July 29, 2025 • 38 mins
Today on Brewsers, we talk to Steve Gonzalez. We talk about his lengthy career in alcohol, what is happening in beer, and so much more. Follow us on instagram and twitter at Brewserspod. Like, share, review, enjoy and cheers. #brewsers #brewserspod #Enjoylife #DrinkLocal #Cheers
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:20):
Welcome to Bruisers podcast about beer, coffee, booze and bruisers.
I'm your host, Rody John and today we talked to
Steve Gonzalez. We talked about his lengthy career in alcohol,
what is happening in beer, and so much more. Steve
has done a little bit of everything, all going all
the way back to the nineties. He's worked in Sierra Nevada,
he worked with Gallo, He's worked with right now he's
(00:42):
at Stone Brewing. He's done so much, and you don't
want to hear from me, you want to hear from him. So,
without further ado, here is Steve Gonzalez. Yeah, it is
(01:07):
so weird that Hogan died today. And then yeah, tell
us about So I didn't hear about that other person.
Speaker 2 (01:13):
So Jack mccauliffe, he founded New Albion Brewing Company in
seventy six, I think it was, and they folded in
nineteen eighty three. A New Albion was a reference to
how Sir Francis Drake when he came through Sonoma. Okay, yeah,
he's okay, when he came through Sonoma, he called it
(01:36):
New Albion, Albion being the poetic name for England and
he British style beers and pretty much Sierra Nevada formed
their you know what they launched with kind of based
on that model. Really yeah. Yeah, so kind of started
(01:56):
the whole thing, which is kind of amazing, and then
kind of a forgotten guy these days. Yeah. So he yeah,
just passed I think six days ago. Wow.
Speaker 1 (02:08):
Yeah, yeah, yeah, it's crazy. I keep hearing people, you know,
obviously deaths coming threes and they think, now Hogan's the third,
but then like, no, there's been other like musicians that
have also died, and it's like, yeah, we got these
brewery pioneers as well, and it's like, you know, when
will it end?
Speaker 2 (02:28):
Yeah?
Speaker 1 (02:30):
Well, I mean, so I want to talk about Cier
and Abada, but I want to go all the way
back in time, real fast. What is your earliest memory
of beer?
Speaker 2 (02:37):
Uh? I remember wanting to like it so bad school
and it was a long, long, long time ago. I
must have been sixteen, and I had a Boston lagger
from Sam Adams, and I know my taste changed a lot,
(02:58):
but it was way more bitter back in the eighties. Yeah,
and I was just like hmm, it's good, and yeah
it was. I don't know, there's just uh, there's this
TikTok guy that says, like, you know, like he hates beer.
He's like, this one's really good. Yeah, that reminds me
(03:19):
of shoe leather. That was kind of That was kind
of where I started because I, I don't know my
my my family on my dad's side were did a
lot of hospitality stuff. My grandma owned restaurants, So I
I was always interested in food and stuff, and everyone
(03:43):
talks about, you know, beer and single malt whiskey, and
I wanted to try all that stuff.
Speaker 1 (03:48):
What was what was the what was your gateway craft beer?
Speaker 2 (03:51):
Then? Oh, gosh, probably probably Duval from Yeah, yeah, my
my my godfather had some of that in his basement
and said you want to try some of these? I
was like yeah, and that was like that that blew
my mind.
Speaker 1 (04:10):
What It's funny you say that because so Sierra Nevada
is actually one of the most popular gateway craft beers.
Anytime I asked that, it's always it's almost always Sierra Nevada.
Speaker 2 (04:19):
M H.
Speaker 1 (04:20):
So you started working there in ninety five. How did
you even get was how did the what was the
process like for you from actually finding beer that you
enjoy too, because I had read that you did some
home brewing in college and then you ended up working
at Sierra. How did you end up at Sierra Nevada,
especially in the nineties, Oh.
Speaker 2 (04:39):
Gosh, just taken. I was taken some brewing classes and
there were a lot of people trying to get into
the industry, and it was it was actually the training
just couldn't keep up with the demand for brewers. Shockingly,
but there was a guy that they offered the sh
(05:00):
if the shift brewer job to. It's year in about
a guy named Doug. And I don't even know if
he's still in the industry. I don't I don't think
he is. But he turned them down and he said, hey,
I think they I told them they might like you.
So why they why they took the recommendation from somebody
that turned the job down, I don't know.
Speaker 1 (05:21):
Well, they wanted to pick them, so they obviously trust
them enough to make beer, and you know, they probably
trust their decision making as well.
Speaker 2 (05:27):
Maybe maybe, but but yeah, So I went up there
and it was a it was a funny interview. It
was like, I think it was only about half an
hour long, and it was mostly with Steve Dresser, who
just very distracted, like you know, he wasn't looking me
in the eye, and like he's like, yeah, your benefits
kick in after one year, and you know, and this
(05:50):
is what you get. And I was like, you're not
asking me about me or why I want to work here.
And then he's like okay, and so we'll go we'll
go talk to Ken and if Ken's not there, then
we'll go have a beer. And so I go into
Ken's office and Ken Ken was the ultimate auto did act.
And that was my first impression of him was he
had this big drafting table and he was actually drawing
(06:12):
plans for for what we called the West Side Brewery,
but the brewer that was he was working on next
door to the to the to the you know, the
Copper Clad or the not Copper claud the Copper Brewery.
And uh, that was like, whoa, this is kind of intimidating.
This giant you know, drafting table sits down, looks at
(06:35):
my resume. He's like, well, it looks like you did
a kind of an internship here. You just want to
come here and work for a couple of years and
then go be the head brewer. There. I was like, no,
he's like Steve, I've got too many Steves here, No thanks,
and like it's at his sense, and like he didn't
laugh or anything, but it was like yea and yeah,
(06:58):
like I said, it was about half an hour, and
I just I drove back to where I was living
in Northern California at the time, and I just I
felt like, maybe think as a slug, you know, that's
that up. Yeah, they called me the next day with.
Speaker 1 (07:16):
The job offer, so hilarious.
Speaker 2 (07:18):
Yeah, I don't know. I don't know how I made
an impression. I'm not sure.
Speaker 1 (07:25):
Well, so you are growing up in the California area,
obviously working at Sierra Nevada, and do you know the
impact that that beer is having across the country, because
I feel like once you kind of are working on something,
you almost end up in a bubble unless you do
maybe travel out and kind of see what else is
(07:47):
out there. But from what I've read about you do
seem like a very curious guy that you're always kind
of figure, kind of always having your pulse on whatever's happening.
Did you realize what was happening with Sierra Nevada when
it came to the rest of that country.
Speaker 2 (08:00):
Yeah, I I mean, I I'd been reading you know,
Michael James Jackson, you know, the beer author for a
really long time. Of course, he thought very highly of
Sierra Nevada. Everyone raved about Sierra Nevada and what like
just their their their quality was very well known, and
(08:22):
so yeah, absolutely it was extremely intimidating going to work
my first, my first full time job out of college. Frankly,
oh wow, yeah, so I got very very I was
very fortunate. I was prepared as as prepared as you
can be. But at the same time, it was like
it was pretty intense.
Speaker 1 (08:41):
Yeah, well, so I read that you I mean, you've
you've kind of touched almost a little bit of everything
when it comes to the world of alcohol. You've done
some distilling, you've worked in the wine making. How did
you end up going and then working for Gallo? Because
Gallo is for people that don't know, Gallo is just
just giant can conglomerate of like all these different It's
(09:02):
almost like an umbrella conglomerate situation because like people might
know about like Constellation because of the fact that they
own so much of the beer world, and also they're
getting out of the wine. I believe they're maybe getting
out of spirits, but they are for sure getting out
of wine. But they gallow is basically the same thing.
And they owned the Barefoot, they own obviously Galla Wines
(09:23):
and so many other things. How did you end up
going over there, because you know you are kind of
touching a little bit of everything wired over there.
Speaker 2 (09:33):
Yeah, so it'll get a little bit personal here. But
my first wife was very ill at the time and
I was working for She ended up passing away a
few years after I made that move. But a bunch
(09:53):
of people from the company I had been working for,
which was was Miller Brewing for about five years, they
had they had jumped ship for for Gallo. So Gallo
offered me a job, and then simultaneous to that, stone
out of the blue, Mitch Steel, the brewmaster here at
(10:14):
the time, called with the job offer to run the
quality program here and and then Miller ended up counteroffering me,
and I just like, because my wife was so sick,
it was like what do I do here? And I
literally all the benefits, paperwork and everything on the table.
