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Where do things stand in your expansion plans?

We’re pretty far along in the planning process and waiting on our building permit, so all the ducks are in a row and we’re almost ready to start doing some construction. We’ve just got to wait. It’s been almost a year-long process, just navigating the city bureaucracy.

What will your production be at the new brewery?

It’s going to be a 30-barrel brewhouse. It will probably open with the ability to do somewhere in the neighborhood of 4 to 6000 barrels a year out of there, but it’s a pretty big space with some room to expand, so we can go up from there, hopefully, and we’ll continue to brew to here. The capacity here is maxed out here at 1000 barrels, based on the footprint we have downstairs. We can’t add any more tanks considering our basement setting.

What would it take for you to consider the expansion a success?

Making and selling a lot more beer and making sure we maintain every bit of heart and soul that Magnolia’s about now. It’s propelled from a place of not being able to meet demand and running out of beer and not being able to keep up with production. It’s an expansion that’s being done in an organic, natural way because our demand has exceeded our daily supply of beer, so it’s just a matter of making sure that – we’re really being deliberate about each step of the growth process – making sure – we’ve got a great 14-year brand identity that goes with this place and we want to make sure all our steps in the expansion process are consistent with that.

Will you be canning or bottling out of that location?

Yeah. It’s part of a phase two. The priority right now is to have some more beer because we’re constantly chasing our tails. The first step is to get the brewery up and running and to get the system dialed in and make sure we’re supplying ourselves with the additional beer that we need. I’m eager to get into packaging. There seems to be a lot of interest in our beer from numerous accounts, and it’s hard to say no all the time when people want to buy your product. It’s frustrating. You want to be able to say yeah sure. I’m really excited to take that next step and get more into that retail side of things. I can’t tell you a lot about the exact packaging plans, in terms of formats and sizes.

Having Magnolia, Alembic Bar and the upcoming brewery, how are you able to maintain balance in your life, if you’re even able to?

I’m not. I haven’t figured that one out. I love what I do, but it’s hard. It’s challenging. I have a family, a small daughter and my wife. It’s hard to make it all make sense and find the time to do everything and give. There are a lot of moving parts just to this brewpub, and you throw another restaurant-bar on top of that, and that’s challenging. This expansion process is certainly testing the limits of how I’ve been set up and work here. It’s good though because it’s causing me to evaluate our systems and our structure and how we manage things. In the end, I like to hold out the possibility that there might be a step toward a new level of efficiency, but it’s going to take a lot of growing pains to get there.

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

I think that the most compelling thing about being in the craft beer world is the passion that everybody exhibits for what they do, and I think that’s what fuels the hard work ethics and creativity that causes so much – it’s the pioneering spirit of craft brewing and the ability to come up with new things and reinventing things and figuring out how to make things better and new ingredients to source. It all comes from this confidence that comes from really believing in what you do and having that passion for it, and loving it. I’d say that’s the number one thing to look for, regardless of the position, is somebody that is enthusiastic about what it is that we’re doing and the part we play in the industry and wants to contribute to that and be a part of that and take it to new places. More like-minded people with a lot of passion for great beer is probably the ideal criteria.

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

Well, we kind of ebb and flow with our flagship beers, our staple beers, and then sometimes it seems like our chalkboard skews toward our creative and experimental beers, and sometimes it’s back to the basics or back to the classics. Some of the classics are gone for a few months and we start to miss them. It’s nice to see them come back. I look at the chalkboard right now and we’re at one of those stages where I’m pretty happy to see all of our classics well represented, all our English influenced beers and our cask beers, that’s pretty much classic make-up. Mild, bitter, IPA.

I’d say the most recent unusual beer or experimental beer for us was a collaboration beer we did with Will Meyers from Cambridge Brewing Company and Carl Sutton from Sutton Cellars, a local winemaker. It’s a Gruit, and Will and I both make a Gruit and have for a long time, and Carl, making vermouth, which also incorporates a lot of interesting botanicals and herbs and spices, we kind of leaned a little bit on Carl to bring a little bit of the flavor profile of some of the botanicals that go into his vermouth, and we added that to some of the things that are more common in beer. It was really fascinating. Ideally, it was the first of many experiments with those two guys. We all liked the experience, enough to want to do it again.

What did you call it?

It was called Collaborative Groove #1, optimistically there would be a #2 and beyond. It was called Collaborative Groove because Cambridge and Magnolia both name their Gruit, Weekapaug Gruit, which is a name that was inspired by a Phish song. So we sort of in that great craft beer ethos of collaborating, rather than taking any sort of steps to own the name or keep the other person from using the name, we have a long running 10+ year gentlemen’s agreement to name our Gruits the same name and get along about it. For almost the whole time we’ve flirted with the idea of actually getting together and brewing a similar beer too. Instead of brewing either one of our Gruits, we decided to come up with a new Gruit and try something different and then invite Carl to come in and bring a third set of eyes and tastebuds to the process. So Collaborative Groove #1 happened here at Magnolia, and I think we’re hatching a plan to make #2 happen at Cambridge.

Where and what do you like to drink when you’re not here, or at Alembic, or working on the new project?

I don’t know. I feel like there’s so much that I like to try, and I feel like I get exposed to so many great products here and otherwise, especially at Alembic. I love our American whiskey selection at Alembic, and I think another genre of beverage I’d really like to get to know and learn a lot about and that I just really enjoy is whiskey and American whiskey especially. Our bar program at Alembic is so creative. The cocktail program blows my mind. There’s always something new to try in there. It’s fascinating, and also delicious. Like there’s a beer for every occasion, if you take that one step further or broader, there’s a beverage for every occasion. I love sake. I love wine. I could find the right time to try any of those things.

With beer, if you had to narrow it down to one…

The proverbial desert island beer?

Yes.

That’s a classic question. I’ve been asked that before, and like one of the brewers I know, too, I tend to fall into Sierra Pale. I know I’m not the first to say that, but it’s just so exemplary of a style that’s always – the quality control’s high – I just think Sierra’s an amazing example of a company that can grow and maintain their principles and their values and the taste of the product. Most brewers I know would be very happy with just drinking Sierra Pale.

Assuming you weren’t actually stuck on a desert island, where would you enjoy drinking it?

That’s a good question. Where would I enjoy drinking it? I don’t know. I can picture so many ideal drinking spots. Outside. We don’t have a lot of sunny days in San Francisco. Especially in the summer, we get a lot of fog. There are like 10 beautiful days a year in San Francisco. You never know when they’re coming, but when they come, everybody tries to drop what they’re doing and get out and enjoy it. Sitting outside somewhere on one of those perfect San Francisco days, drinking a Sierra Pale. I would be happy with that.