How NOT To Start A Damn Brewery: the podcast

Steven Henderson is a craft beer rockstar. He goes by the moniker Hendo and he’s one of the best-known personalities in the Australian craft beer industry. Well-loved and well-respected. And, from what I can tell, well-deserved. He started a contract, or gypsy, brewing brewery called Brewcult. He pushed the boundaries of what people in Australia considered craft beer. He won awards for great beer,...

Hey guys, today I have a story for you that’s very special to me. Lost Abbey is a brewery out of San Diego that needs no introduction. Tomme and the team over there have inspired breweries all over the world to push beyond the ordinary and intentionally create new and exciting beers of circumstance. They were a fundamental part of what created my perception of the expectations I wanted my brewery...

My wife and I finally sold our brewery on Sept 3, 2021. My book and this podcast give deep insights into what happened and why. But I recorded this video available on Spotify and YouTude at DamnBrewery to explain exactly why we sold the damn thing.

If you stab Michael Amann, he’ll bleed craft beer. He started in this industry as a fan, landed an entry level distribution job, worked his way to sales and then decided to open a brewery.  Maybe lucky for him that didn’t work out but instead, he went where most brewery owners think all the money in the craft beer industry is hiding. The middle tier. He opened Adena Distributing and set about bein...

James Moriarty and the tale of his brewery should be a cautionary one. So many breweries start up with operators that know far less than James did.  He brewed in multiple facilities for over a decade, went to the Siebel Institute, worked as an engineer assembling and starting up breweries and only then did he leverage that experience to open Urban Brew Labs in Chicago.  But even that resume wasn’t...

Judd Belstock and his co-founder, Sam Alcaine, started the first chicha and pulque brewery in the US. They built a beautiful brewery in the heart of one of the beer-y-est cities in America - Denver. The market was large, the customers curious and everywhere you looked, the future for craft beer in 2018 looked as bright as a Rocky Mountain sunrise. And for a few years, Dos Luces did grow. They expa...

Today I’m bringing you something different. This is the story Ted Mack and his brewery, Peoples Beer in Wisconsin.  Mr. Mack passed away in 2019 so I’m interviewing Clint Lanier, whose new book, Ted Mack And America’s First Black Owned Brewery hit the market a few months ago.  This is a fascinating story of guts and activism that has inspired generations of modern brewers to pick up their mash pad...

Jason Santamaria  and his partner Chris Doyle started a brewery in Atlanta back in 2014.  They called it Second Self and they ran it that way. The brewery was a creative expression of the flavors and experiences that shaped their lives.  What you’ll hear is how as the market grew and evolved, so did Second Self. Pivoting to find new puddles of profitability, struggling against changing consumer pr...

Today my article on How To Save Your Brewery gets published over at Brewbound . I reached out to industry positivity guy Aaron Gore to debate my opinions and conclusions. Aaron is the business development manager at Bevana , a unique business in the craft beer space. And one I think might be the smartest partner for the coming years. Episode Sponsored by: ⁠Somnifix⁠ (use DAMNBREWERY at checkout fo...

Eric Addison opened a craft beer oasis West of Fort Worth in Hudson Oaks, TX. Or where he likes to think of as "Michelob Ultra" country. Pathfinder Brewery opened at the height of the brewery building frenzy in TX. After losing not only his original name but lease space to another brewery he ended up building his own building from scratch. Which may wind up being the best case scenario....

Philip Davis isn't some mamby pamby little wanker that just opened up the Brewery-builder's playbook and picked one of the 3 standard brewery models. He didn't open up in an industrial park, didn't pimp himself out to a group of stuffed shirt investors and he didn't read the report to find out the moisture content of the endosperm of the grains he brewed with. He sure as fuck d...

Josh Kress is a cool guy that followed his heart, chased his dreams and made his piece of the world just a little bit better. His passion should inspire us all to linger a minute in the mirror today and take a hard look at why we do what we do.  While Husick’s Taphouse ended up out of business, twice, he may have changed the landscape of Sacramento forever. He brought in craft for craft’s sake to...