And the position they were offering was the quality quality
(10:38):
manager for their NAPA locations which sounded great. Napa, California.
I've always been in love with that.
Speaker 1 (10:46):
It's so beautiful there. I've said I could just live
on a cot in the back of some place and
just waking up to that and going like, it's just beautiful.
Like if anybody's never been out there, you don't have
to stop at one winery just driving through it. It's
just so it's fantastic.
Speaker 2 (11:01):
Yeah, and you know, you get up into Calistoga and
drive up over the mountains. Yeah, that's like another world.
But it kind of it finally kind of came down
to that component. It's like, well, my wife probably can't
travel anymore, so let's at least live somewhere really really nice.
The Miller job was killing me. I was down to
(11:23):
about three Sundays a month as my days off, and
it wasn't it wasn't worth it. Stone just the benefits
package wasn't there yet. We're much better company now, but
in terms of what we offer in terms of you know,
compensation and benefits all that, it wouldn't have been an issue.
(11:44):
But yeah, you know, but there's a different company then.
A long story, and then I had actually always wanted
to do I always wanted to run a group up.
I always wanted to work multinational brewery. I always wanted
to work for a regional brewery. I always wanted to
work for a winery. I always wanted to learn distilling
(12:08):
at some point, and I thought I thought I would
do all that maybe by the time I was seventy five.
But I got the opportunity to do all that before
I was forty. That's nice. So it was a little
bit of it was drive, but also it was just
it just happened to kind of fall in my lap
(12:29):
a little bit, right.
Speaker 1 (12:31):
Yeah, when you got something that's gonna fall in your
lap like that, how are you gonna I mean, Plus,
like you said, you don't want to spend all of
your time at work because you have things at home
that are obviously far more pressing. But yeah, obviously you
still have to pay bills. You have to make sure
the insurance is still going to where you are. So
I mean that you know that move makes sense?
Speaker 2 (12:51):
Yeah versus history?
Speaker 1 (12:52):
Huh? Yes, Well, I am sorry for your loss, but
obviously it brought some fantastic imagine memories being in the
Sonoma for as long as you were. So how was
how was the end for her was it. Did she
enjoy that area as much as everybody else.
Speaker 2 (13:10):
She loved living in Napa and when I, you know,
when I when I so, most of my family's from
southern California, most of her family is from southern California,
and it's like, I don't know, you know, there are
days where I just I feel bad taking you away
from all that. And she's like, I wish I had
recordings of you talking about how freaking miserable you were
(13:32):
at six and a half million beer barrels a year.
Pretty oh, yeah, it's a lot of beer. And it
was like, and I talked to another one of the
former Miller guys that I was working with at Gallo,
and he's like, my wife says the exact same thing,
and make the right decision. But yeah, yeah, Gallo did
(13:54):
a good job of taking care of me. I will
say they it's a very very big company. It can
be a little bit impersonal sometimes, but family did really
matter to that company. So you know, that was cool.
Speaker 1 (14:10):
That is awesome. Yeah, I work for a distributor down
here in Texas and they we do sell Gallows, So yeah,
I've only dabbled with them a little bit, but it
does seem like a very good company that does actually
care about his people, not just one of those giant
corporate conglomerates that like, eh whatever. Now, how did you
end up over at Stone Brewing? Because you've been there
for a little over thirteen years now and to a
(14:33):
lot of people in America, and I've also now read
the world it is one of the best breweries around.
Like I know that we love it here obviously whenever
we can get our hands on anything from Stone. But
what is it? I mean, you've worked for Sierra Nevada,
now you work for Stone, some of the best breweries
in the country. How is how did you end up
(14:54):
over at Stone? And what's that process been like for you?
Speaker 2 (14:57):
Uh? So, Lee Chase, who is the head brewer here
for a long long time, very early days with the company.
He started working for Stone, I think in ninety six,
and so I had known him since ninety four and
(15:17):
he had he had offered me a job in two
thousand and two that I couldn't I couldn't take unfortunately,
and then that was you know, that was before five
years later Mitch offered me the job. But but yeah,
well I've always had that tie here to Stone, so
(15:40):
some people refer to it as the ten year interview
process when I finally finally came aboard. So he offered
me a job here in two thousand and two, which
I didn't take also, so it took three job offers
before I was able to kind of finally come work here.
Speaker 1 (15:58):
If that was what was the I know Straw that
you were like, you know what, I guess finally I'll
give this a chance.
Speaker 2 (16:06):
Well, I I had thought they would never hire me
after telling him no twice right then. I just wasn't
I wasn't too happy where I ended up working for
for Gallo, you know, Modesto didn't do it for me
after NAPA, you know. So I just emailed Mitch, who
(16:30):
was our brewmaster here then in twenty twelve, and it
was like he will never hire me, but you know,
and then he got he got back to me within
like an hour. Wow, And Mitch was not Mitch was.
Mitch has always been known for that. You email him
and he'll email you like right away, and I'm like,
why do you do that? He's like, because I'll forget
(16:52):
if I don't.
Speaker 1 (16:53):
Yeah, I can understand that. I'm also one of those
guys that I don't like seeing the notification thing on there.
Speaker 2 (16:59):
So yeah, yeah, So it all happened pretty quickly after that,
they you know, HR called me and said, you know,
we've got got a couple of different openings, which one
do you want the most? And I was like, well,
the one I'm the most qualified for is the the
research and small batch manager it was called at the time,
So like, when can you come down? And I was like, well,
(17:22):
actually down there for July fourth weekend, okay, and then
I don't know, I think it was a month or
something after that finally got the job.
Speaker 1 (17:32):
Damn you just just backing up into these jobs.
Speaker 2 (17:35):
Like it's yeah, it's kind of surreal.
Speaker 1 (17:41):
Actually, what if what do you feel like you learned
the most? Well, I guess let's start it because you've
been in different worlds. Obviously, where did you Let's start
at Sierra Nevada. What did you Well, no, you can
actually go back. No, yeah, you started at Sierra Nevada
and then Miller, right or was it Miller and then
Sierra Nevada, Nevada?
Speaker 2 (17:58):
First?
Speaker 1 (17:58):
Okay, what do you think you in the most from
Sierra Nevada?
Speaker 2 (18:03):
You know that was definitely a devil's in the details
kind of. So, you know, Sierra Nevada be in a
bottle conditioned beer. They had this formula and you know
beer is usually you know, around two point five volumes
of CO two, and so they would they would take
(18:24):
a measurement off of the bright tank. Okay, one point
five volumes of CO two. They'd have a tape measure Okay,
you know, look at the table, it's one hundred and
eighty beer barrels. It's going to require this much sugar,
this much yeast. And then you know, it would kind
of like package and then go through a warmer and
then sit in the warehouse for a temperature control warehouse
(18:47):
for two weeks, refermenting in the bottle till it hit
the and then you know they'd analyze it periodically and
see where the CO two was. It was like it
was a pretty The recipe itself is pretty basic first
year and about of pale ale. It's you know, cascade
hops and two different malts and that's really it. But
(19:08):
that's it's a little bit more complicated than that, but
not much, but but just that bottle conditioning and it
was like it was wild I mean that was that
was like hard to believe that someone was still doing that,
you know, but yeah, pretty cool.
Speaker 1 (19:26):
And then let's go to Galla. What do you think
you learned the most kind of touch in all that world?
Speaker 2 (19:31):
Yeah, I think one of the really interesting things that
winemakers do, and it's it's a really hard thing to
teach people if they don't get it. Is like, you know,
you take two cases of something and something you're working
on and okay, let's put you know, this oak chip,
it's a point one two five pounds per one hundred
(19:56):
gallons that this oak chip works for us in this style,
and then we'll do two pounds in the next one.
