Interview: Black Market brewmaster Andrew Marshall

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Brewmaster California

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What was the most recent beer that you brewed and what was your inspiration?

The most recent beer that we brewed was a Belgian wit. We do two new beers a week, every week, in our tasting room, not for distribution, but just to inspire creativity in my staff. I’ve got a lot of very talented brewers on my staff, and they’re very creative people. We’re a production brewery, so I want to make sure that in the monotony of what I think are amazing beers, day in and day out, we also mix it up by letting them have the canvas and make their own beers. We did recently a Belgian wit, and we had the whole staff, including my 14-year-old son, zesting oranges for this Belgian wit, and I thought it came out wonderful. We were inspired by a dozen other outstanding Belgian wits before that. There’s so much inspiration, and there’s so much of a broad canvas to paint on, twice a week, I really think we can do something new to me.


Craft Beer California
What is your top selling beer and why do you think it has achieved that status?

Our top selling beer is our Bavarian hefeweizen, and awkwardly enough, if you would have looked back five years, and you would have told me, it’s like I have a crystal ball, I can see five years into the future, and in five years, not only are you going to be a brewer, you’re going to be a successful brewer, and your flagship beer is going to be a Bavarian style hefeweizen, I not only would have laughed at you, I would have crapped myself and fallen out of my chair. However, I’m open minded, so times can change. During that time, I was inspired by beer and inspired by brewing, and I wanted to basically take a shot. I didn’t want to be 90 years old on my death bed, look back at my life and been like, “I wonder what my life would have been like if I had followed my passion.” I had to know what life would have been like if I followed my passion. I’m in this crazy position, if I’m going to follow this path of doing the craft beer thing, if it fails, awesome, because now I’m going to be on my death bed, “You know what, I followed my passion and I sucked at it and now I know.” Or I could be successful.

What were you doing for a living leading up to this?

Construction real estate consulting. It was financially successful, wholly unfulfilling. There’s no soul, there’s no passion, there’s no art, it’s a money driven business. One of the things I was really fortunate with – myself and my business partner – we agreed that this is not going to be a financial based business. This is going to be an art and passion based business, where the bottom line is secondary to the quality of product.

Who’s your business partner, and how did you team up?

It’s a silent partner of mine. I was good friends with his wife in high school. Anyway, they were local, San Diego/Riverside County people. It’s funny, as a silent partner, they understood the bottom line is not going to drive this business. The quality of the product is going to drive this business, and never ever, no matter what happens will we let the bottom line influence or compromise our decisions for the quality of the product.

What do you look for when you’re hiring somebody to work in your brewhouse?

First and foremost is a homebrewer. Skill, talent are secondary. Passion is first and foremost. What I see is that if somebody is passionate enough about craft beer or microbrew beer or homebrew that they’re going to take it on their own and make it themself, that’s a pretty good indication they’re passionate enough to work for me.

Where and what do you like to drink when you’re not working?

I love variety. There are so many amazing breweries in the world. San Diego, Southern California are the best of the best, but even outside of that, there are thousands of amazing, great beers out there. Between the brewpubs and production breweries, they have their flagship stuff and their one-off stuff, their seasonal stuff. I could spend the rest of my life, never have the same beer twice and be wowed every day by some beer that I’ve never tried. I love the variety, and I love that other breweries out there are inspired by the same thing I am, which is a passion for their art which just makes this an amazing experience.

If you could only drink one more beer and it wasn’t yours, what would it be and why?

Alright, this is a long lasting question, and I always talk about what I call my deserted island beer, and what would my deserted island be at the moment? I would probably have to say, if I was on an island, and I could choose one beer to drink for the rest of my life and never have another beer, probably Russian River Damnation.

How come?

It’s light, it’s effervescent, it’s flavorful and I think it would match – if I picture myself in my palm tree clothing – sitting under a palm tree with coconuts falling on my head – it’s great effervescent apple pear thing going on, it would be great to drink only that beer for the rest of my life.

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Joshua Lurie

Joshua Lurie founded FoodGPS in 2005. Read about him here.

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