry chef
and my two favorite beers.
If I had to say which ones it would be the Covina citrus
and what else do we have the
the boysenberry blast yeah delicious hi

(01:30:57):
i'm sierra my favorite beer
currently is the equator equinox our tropical ipa and
what i love working about campsite is our values
and the team that we have behind it good morning
campers i am camper eileen my favorite
gear here at campsite will be the tropical ipa

(01:31:17):
and i love working here because
of the fact that we're here at campsite how you doing my name is chef junior
perez i'm here i'm the executive chef here at campsite brewing company just
a little bit about the owners itself i think kate and christian are excellent
people some of the best people that i have the pleasure of working for.

(01:31:38):
They really care about the employees very down to earth, you know,
and it's a great ambience that they build here.
To give you guys a little about my background, I've worked with Chef Jovo Cuchon.
I worked with him in Le Grand and Saint Germain. I worked with him in Paris also.
I was able, I was one of his opening chefs in Macau.

(01:32:00):
Hong kong okay and then here in the states i worked with chelestino drago which
is one of the best italian chef restaurants i mean italian chefs in la i was
lucky to work with them also,
in sicily for a couple of his restaurants and
his bakeries and yeah you know i was
lucky enough to find kate and christian and then they offered me

(01:32:20):
the opportunity so i i took it i mean you look at
this place and it's magnificent right it's beautiful yeah this
is this is my brewery in my my career that i have ever done
my first brewery i have never done a brewery so i was
always up for the challenge and i think we're doing pretty well
oh yeah that's awesome you have
a favorite beer yes and my favorite beer is

(01:32:42):
a covino citrus phenomenal so i
guess uh when we found out oh my name is adrian i'm
here with my friends my wife my wife erica our
friend lynette and julio and my two kids twins you
know we found out about this place because we were actually just
kind of hanging out around the area and we were kind of looking for a spot that

(01:33:03):
was family friendly kids that had good beer good ambiance good vibe and we saw
this place and took a chance on it and hey you know we've this was a few months
ago and since then we've been here like three four times,
so i can't complain the space is really big uh there's different areas you can kind of hang out at.

(01:33:25):
It's a good place for big groups of people.
And pretty good food. I mean, we've only had the food a few times over here,
but for the most part, the beer has been pretty on point.
This pretty much keeps us coming back.
Do you like running around campsite? I love running around campsite.

(01:33:46):
Alright, guys. Well, I hope you
guys enjoyed the episode. It was a lot of fun. What do I have coming up?
Next week's episode will be the Sean Ely episode. Make sure you do check out
all of his YouTube channels. It's Eat Local, HeySeanEly, and also the number six of cheese.
And he actually sent me some of his sauces that he makes, or that he made,

(01:34:07):
the hot sixer sauce and then the normal sixer sauce.
They're really good. I mean, I really enjoyed them. I was putting the sixer
sauce on my hot dogs yesterday, so that was pretty bomb.
And what else? I am recording at Bearded Tang on Friday, working on something with Aerolodge soon.
Also Pro5, I'm going to be recording with them over in Upland and I think it's Memorial Day weekend.

(01:34:28):
And then also starting to talk to Audiograph. So hopefully we get something going soon.
We're just trying to hammer down a date right now. And then also I'm putting
together a women's round table, like women brewers round table.
So it's going to be Danny from Angry Horse, and then also Hodap on tap,
Adrian Hodap, and also Bridget from Unsung.

(01:34:50):
So it should be pretty, that one should be pretty exciting, where I think we're
going to be recording that late June. So that should be pretty fun.
Also working on some dates to talk to Comics and Brew from Instagram.
These are, you know, got really good content, so definitely check it out.
Also, what else am I going to be doing soon? I know there's another one I'm
missing. Oh, I was talking to the Beard and Brewed podcast.

(01:35:11):
So we might be doing something together and also the beer belly pod,
because I want to be able to hear their story and how they got started.
All right. Well, that's all I got for this week.
Hope everybody has a fun Cinco de Mayo. Probably going to have a few beers,
maybe some tacos, who knows? All right. Well.
Music.

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Episode 64 - w/ Christian and Kate of Campsite Brewing

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.css-14f5ked{margin:0;word-break:break-word;display:-webkit-box;-webkit-box-orient:vertical;box-orient:vertical;-webkit-line-clamp:2;overflow:hidden;}Episode 64 - w/ Christian and Kate of Campsite Brewing