And then you know, you'd have a case with like
all these different treatments and then you just kind of
blend them together and like take all these really meticulous
notes and years later, that's how I developed Tangerine Express
using that exact same methodology. It's like, you know, there's
(20:18):
just a bunch of different stuff on the table and
we started kind of blending together. And that was a
weird beer because it supposed to be it was all
supposed to go to just one account on the East
Coast and then it landed and Craft Brewers Conference was
in Philadelphia that year, and the sales reps out there
(20:42):
got it in front of Greg Cook, who was one
of our founders, and like I got an email from
again Mitch, our brewmaster the next day saying like, I
need to know what's in Tangerine Express. They got it
in front of Greg, and then Greg went back with
one of my one of my colleagues, Jeremy to the
(21:02):
to the bar to taste it again the next day
and it was gone. It was all sold out. So
then it was just a done deal at that point. Yeah,
but yeah, that's that's kind of I don't know, that
method of product development is still it's still a tool
that I use today, you know, like mixing things together
on a bench scale, and like big things can happen
(21:24):
from like literally a case of beers sometimes.
Speaker 1 (21:26):
Yeah. Well so and then let's finally, now, let's what
have you learned the most do you think working now
at Stone?
Speaker 2 (21:35):
So in the interview process here, which was only an
hour actually, uh, and it was a panel interview, yeah,
but it was like literally five people interviewing me and
it was only an hour. But uh, you know, I said,
like hey, you know, I know I'll be running the
pilot brewery. Just you know, I calculate everything by hand.
(21:58):
I don't use brewing software and throw that's fine, and
I still do that. I still I use a spreadsheet
once we're ready to scale it up. Every pilot brew
I do by hand. And I think you have to
because like, sometimes there's a number in spreadsheets and software
(22:20):
and all that that you use that and the numbers
just don't make sense, and it's like, yeah, okay, let's
recalculate it by hand. And then you go, you know,
you spend an hour or two going through the spreadsheet
trying to find where the error is and then correcting it.
It's like, could you just use the you know, pencil
and piece of paper.
Speaker 1 (22:42):
Well, so, so you're obviously an avid note taker, What
where did you kind of where did that process come
for you?
Speaker 2 (22:50):
Was it something in.
Speaker 1 (22:51):
School that you started to do, or was it when
you actually started homebrewing yourself, or even when you got
to maybe one of the bigger brewers.
Speaker 2 (22:59):
Oh gosh, yeah, it goes back to college. Really, I mean,
I uh, getting through you know, physics and chemistry, and
I actually I don't know. I never got over my
childhood love of Indiana Jones stuff. So I actually took
Greek in Latin.
Speaker 1 (23:18):
You know, wow, how much how fluent are you in
both of those?
Speaker 2 (23:22):
I can still read Greek okay, but you know, I
wasn't very good at languages. But you know, I learned
pretty early on that there's like value to like writing
things down. And really there's something about that muscle brain memory.
I don't know like it, and it even if I
(23:44):
never look at the notes again, which often I don't,
it's it kind of helps it stick.
Speaker 1 (23:49):
Right because it's not just still living in your brain.
You've actually put it out there. And they do say
if you want something to happen or remember something, obviously
write it physically, write it out.
Speaker 2 (23:59):
Yeah, yeah, it helps. Yeah.
Speaker 1 (24:04):
Well, you told me that you your family has been charitable,
you know, basically your entire life, even at one point
you went to Uganda. How did all that start? And
what does that really kind of helped you? Obviously to
this day continue that?
Speaker 2 (24:19):
Yeah? You know, I I my dad was my dad's
you know, family were business people and there still are
business people politicians that kind of thing as well. And
my dad kind of wanted no part of that life.
He never never cared about money also, so you know,
(24:42):
he he wanted to become a doctor. Ah. You know,
I'm not an especially religious person, but my my grandma
converted to Seventh Dadminism. They love medicine in that religion.
And so he went to a Seventh Dad school in
this country and ended up going to a Seventh Dadis
(25:03):
medical school and missionary work. Medical missionary work is just
really common and he he just liked it, so they
just kept doing it. My mom, my mom's eighty one,
and she still goes to this thing in Chiapas that
they do and that is all pretty much covered. Somebody
donated like a bunch of money when they passed away
(25:25):
to that charity and and she loves it. You know,
you just pay your plane ticket and pretty much everything
else is covered. But yeah, I'll be real quick on
this story. It's going to take me a minute to
get there. But my dad also had three medical students
that he he trained. And I've got two brothers and
they were like his fourth, fifth, and sixth sons. And
(25:47):
my mom was like, hey, what do you think I'm
thinking about going to Ghana with Jonathan. And as soon
as she said Jonathan. I knew exactly who she was
talking about, one of my dad's really close medical students.
And I was like, oh, cool, you should definitely go.
I hear great things. And and then I went back
to her. I have just happened to visit her the
next weekend and she's like, I got this tourist book
(26:08):
for this trip to Ghana and it said Uganda Kenya.
And I was like, I don't think you're going to
Ghana if this is the tour bo yeah, You're like, no,
it's Ghana. And I was like, I think you're going
to Uganda. Yeah, and I think I'm going with you.
She's like, well, you don't have a you don't have
a medical background or anything. And I was like, I'm
a brewer. I can I know how to use a broom.
Speaker 1 (26:29):
You know, I can claim like nobody's business.
Speaker 2 (26:33):
Yeah. Yeah. So it's like I ended up managing the
pharmacy because I have, you know, a lot of chemistry
and stuff. And it was fun. Man. So I eight
thousand patients in five days.
Speaker 1 (26:42):
That's insanity.
Speaker 2 (26:44):
Yeah yeah, wow, Yeah, I'll get back out there at
some point.
Speaker 1 (26:50):
That's awesome.
Speaker 2 (26:51):
Yeah, maybe the chap is tripped the next time I go.
Speaker 1 (26:53):
Down there, you go, yeah, Well, as someone who kind
of also keeps up with the trends as to what
is happening, because I mean, you're also a judge for
the World Beer Cup, which is awesome, by the way,
What do you kind of see what is happening right
now when it does come to the next trends or
(27:15):
what should we be looking for as we're recording. It's
the end of July. Obviously stout season is about to
come upon us, and I imagine, you know, from what
I've heard, the pumpkin spice lattes coming out, so we'll
have a lot of pumpkin beers coming up soon. But
there's also still trends happening, like you were just in
New Zealand and that that hop is becoming far more
(27:38):
popular over here in America. I saw it for the
first time in like two years ago, I think after
I interviewed somebody from a Dallas brewery and I was like,
is that where we're at now? This is New Zealand Hops?
And then sure enough, yeah, get rolling out. So what
do you kind of see the rest of twenty twenty five,
you know, into twenty twenty six, looking like, yes.
Speaker 2 (27:59):
We just had a big meat with our biggest distributor,
and we showed them a bunch of a bunch of
beers and you know, my colleague Chris catch them. He wins.
He just won another gold medal at the US Beer Open.
I think it's called for his Simerian Portal, which is
a stout he's been making for a really long time.
He uses like flaked barley and all that, which is
really traditional Irish dry stout ingredient. And you know, we
(28:25):
showed them as brown ale. We showed them a bunch
of stuff. These are seasonals we're thinking about. You know,
they're not going to cannibalize stone ipa and and we
also showed them a cold ipa and the one that
they really gravitated to was the cold ipa. And they're like,
we love all of these. We can't sell these right now.
What we're facing is a lot of places have cut
their taps in half. Right, Yeah, they've got yeah, they've
(28:46):
got one West Coast, the Logger, they've got a hazy
and then you know, maybe a couple of rotators. So
give us an ipa and we can sell it. And
I think, you know, we we had a beer that
was very successful that my team developed, Scorpion Bowl, and
(29:08):
it was a really much softer style. I p a,
I want to do a little bit more of that
because we've we've got West Coast really aggressive West Coast
i PA is covered, We've got the covered. So I
want to take a look at that. I think that
that's maybe got some legs. Being in New Zealand, I
was really impressed with the Nectaron and the Super Dela
(29:31):
Cops that I smelled out there. It was like those
are pretty new. And I wasn't super impressed with the
Nectaron when I first smelled it, but like it's coming
a lot. It's really come a long way. I think
I want to do something with that, giving up all
my secrets here. But yeah, to some extent, what's old
is new and and and you know, stoutzer Stounts are
(29:55):
a tough cell with just not out of tap handles anymore.