George Thornton had many fantastic milestones in his career in beer. From humble beginnings slinging beer kits to home brewers at a San Diego homebrew store to building a thriving, symbiotic brewery/homebrew hybrid. He won AHA Homebrew Shop of the Year in 2018 for fuck’s sake.  George will explain how he sees rampant commercialism and growth for growth’s sake as a primary reason for the eventual d...

Few people have been or will ever be as connected in the craft beer industry as Chris Black. If you haven't met him or heard of him, then you surely caught wind that Downtown Denver had a little beer bar called Falling Rock Taphouse for 24 years. In 1997 what we think of as the craft beer industry hadn't really begun yet. With only around 800 breweries in the US, opening a beer bar with 69...

Mike Detar is a creative motherfucker.  Whatever he did in whichever career in which he did it, he was going to throw passion, fire and grit everywhere he went. Like many of us who are slaves to our creativity, he worked with a mix of attention to detail and a ‘grip it and rip it’ philosophy that took him right to the edge of innovation.  When he opened his brewery in Washington State, he quickly...

Adam Cole got the call that so very many people in this industry dream of.  Some rich asshole picked up the phone and tagged Adam to help him open an overbuilt, beautiful facility with a high-end restaurant. He got to design the brewery, pick out the equipment, set his brew schedule and design his own recipes.  Best of all, he was given sweat equity for his investment of effort, intelligence and m...

In 1993 Alan Sprints opened a brewery in Portland, OR. He did his brewery his way making unique and interesting beers unlike what he found on his local shelves. With a culinary background he was, and is, a true artist, contrarian and inspired creator. Hair of the Dog produced beers that were, and if you’re lucky enough to have some in your cellar, still are, full of flavor, high in alcohol and com...

New Orleans is a drinking city. And the brothers Boudreaux -David, Matt and Pat - decided this was the perfect place to open their dream. Well, the dream before the dream at least. See, what they really wanted to be were brewery owners one day but they settled with slinging craft beer bottles and cans in a 2700 sq ft retail shop off Magazine street in the crescent city. And they hooked u...

Those of us who pay attention to this podcast know that the future is uncertain for the craft beer industry overall. But the beer people in Abilene, TX are feeling the bubble burst maybe a little bit more than most cities. In the first two months of 2023 Abilene lost half of it's breweries. One in January and the other one in February. The had both fought to stay afloat for years and even kno...

Christina and Jesse don’t make beer. At least not commercially. They have a palate for bone-dry, flavor-driven ciders and their late project Redwood Coast Cidery was their gift to the hard apple cider drinking world. Or at least to the Bay Area of San Francisco. These guys opened a Cidery in 2015 because they couldn’t find the styles of cider they liked to drink - which sounds a lot like every hom...

Back in 2013 a lonely frog thought he’d be cute so he hitched a ride on a NASA rocket. It might have been the most excitement that amphibian ever saw in his life but we’re pretty sure that the RocketFrog died. Years later twin brothers Richard and David Hartogs named their cool brewing project after that poor dead frog. I actually forgot to ask them why but I guess it doesn’t really matter now. Gu...

Part 1 of my Video Blog Series.  I explore the ancient concept of Memento Mori and how looking death in the eye can make us better brewery operators.  Throughout the ages our art, philosophy and, of course, religion all explored ways for us to share and remind each other of the concept of Memento Mori. Literally, remember death. One day you will cease to exist. No matter how hard you cli...

Jim and Betsy Pence have been around the ‘ol block a few times. After a love of wine led to a love of craft beer which opened the door to a love of mead, they decided to do what many of you are deciding to do. They wrote a business plan and set about opening their very own craft meadery in Charlotte, NC. They chased after their dream, bought equipment, started brewing and then closed down almost i...

Most people only have one spouse. Having more than 2 careers at a time is rare. The world would be far better off if we’d never had a second Crow movie. Or absolutely anything Keanu Reeves ever did other than John Wick. There was only one ring in that book. One goal can win a soccer match. But somehow when it comes to the production of beer today, we think every brewery should make 7 million medio...

I’d like to introduce you to Bob Sylvester, founder, brewer and all-around badass from South Florida’s Brasserie St. Somewhere. Bob started brewing back in the early days of this last craft beer explosion. You know, back in 2008 when owning a brewery was still counterculture, hip and a bit radical. He managed to create a unique and interesting lineup of beers that garnered him international a...