You know, there's of being able to do a bar
early one an Imperial Stout. You know, makeing Belgians are
pretty much on hiatus right now. Yeah, and I missed
those days. But I also love IPAs and I'm part
of the problem. I really thank them either, you know, yeah,
(30:19):
would like maybe once a month and be like, oh
that sounds great. Yeah.
Speaker 1 (30:24):
So yeah, I've said it a lot of times on
the show. I think that we've hit tilt when it
came to the stouts, the craziness throwing, you know, sixteen
different cheesecakes and all the vanilla into one beer. And
then now we're back to, like you said, what's old
is new again? The lagger. Like that is, if you
are showing off you're a good brewer, you're showing off
(30:46):
how good your logger is. Because I hear so many
different brewers will go into other breweries and it's like
when you go to a donut shop, you wanna try
the glaze donut first, because if they fucked that up,
the rest of us is not going to be good either.
That's what they do. They'll go try the logger. If
the lagger's not good, there's no reason to taste anything
else because you can hide everything else in the other
beers the lagger. Nope, you're not hading nothing.
Speaker 2 (31:08):
Yeah, we're really loving the happier style laggers too. And
that's kind of where my colleague is really taking. You know,
cold ip as and kind of embraced that. It's like, man,
you did another one, but you know what, it's really good,
so to keep it. I can't falter for that. It's fantastic.
So yeah, but yeah, we're we're definitely doing a hell
(31:29):
of a lot more. Yeah, it's flying.
Speaker 1 (31:33):
Yeah, well, I mean it's also summertime, so people need
something nice sessionable and uh yeah patio pounders as they say, yeah, yeah.
Speaker 2 (31:42):
Yeah and oh sorry, no go for I was going
to make on that front, patio Pounders. We just launched
our first nationwide release of a session I p A
and a long time so that style seemed pretty much
dead for a while, but it seems to be back. Yeah,
love it.
Speaker 1 (32:02):
I think the ipie's definitely went through that. You know,
like they have that commercial of the guys with the
super long beards and it's like, how happy is it?
And it's like, we don't all like that. Yes, there
are people that are very much into that, but there
you know, there are the people that do want the
hazies or like the sessionables, or the ones that are
(32:22):
just on the you know, the lighter side of the
ip as. We don't need. Oh god, that's every hop
I could taste.
Speaker 3 (32:29):
Yeah, but I mean that that's.
Speaker 1 (32:31):
Just beer in general. Like you get any when any
of the different styles, there's variances and there's range of
like you can go this heavy or you can go
this light with it. So and that's that's what's so
great about the whole world of brewing in general, is
that it is that art and science put together and like,
all right, let's see what we can do and we
(32:51):
find out what we can't do. So well, I have
a segment I saw. I have a segment on the show.
I call it the five count, which has five random questions.
What are you nerding out on right now?
Speaker 2 (33:04):
I just completed the e learning for my Advanced Recreational
TRIMEX diving class.
Speaker 1 (33:11):
I was going to get into Scooby, we got to.
We ran that a time, a little bit. You are
a very avid scuba diver for over forty years. That's
awesome that you're continuing to learn obviously more.
Speaker 2 (33:21):
Yeah. Yeah, So you know, trimix is a helium mixture,
so you can breathe a little bit deeper and be
not get so fuzzy headed.
Speaker 1 (33:31):
Uh.
Speaker 2 (33:31):
And I've never done it before, so it's it's it's
gonna be something I cross off the bucket list in October.
Speaker 1 (33:38):
It is still fascinating me that we know less about
the sea than anything else, like really on the plane,
like it's so crazy, you know, And James Cameron is
the one that went the deepest in the ocean, like
what are we doing?
Speaker 2 (33:49):
Hey? Yeah? Yeah. A friend of mine was like, why
are we so concerned about exploring other planets when like this,
just like this planet is like super Sorry I got
the pronouns wrong, they because Robin goes by they. But
you know, Robin was like, there's so much cool life
(34:10):
and there's so much to see, and it's just like,
you know, that's a great point. I love that feel
the same way.
Speaker 1 (34:16):
Yeah, yeah, we're gonna if we find another planet, we'll
suck it up too. So yeah, we're the problem. That's
that's yeah. Uh.
Speaker 2 (34:26):
Number two.
Speaker 1 (34:27):
If you're a progress or mm A fighter, what would
your name be?
Speaker 2 (34:29):
Oh gosh, uh, I want to say the cave diver
or something, but I don't know that's good, you know what?
That could be my stick?
Speaker 1 (34:37):
Actually, yeah, nobody's done it.
Speaker 2 (34:42):
Come out with some gills and maybe like you know,
like yeah, like you know, some like kind of a
arm Guard with like it.
Speaker 1 (34:51):
Yeah oh yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
Speaker 2 (34:53):
I don't know. Maybe maybe the Barracuda. Then let's go
with that.
Speaker 1 (34:57):
This is good. Who was your first celebrity crush?
Speaker 2 (35:00):
Uh? I had it bad for Oh gosh, Patricia kat
Oh yeah, Oh my gosh.
Speaker 1 (35:07):
She got better with age too.
Speaker 2 (35:09):
She looks great. Yeah, more gray hair, but she still
looks great.
Speaker 1 (35:12):
There are there are so many people that worry about
the gray hair, and I think it just adds a
lot of character to a lot of people. Luckily, as men,
we could just gradually do it. Women freak out about it.
It's hilarious. Yeah. Uh Who are what inspires you?
Speaker 2 (35:28):
Uh? Geez. I was thinking about a bunch of my
heroes the other day, and there's just there are there
are a lot of them. Well, I suppose I could
take that to a question that somebody asked me, who, who,
what do? What? Two people would you have dinner with?
And my my answer was James Cameron and Neil deGrasse Tyson. Yes,
(35:50):
you know, I know, I know the dinner conversation will
be all about the Titanic and and all about space
and all about how consciousness there's no proof of consciousness
kind of just after death and the same things I've
heard both of them say like a billion times, but
it would still be so entertaining.
Speaker 1 (36:07):
But well, because then you're actually part of the conversation too,
So who knows where that will really even.
Speaker 2 (36:11):
Stee it either absolutely, yeah, yeah, I don't know. I
suppose I'll stick with that answer.
Speaker 1 (36:18):
Those are two good people. What would you tire your
seventeen year old.
Speaker 2 (36:21):
Self, get your heartbroken more? You know, but it'll be
worth it.
Speaker 1 (36:25):
I'm going through that right now, So I completely understand.
Now if people wanted to find out more about you,
follow you online, see what you're up to next, see
what Stone Brewing is going. How can they do all
the things?
Speaker 2 (36:36):
I'm at Real Phantom Brewer on Instagram when I'm on Instagram,
And then I think we have a mailing list you
can subscribe to on on stone Brewing dot com, so
you know, those are probably the best ways to figure
out what I'm doing. A YouTube channel, but I don't
I don't remember the handle exactly, but if you look
(36:59):
up cosmel Spider Man dive when I scuba dived in
a Spider Man costume on Halloween down in cos Smell,
and it ends with some video of some really cool
under shirts.
Speaker 1 (37:12):
Well I know what I'm doing right after we're done here.
Speaker 2 (37:14):
Yeah, you can probably find me that way.
Speaker 1 (37:15):
That's awesome, Steve, Thank you so much for your time.
Speaker 2 (37:18):
This has been fun.
Speaker 1 (37:19):
I don't think we've even scratched the surface of everything
that you could talk about, So I please come back.
And I have not been a stone in forever. Uh,
so I need to make it out there without adult.
Speaker 2 (37:30):
Awesome.
Speaker 3 (37:30):
Thanks John, thank you, Thank you.
Speaker 1 (37:44):
So much to Steve for being on the show again.
I feel like I've just scratched the surface with him,
and he is more than welcome back anytime because there
are so many more stories and so much more that
I want to hear from him. So uh, definitely find
out what is happening with him, but why you're doing that.
Make sure to follow us on social media. It is
bruisers Pod. That is b R E W S C
R S p O D on the Instagram, the threads,
(38:06):
and the Twitter. If you want to send us an email,
it is Bruispod dot gmail dot com. If you want
to follow me directly, it is Roady John. That is
R O D I E j O N. Roady John
is the name on the Twitter and untapped. Could you
want to find out I'm drinking. Maybe we're gonna have
a beer together. If you want off of follow me
on the threads or the Instagram. It is official Roady John.
So until next time, make sure to enjoy life, drink local,
(38:27):
and cheers
Welcome to Bruisers podcast about beer, coffee, booze and bruisers.
I'm your host, Rody John and today we talked to
Steve Gonzalez. We talked about his lengthy career in alcohol,
what is happening in beer, and so much more. Steve
has done a little bit of everything, all going all
the way back to the nineties. He's worked in Sierra Nevada,
he worked with Gallo, He's worked with right now he's
(00:42):
at Stone Brewing. He's done so much, and you don't
want to hear from me, you want to hear from him. So,
without further ado, here is Steve Gonzalez. Yeah, it is
(01:07):
so weird that Hogan died today. And then yeah, tell
us about So I didn't hear about that other person.
Speaker 2 (01:13):
So Jack mccauliffe, he founded New Albion Brewing Company in
seventy six, I think it was, and they folded in
nineteen eighty three. A New Albion was a reference to
how Sir Francis Drake when he came through Sonoma. Okay, yeah,
he's okay, when he came through Sonoma, he called it
(01:36):
New Albion, Albion being the poetic name for England and
he British style beers and pretty much Sierra Nevada formed
their you know what they launched with kind of based
on that model. Really yeah. Yeah, so kind of started
(01:56):
the whole thing, which is kind of amazing, and then
kind of a forgotten guy these days. Yeah. So he yeah,
just passed I think six days ago. Wow.
Speaker 1 (02:08):
Yeah, yeah, yeah, it's crazy. I keep hearing people, you know,
obviously deaths coming threes and they think, now Hogan's the third,
but then like, no, there's been other like musicians that
have also died, and it's like, yeah, we got these
brewery pioneers as well, and it's like, you know, when
will it end?
Speaker 2 (02:28):
Yeah?
Speaker 1 (02:30):
Well, I mean, so I want to talk about Cier
and Abada, but I want to go all the way
back in time, real fast. What is your earliest memory
of beer?
Speaker 2 (02:37):
Uh? I remember wanting to like it so bad school
and it was a long, long, long time ago. I
must have been sixteen, and I had a Boston lagger
from Sam Adams, and I know my taste changed a lot,
(02:58):
but it was way more bitter back in the eighties. Yeah,
and I was just like hmm, it's good, and yeah
it was. I don't know, there's just uh, there's this
TikTok guy that says, like, you know, like he hates beer.
He's like, this one's really good. Yeah, that reminds me
(03:19):
of shoe leather. That was kind of That was kind
of where I started because I, I don't know my
my my family on my dad's side were did a
lot of hospitality stuff. My grandma owned restaurants, So I
I was always interested in food and stuff, and everyone
(03:43):
talks about, you know, beer and single malt whiskey, and
I wanted to try all that stuff.
Speaker 1 (03:48):
What was what was the what was your gateway craft beer?
Speaker 2 (03:51):
Then? Oh, gosh, probably probably Duval from Yeah, yeah, my
my my godfather had some of that in his basement
and said you want to try some of these? I
was like yeah, and that was like that that blew
my mind.
Speaker 1 (04:10):
What It's funny you say that because so Sierra Nevada
is actually one of the most popular gateway craft beers.
Anytime I asked that, it's always it's almost always Sierra Nevada.
Speaker 2 (04:19):
M H.
Speaker 1 (04:20):
So you started working there in ninety five. How did
you even get was how did the what was the
process like for you from actually finding beer that you
enjoy too, because I had read that you did some
home brewing in college and then you ended up working
at Sierra. How did you end up at Sierra Nevada,
especially in the nineties, Oh.
Speaker 2 (04:39):
Gosh, just taken. I was taken some brewing classes and
there were a lot of people trying to get into
the industry, and it was it was actually the training
just couldn't keep up with the demand for brewers. Shockingly,
but there was a guy that they offered the sh
(05:00):
if the shift brewer job to. It's year in about
a guy named Doug. And I don't even know if
he's still in the industry. I don't I don't think
he is. But he turned them down and he said, hey,
I think they I told them they might like you.
So why they why they took the recommendation from somebody
that turned the job down, I don't know.
Speaker 1 (05:21):
Well, they wanted to pick them, so they obviously trust
them enough to make beer, and you know, they probably
trust their decision making as well.
Speaker 2 (05:27):
Maybe maybe, but but yeah, So I went up there
and it was a it was a funny interview. It
was like, I think it was only about half an
hour long, and it was mostly with Steve Dresser, who
just very distracted, like you know, he wasn't looking me
in the eye, and like he's like, yeah, your benefits
kick in after one year, and you know, and this
(05:50):
is what you get. And I was like, you're not
asking me about me or why I want to work here.
And then he's like okay, and so we'll go we'll
go talk to Ken and if Ken's not there, then
we'll go have a beer. And so I go into
Ken's office and Ken Ken was the ultimate auto did act.
And that was my first impression of him was he
had this big drafting table and he was actually drawing
(06:12):
plans for for what we called the West Side Brewery,
but the brewer that was he was working on next
door to the to the to the you know, the
Copper Clad or the not Copper claud the Copper Brewery.
And uh, that was like, whoa, this is kind of intimidating.
This giant you know, drafting table sits down, looks at
(06:35):
my resume. He's like, well, it looks like you did
a kind of an internship here. You just want to
come here and work for a couple of years and
then go be the head brewer. There. I was like, no,
he's like Steve, I've got too many Steves here, No thanks,
and like it's at his sense, and like he didn't
laugh or anything, but it was like yea and yeah,
(06:58):
like I said, it was about half an hour, and
I just I drove back to where I was living
in Northern California at the time, and I just I
felt like, maybe think as a slug, you know, that's
that up. Yeah, they called me the next day with.
Speaker 1 (07:16):
The job offer, so hilarious.
Speaker 2 (07:18):
Yeah, I don't know. I don't know how I made
an impression. I'm not sure.
Speaker 1 (07:25):
Well, so you are growing up in the California area,
obviously working at Sierra Nevada, and do you know the
impact that that beer is having across the country, because
I feel like once you kind of are working on something,
you almost end up in a bubble unless you do
maybe travel out and kind of see what else is
(07:47):
out there. But from what I've read about you do
seem like a very curious guy that you're always kind
of figure, kind of always having your pulse on whatever's happening.
Did you realize what was happening with Sierra Nevada when
it came to the rest of that country.
Speaker 2 (08:00):
Yeah, I I mean, I I'd been reading you know,
Michael James Jackson, you know, the beer author for a
really long time. Of course, he thought very highly of
Sierra Nevada. Everyone raved about Sierra Nevada and what like
just their their their quality was very well known, and
(08:22):
so yeah, absolutely it was extremely intimidating going to work
my first, my first full time job out of college. Frankly,
oh wow, yeah, so I got very very I was
very fortunate. I was prepared as as prepared as you
can be. But at the same time, it was like
it was pretty intense.
Speaker 1 (08:41):
Yeah, well, so I read that you I mean, you've
you've kind of touched almost a little bit of everything
when it comes to the world of alcohol. You've done
some distilling, you've worked in the wine making. How did
you end up going and then working for Gallo? Because
Gallo is for people that don't know, Gallo is just
just giant can conglomerate of like all these different It's
(09:02):
almost like an umbrella conglomerate situation because like people might
know about like Constellation because of the fact that they
own so much of the beer world, and also they're
getting out of the wine. I believe they're maybe getting
out of spirits, but they are for sure getting out
of wine. But they gallow is basically the same thing.
And they owned the Barefoot, they own obviously Galla Wines
(09:23):
and so many other things. How did you end up
going over there, because you know you are kind of
touching a little bit of everything wired over there.
Speaker 2 (09:33):
Yeah, so it'll get a little bit personal here. But
my first wife was very ill at the time and
I was working for She ended up passing away a
few years after I made that move. But a bunch
(09:53):
of people from the company I had been working for,
which was was Miller Brewing for about five years, they
had they had jumped ship for for Gallo. So Gallo
offered me a job, and then simultaneous to that, stone
out of the blue, Mitch Steel, the brewmaster here at
(10:14):
the time, called with the job offer to run the
quality program here and and then Miller ended up counteroffering me,
and I just like, because my wife was so sick,
it was like what do I do here? And I
literally all the benefits, paperwork and everything on the table.
And the position they were offering was the quality quality
(10:38):
manager for their NAPA locations which sounded great. Napa, California.
I've always been in love with that.
Speaker 1 (10:46):
It's so beautiful there. I've said I could just live
on a cot in the back of some place and
just waking up to that and going like, it's just beautiful.
Like if anybody's never been out there, you don't have
to stop at one winery just driving through it. It's
just so it's fantastic.
Speaker 2 (11:01):
Yeah, and you know, you get up into Calistoga and
drive up over the mountains. Yeah, that's like another world.
But it kind of it finally kind of came down
to that component. It's like, well, my wife probably can't
travel anymore, so let's at least live somewhere really really nice.
The Miller job was killing me. I was down to
(11:23):
about three Sundays a month as my days off, and
it wasn't it wasn't worth it. Stone just the benefits
package wasn't there yet. We're much better company now, but
in terms of what we offer in terms of you know,
compensation and benefits all that, it wouldn't have been an issue.
(11:44):
But yeah, you know, but there's a different company then.
A long story, and then I had actually always wanted
to do I always wanted to run a group up.
I always wanted to work multinational brewery. I always wanted
to work for a regional brewery. I always wanted to
work for a winery. I always wanted to learn distilling
(12:08):
at some point, and I thought I thought I would
do all that maybe by the time I was seventy five.
But I got the opportunity to do all that before
I was forty. That's nice. So it was a little
bit of it was drive, but also it was just
it just happened to kind of fall in my lap
(12:29):
a little bit, right.
Speaker 1 (12:31):
Yeah, when you got something that's gonna fall in your
lap like that, how are you gonna I mean, Plus,
like you said, you don't want to spend all of
your time at work because you have things at home
that are obviously far more pressing. But yeah, obviously you
still have to pay bills. You have to make sure
the insurance is still going to where you are. So
I mean that you know that move makes sense?
Speaker 2 (12:51):
Yeah versus history?
Speaker 1 (12:52):
Huh? Yes, Well, I am sorry for your loss, but
obviously it brought some fantastic imagine memories being in the
Sonoma for as long as you were. So how was
how was the end for her was it. Did she
enjoy that area as much as everybody else.
Speaker 2 (13:10):
She loved living in Napa and when I, you know,
when I when I so, most of my family's from
southern California, most of her family is from southern California,
and it's like, I don't know, you know, there are
days where I just I feel bad taking you away
from all that. And she's like, I wish I had
recordings of you talking about how freaking miserable you were
(13:32):
at six and a half million beer barrels a year.
Pretty oh, yeah, it's a lot of beer. And it
was like, and I talked to another one of the
former Miller guys that I was working with at Gallo,
and he's like, my wife says the exact same thing,
and make the right decision. But yeah, yeah, Gallo did
(13:54):
a good job of taking care of me. I will
say they it's a very very big company. It can
be a little bit impersonal sometimes, but family did really
matter to that company. So you know, that was cool.
Speaker 1 (14:10):
That is awesome. Yeah, I work for a distributor down
here in Texas and they we do sell Gallows, So yeah,
I've only dabbled with them a little bit, but it
does seem like a very good company that does actually
care about his people, not just one of those giant
corporate conglomerates that like, eh whatever. Now, how did you
end up over at Stone Brewing? Because you've been there
for a little over thirteen years now and to a
(14:33):
lot of people in America, and I've also now read
the world it is one of the best breweries around.
Like I know that we love it here obviously whenever
we can get our hands on anything from Stone. But
what is it? I mean, you've worked for Sierra Nevada,
now you work for Stone, some of the best breweries
in the country. How is how did you end up
(14:54):
over at Stone? And what's that process been like for you?
Speaker 2 (14:57):
Uh? So, Lee Chase, who is the head brewer here
for a long long time, very early days with the company.
He started working for Stone, I think in ninety six,
and so I had known him since ninety four and
(15:17):
he had he had offered me a job in two
thousand and two that I couldn't I couldn't take unfortunately,
and then that was you know, that was before five
years later Mitch offered me the job. But but yeah,
well I've always had that tie here to Stone, so
(15:40):
some people refer to it as the ten year interview
process when I finally finally came aboard. So he offered
me a job here in two thousand and two, which
I didn't take also, so it took three job offers
before I was able to kind of finally come work here.
Speaker 1 (15:58):
If that was what was the I know Straw that
you were like, you know what, I guess finally I'll
give this a chance.
Speaker 2 (16:06):
Well, I I had thought they would never hire me
after telling him no twice right then. I just wasn't
I wasn't too happy where I ended up working for
for Gallo, you know, Modesto didn't do it for me
after NAPA, you know. So I just emailed Mitch, who
(16:30):
was our brewmaster here then in twenty twelve, and it
was like he will never hire me, but you know,
and then he got he got back to me within
like an hour. Wow, And Mitch was not Mitch was.
Mitch has always been known for that. You email him
and he'll email you like right away, and I'm like,
why do you do that? He's like, because I'll forget
(16:52):
if I don't.
Speaker 1 (16:53):
Yeah, I can understand that. I'm also one of those
guys that I don't like seeing the notification thing on there.
Speaker 2 (16:59):
So yeah, yeah, So it all happened pretty quickly after that,
they you know, HR called me and said, you know,
we've got got a couple of different openings, which one
do you want the most? And I was like, well,
the one I'm the most qualified for is the the
research and small batch manager it was called at the time,
So like, when can you come down? And I was like, well,
(17:22):
actually down there for July fourth weekend, okay, and then
I don't know, I think it was a month or
something after that finally got the job.
Speaker 1 (17:32):
Damn you just just backing up into these jobs.
Speaker 2 (17:35):
Like it's yeah, it's kind of surreal.
Speaker 1 (17:41):
Actually, what if what do you feel like you learned
the most? Well, I guess let's start it because you've
been in different worlds. Obviously, where did you Let's start
at Sierra Nevada. What did you Well, no, you can
actually go back. No, yeah, you started at Sierra Nevada
and then Miller, right or was it Miller and then
Sierra Nevada, Nevada?
Speaker 2 (17:58):
First?
Speaker 1 (17:58):
Okay, what do you think you in the most from
Sierra Nevada?
Speaker 2 (18:03):
You know that was definitely a devil's in the details
kind of. So, you know, Sierra Nevada be in a
bottle conditioned beer. They had this formula and you know
beer is usually you know, around two point five volumes
of CO two, and so they would they would take
(18:24):
a measurement off of the bright tank. Okay, one point
five volumes of CO two. They'd have a tape measure Okay,
you know, look at the table, it's one hundred and
eighty beer barrels. It's going to require this much sugar,
this much yeast. And then you know, it would kind
of like package and then go through a warmer and
then sit in the warehouse for a temperature control warehouse
(18:47):
for two weeks, refermenting in the bottle till it hit
the and then you know they'd analyze it periodically and
see where the CO two was. It was like it
was a pretty The recipe itself is pretty basic first
year and about of pale ale. It's you know, cascade
hops and two different malts and that's really it. But
(19:08):
that's it's a little bit more complicated than that, but
not much, but but just that bottle conditioning and it
was like it was wild I mean that was that
was like hard to believe that someone was still doing that,
you know, but yeah, pretty cool.
Speaker 1 (19:26):
And then let's go to Galla. What do you think
you learned the most kind of touch in all that world?
Speaker 2 (19:31):
Yeah, I think one of the really interesting things that
winemakers do, and it's it's a really hard thing to
teach people if they don't get it. Is like, you know,
you take two cases of something and something you're working
on and okay, let's put you know, this oak chip,
it's a point one two five pounds per one hundred
(19:56):
gallons that this oak chip works for us in this style,
and then we'll do two pounds in the next one.
And then you know, you'd have a case with like
all these different treatments and then you just kind of
blend them together and like take all these really meticulous
notes and years later, that's how I developed Tangerine Express
using that exact same methodology. It's like, you know, there's
(20:18):
just a bunch of different stuff on the table and
we started kind of blending together. And that was a
weird beer because it supposed to be it was all
supposed to go to just one account on the East
Coast and then it landed and Craft Brewers Conference was
in Philadelphia that year, and the sales reps out there
(20:42):
got it in front of Greg Cook, who was one
of our founders, and like I got an email from
again Mitch, our brewmaster the next day saying like, I
need to know what's in Tangerine Express. They got it
in front of Greg, and then Greg went back with
one of my one of my colleagues, Jeremy to the
(21:02):
to the bar to taste it again the next day
and it was gone. It was all sold out. So
then it was just a done deal at that point. Yeah,
but yeah, that's that's kind of I don't know, that
method of product development is still it's still a tool
that I use today, you know, like mixing things together
on a bench scale, and like big things can happen
(21:24):
from like literally a case of beers sometimes.
Speaker 1 (21:26):
Yeah. Well so and then let's finally, now, let's what
have you learned the most do you think working now
at Stone?
Speaker 2 (21:35):
So in the interview process here, which was only an
hour actually, uh, and it was a panel interview, yeah,
but it was like literally five people interviewing me and
it was only an hour. But uh, you know, I said,
like hey, you know, I know I'll be running the
pilot brewery. Just you know, I calculate everything by hand.
(21:58):
I don't use brewing software and throw that's fine, and
I still do that. I still I use a spreadsheet
once we're ready to scale it up. Every pilot brew
I do by hand. And I think you have to
because like, sometimes there's a number in spreadsheets and software
(22:20):
and all that that you use that and the numbers
just don't make sense, and it's like, yeah, okay, let's
recalculate it by hand. And then you go, you know,
you spend an hour or two going through the spreadsheet
trying to find where the error is and then correcting it.
It's like, could you just use the you know, pencil
and piece of paper.
Speaker 1 (22:42):
Well, so, so you're obviously an avid note taker, What
where did you kind of where did that process come
for you?
Speaker 2 (22:50):
Was it something in.
Speaker 1 (22:51):
School that you started to do, or was it when
you actually started homebrewing yourself, or even when you got
to maybe one of the bigger brewers.
Speaker 2 (22:59):
Oh gosh, yeah, it goes back to college. Really, I mean,
I uh, getting through you know, physics and chemistry, and
I actually I don't know. I never got over my
childhood love of Indiana Jones stuff. So I actually took
Greek in Latin.
Speaker 1 (23:18):
You know, wow, how much how fluent are you in
both of those?
Speaker 2 (23:22):
I can still read Greek okay, but you know, I
wasn't very good at languages. But you know, I learned
pretty early on that there's like value to like writing
things down. And really there's something about that muscle brain memory.
I don't know like it, and it even if I
(23:44):
never look at the notes again, which often I don't,
it's it kind of helps it stick.
Speaker 1 (23:49):
Right because it's not just still living in your brain.
You've actually put it out there. And they do say
if you want something to happen or remember something, obviously
write it physically, write it out.
Speaker 2 (23:59):
Yeah, yeah, it helps. Yeah.
Speaker 1 (24:04):
Well, you told me that you your family has been charitable,
you know, basically your entire life, even at one point
you went to Uganda. How did all that start? And
what does that really kind of helped you? Obviously to
this day continue that?
Speaker 2 (24:19):
Yeah? You know, I I my dad was my dad's
you know, family were business people and there still are
business people politicians that kind of thing as well. And
my dad kind of wanted no part of that life.
He never never cared about money also, so you know,
(24:42):
he he wanted to become a doctor. Ah. You know,
I'm not an especially religious person, but my my grandma
converted to Seventh Dadminism. They love medicine in that religion.
And so he went to a Seventh Dad school in
this country and ended up going to a Seventh Dadis
(25:03):
medical school and missionary work. Medical missionary work is just
really common and he he just liked it, so they
just kept doing it. My mom, my mom's eighty one,
and she still goes to this thing in Chiapas that
they do and that is all pretty much covered. Somebody
donated like a bunch of money when they passed away
(25:25):
to that charity and and she loves it. You know,
you just pay your plane ticket and pretty much everything
else is covered. But yeah, I'll be real quick on
this story. It's going to take me a minute to
get there. But my dad also had three medical students
that he he trained. And I've got two brothers and
they were like his fourth, fifth, and sixth sons. And
(25:47):
my mom was like, hey, what do you think I'm
thinking about going to Ghana with Jonathan. And as soon
as she said Jonathan. I knew exactly who she was
talking about, one of my dad's really close medical students.
And I was like, oh, cool, you should definitely go.
I hear great things. And and then I went back
to her. I have just happened to visit her the
next weekend and she's like, I got this tourist book
(26:08):
for this trip to Ghana and it said Uganda Kenya.
And I was like, I don't think you're going to
Ghana if this is the tour bo yeah, You're like, no,
it's Ghana. And I was like, I think you're going
to Uganda. Yeah, and I think I'm going with you.
She's like, well, you don't have a you don't have
a medical background or anything. And I was like, I'm
a brewer. I can I know how to use a broom.
Speaker 1 (26:29):
You know, I can claim like nobody's business.
Speaker 2 (26:33):
Yeah. Yeah. So it's like I ended up managing the
pharmacy because I have, you know, a lot of chemistry
and stuff. And it was fun. Man. So I eight
thousand patients in five days.
Speaker 1 (26:42):
That's insanity.
Speaker 2 (26:44):
Yeah yeah, wow, Yeah, I'll get back out there at
some point.
Speaker 1 (26:50):
That's awesome.
Speaker 2 (26:51):
Yeah, maybe the chap is tripped the next time I go.
Speaker 1 (26:53):
Down there, you go, yeah, Well, as someone who kind
of also keeps up with the trends as to what
is happening, because I mean, you're also a judge for
the World Beer Cup, which is awesome, by the way,
What do you kind of see what is happening right
now when it does come to the next trends or
(27:15):
what should we be looking for as we're recording. It's
the end of July. Obviously stout season is about to
come upon us, and I imagine, you know, from what
I've heard, the pumpkin spice lattes coming out, so we'll
have a lot of pumpkin beers coming up soon. But
there's also still trends happening, like you were just in
New Zealand and that that hop is becoming far more
(27:38):
popular over here in America. I saw it for the
first time in like two years ago, I think after
I interviewed somebody from a Dallas brewery and I was like,
is that where we're at now? This is New Zealand Hops?
And then sure enough, yeah, get rolling out. So what
do you kind of see the rest of twenty twenty five,
you know, into twenty twenty six, looking like, yes.
Speaker 2 (27:59):
We just had a big meat with our biggest distributor,
and we showed them a bunch of a bunch of
beers and you know, my colleague Chris catch them. He wins.
He just won another gold medal at the US Beer Open.
I think it's called for his Simerian Portal, which is
a stout he's been making for a really long time.
He uses like flaked barley and all that, which is
really traditional Irish dry stout ingredient. And you know, we
(28:25):
showed them as brown ale. We showed them a bunch
of stuff. These are seasonals we're thinking about. You know,
they're not going to cannibalize stone ipa and and we
also showed them a cold ipa and the one that
they really gravitated to was the cold ipa. And they're like,
we love all of these. We can't sell these right now.
What we're facing is a lot of places have cut
their taps in half. Right, Yeah, they've got yeah, they've
(28:46):
got one West Coast, the Logger, they've got a hazy
and then you know, maybe a couple of rotators. So
give us an ipa and we can sell it. And
I think, you know, we we had a beer that
was very successful that my team developed, Scorpion Bowl, and
(29:08):
it was a really much softer style. I p a,
I want to do a little bit more of that
because we've we've got West Coast really aggressive West Coast
i PA is covered, We've got the covered. So I
want to take a look at that. I think that
that's maybe got some legs. Being in New Zealand, I
was really impressed with the Nectaron and the Super Dela
(29:31):
Cops that I smelled out there. It was like those
are pretty new. And I wasn't super impressed with the
Nectaron when I first smelled it, but like it's coming
a lot. It's really come a long way. I think
I want to do something with that, giving up all
my secrets here. But yeah, to some extent, what's old
is new and and and you know, stoutzer Stounts are
(29:55):
a tough cell with just not out of tap handles anymore.
You know, there's of being able to do a bar
early one an Imperial Stout. You know, makeing Belgians are
pretty much on hiatus right now. Yeah, and I missed
those days. But I also love IPAs and I'm part
of the problem. I really thank them either, you know, yeah,
(30:19):
would like maybe once a month and be like, oh
that sounds great. Yeah.
Speaker 1 (30:24):
So yeah, I've said it a lot of times on
the show. I think that we've hit tilt when it
came to the stouts, the craziness throwing, you know, sixteen
different cheesecakes and all the vanilla into one beer. And
then now we're back to, like you said, what's old
is new again? The lagger. Like that is, if you
are showing off you're a good brewer, you're showing off
(30:46):
how good your logger is. Because I hear so many
different brewers will go into other breweries and it's like
when you go to a donut shop, you wanna try
the glaze donut first, because if they fucked that up,
the rest of us is not going to be good either.
That's what they do. They'll go try the logger. If
the lagger's not good, there's no reason to taste anything
else because you can hide everything else in the other
beers the lagger. Nope, you're not hading nothing.
Speaker 2 (31:08):
Yeah, we're really loving the happier style laggers too. And
that's kind of where my colleague is really taking. You know,
cold ip as and kind of embraced that. It's like, man,
you did another one, but you know what, it's really good,
so to keep it. I can't falter for that. It's fantastic.
So yeah, but yeah, we're we're definitely doing a hell
(31:29):
of a lot more. Yeah, it's flying.
Speaker 1 (31:33):
Yeah, well, I mean it's also summertime, so people need
something nice sessionable and uh yeah patio pounders as they say, yeah, yeah.
Speaker 2 (31:42):
Yeah and oh sorry, no go for I was going
to make on that front, patio Pounders. We just launched
our first nationwide release of a session I p A
and a long time so that style seemed pretty much
dead for a while, but it seems to be back. Yeah,
love it.
Speaker 1 (32:02):
I think the ipie's definitely went through that. You know,
like they have that commercial of the guys with the
super long beards and it's like, how happy is it?
And it's like, we don't all like that. Yes, there
are people that are very much into that, but there
you know, there are the people that do want the
hazies or like the sessionables, or the ones that are
(32:22):
just on the you know, the lighter side of the
ip as. We don't need. Oh god, that's every hop
I could taste.
Speaker 3 (32:29):
Yeah, but I mean that that's.
Speaker 1 (32:31):
Just beer in general. Like you get any when any
of the different styles, there's variances and there's range of
like you can go this heavy or you can go
this light with it. So and that's that's what's so
great about the whole world of brewing in general, is
that it is that art and science put together and like,
all right, let's see what we can do and we
(32:51):
find out what we can't do. So well, I have
a segment I saw. I have a segment on the show.
I call it the five count, which has five random questions.
What are you nerding out on right now?
Speaker 2 (33:04):
I just completed the e learning for my Advanced Recreational
TRIMEX diving class.
Speaker 1 (33:11):
I was going to get into Scooby, we got to.
We ran that a time, a little bit. You are
a very avid scuba diver for over forty years. That's
awesome that you're continuing to learn obviously more.
Speaker 2 (33:21):
Yeah. Yeah, So you know, trimix is a helium mixture,
so you can breathe a little bit deeper and be
not get so fuzzy headed.
Speaker 1 (33:31):
Uh.
Speaker 2 (33:31):
And I've never done it before, so it's it's it's
gonna be something I cross off the bucket list in October.
Speaker 1 (33:38):
It is still fascinating me that we know less about
the sea than anything else, like really on the plane,
like it's so crazy, you know, And James Cameron is
the one that went the deepest in the ocean, like
what are we doing?
Speaker 2 (33:49):
Hey? Yeah? Yeah. A friend of mine was like, why
are we so concerned about exploring other planets when like this,
just like this planet is like super Sorry I got
the pronouns wrong, they because Robin goes by they. But
you know, Robin was like, there's so much cool life
(34:10):
and there's so much to see, and it's just like,
you know, that's a great point. I love that feel
the same way.
Speaker 1 (34:16):
Yeah, yeah, we're gonna if we find another planet, we'll
suck it up too. So yeah, we're the problem. That's
that's yeah. Uh.
Speaker 2 (34:26):
Number two.
Speaker 1 (34:27):
If you're a progress or mm A fighter, what would
your name be?
Speaker 2 (34:29):
Oh gosh, uh, I want to say the cave diver
or something, but I don't know that's good, you know what?
That could be my stick?
Speaker 1 (34:37):
Actually, yeah, nobody's done it.
Speaker 2 (34:42):
Come out with some gills and maybe like you know,
like yeah, like you know, some like kind of a
arm Guard with like it.
Speaker 1 (34:51):
Yeah oh yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
Speaker 2 (34:53):
I don't know. Maybe maybe the Barracuda. Then let's go
with that.
Speaker 1 (34:57):
This is good. Who was your first celebrity crush?
Speaker 2 (35:00):
Uh? I had it bad for Oh gosh, Patricia kat
Oh yeah, Oh my gosh.
Speaker 1 (35:07):
She got better with age too.
Speaker 2 (35:09):
She looks great. Yeah, more gray hair, but she still
looks great.
Speaker 1 (35:12):
There are there are so many people that worry about
the gray hair, and I think it just adds a
lot of character to a lot of people. Luckily, as men,
we could just gradually do it. Women freak out about it.
It's hilarious. Yeah. Uh Who are what inspires you?
Speaker 2 (35:28):
Uh? Geez. I was thinking about a bunch of my
heroes the other day, and there's just there are there
are a lot of them. Well, I suppose I could
take that to a question that somebody asked me, who, who,
what do? What? Two people would you have dinner with?
And my my answer was James Cameron and Neil deGrasse Tyson. Yes,
(35:50):
you know, I know, I know the dinner conversation will
be all about the Titanic and and all about space
and all about how consciousness there's no proof of consciousness
kind of just after death and the same things I've
heard both of them say like a billion times, but
it would still be so entertaining.
Speaker 1 (36:07):
But well, because then you're actually part of the conversation too,
So who knows where that will really even.
Speaker 2 (36:11):
Stee it either absolutely, yeah, yeah, I don't know. I
suppose I'll stick with that answer.
Speaker 1 (36:18):
Those are two good people. What would you tire your
seventeen year old.
Speaker 2 (36:21):
Self, get your heartbroken more? You know, but it'll be
worth it.
Speaker 1 (36:25):
I'm going through that right now, So I completely understand.
Now if people wanted to find out more about you,
follow you online, see what you're up to next, see
what Stone Brewing is going. How can they do all
the things?
Speaker 2 (36:36):
I'm at Real Phantom Brewer on Instagram when I'm on Instagram,
And then I think we have a mailing list you
can subscribe to on on stone Brewing dot com, so
you know, those are probably the best ways to figure
out what I'm doing. A YouTube channel, but I don't
I don't remember the handle exactly, but if you look
(36:59):
up cosmel Spider Man dive when I scuba dived in
a Spider Man costume on Halloween down in cos Smell,
and it ends with some video of some really cool
under shirts.
Speaker 1 (37:12):
Well I know what I'm doing right after we're done here.
Speaker 2 (37:14):
Yeah, you can probably find me that way.
Speaker 1 (37:15):
That's awesome, Steve, Thank you so much for your time.
Speaker 2 (37:18):
This has been fun.
Speaker 1 (37:19):
I don't think we've even scratched the surface of everything
that you could talk about, So I please come back.
And I have not been a stone in forever. Uh,
so I need to make it out there without adult.
Speaker 2 (37:30):
Awesome.
Speaker 3 (37:30):
Thanks John, thank you, Thank you.
Speaker 1 (37:44):
So much to Steve for being on the show again.
I feel like I've just scratched the surface with him,
and he is more than welcome back anytime because there
are so many more stories and so much more that
I want to hear from him. So uh, definitely find
out what is happening with him, but why you're doing that.
Make sure to follow us on social media. It is
bruisers Pod. That is b R E W S C
R S p O D on the Instagram, the threads,
(38:06):
and the Twitter. If you want to send us an email,
it is Bruispod dot gmail dot com. If you want
to follow me directly, it is Roady John. That is
R O D I E j O N. Roady John
is the name on the Twitter and untapped. Could you
want to find out I'm drinking. Maybe we're gonna have
a beer together. If you want off of follow me
on the threads or the Instagram. It is official Roady John.
So until next time, make sure to enjoy life, drink local,
(38:27):
and cheers
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