Bagby, Jeff and Dande. Interview February 21, 2018

Holly Sweat: Is this my copy or is this your copy? (Sweat referring to printed list of questions.)

Judith Downie: You can certainly have that because I am just going to let Jeff and Dande, you know, tell me what they want because that is just a list of ideas. You certainly do not have to address anything if you feel like it is giving away company secrets or you are just not comfortable or you just forget about it and tell me something else equally interesting and informative. That’s great. I love to record what I can get. So, you know, it sounds Dande like you maybe got into this a little after Greg did. Excuse me, Greg--I just said Greg. After Jeff did. So maybe we start with Jeff talking about how did he become interested in beer or how did he get into the beer industry and--?

Jeff Bagby: Okay. Yeah, so let's see. I started liking bitter beer, I don’t know, at high school, younger age. It just was something that my friends and I found--a couple of friends--who really liked the flavors. Liked the idea--

Downie: Now, were you in this area or where were you--?

J Bagby: Yeah, I was born and raised in Encinitas. So, San Diego native.

Downie: Okay.

J Bagby: So yeah, around here. And, actually when I graduated high school, I bought that friend in particular a homebrew set for his birthday. And so, we both messed around and that was my first homebrewing foray, whatever you want to call it.

Downie: Now where did you find your supplies for homebrewing up?

J Bagby: Yeah, that is what I was going to say. So, you know, that's the age before the internet and cell phones and things of that nature. So, there is no--

Downie: Do you want to give me an approximate year?

J Bagby: Uh, (19)93.

Downie: Okay.

J Bagby: (19)92, (19)93, (19)94, somewhere in there. And, so we had known a little bit, we had heard a little bit, we had tried to go and fish beer from establishments 00:02:00even though we were not of age yet. But at homebrew shop you can buy anything without an ID. So, at least back then you could. So, we Homebrew Mart in Solana Beach. That's where I first met Yusef (Cherney) was actually the one that sold me the kit. Then he went on obviously to do his thing. So, kind of a cool connect there and then they kind of keep happening as time goes on. But, yeah, so we just messed around really. I mean, we re-read things, read books. Talked to brewers when we could, when we traveled, things like that. We ended up going to school together where we got more into it. We were doing all-grain batches and keeping a beer on tap at our house all the time, as well as beers like Sierra Nevada (Brewing Co.), Anchor Steam (Beer), Original Pizza, Wicked, Red Nectar, some of the Sam(uel) Adams beers. I don’t, what else we could get our hands on that we felt was better. (laughs)

Downie: Now was there a bottle shop anywhere nearby where you could (unintelligible)?

J Bagby: There was a few. There was in Encinitas and downtown there was Cork and Keg (Cork and Keg Liquors). There was a couple in sort of the Kearny Mesa area that were known for having, you know, hundreds of bottles and typically they were not very good. But we did not necessarily know that at the time (Downie laughs) because we didn’t know what we were tasting and not tasting.

Downie: Right. Yeah.

J Bagby: I did not know that some of these beers, well, they'd been sitting around on these shelves warm for, you know, a couple of years. Some of them survived perfectly fine. And most of them, you know, like, “Oh, that's what that tastes like, that's kind of weird”. So, when we can find fresh things or more exciting flavors, that was obviously a fun thing. And yeah, just like, I think anybody did back in the nineties, when you found a new bottle of beer, you kept it, or you kind of talked about it and told your friends, “Hey, I tried this, blah-blah-blah.” It was, you know, I was rating beer before there was 00:04:00the internet, before there was, you know, these things that we are so attached to. So yeah, that is kind of where the appreciation started and, you know, throughout college, like I said, wherever, I would go and travel, try to seek out breweries, brew pubs, if it was possible to talk to a brewer and get, you know, whatever information I could, you know. “What kind of grain did you use this? What kind of hops are in this? What is your process for this? And, oh, what size system do you have?” And, you know, it was fun to do. And I was fun to go to cities that had older, richer brewing cultures than San Diego, you know? Back then there was not even probably ten breweries in San Diego at the time. Especially none that we had real easy access to. The easiest one for, for me, ended up being Solana Beach Pizza Port (Pizza Port Solana Beach). Just because I had met people there and met the brewers there. I went there all the time and were buying homebrew supplies from down the street. So, as it grew, you know, I finished school, came back home. I worked summers at the YMCA in Encinitas running their summer camp programs. Youth summer camp programs. So, I was heavily involved in that. But I always really liked--still liked beer. Still went to festivals and—

Downie: What was your degree in?

J Bagby: It was communications, social science degree. You know, honestly, I just wanted to get done in the school. It is not really my thing.

Downie: But you completed it, so “Yay” for you.

J Bagby: Yeah, yeah, I can say I have a degree. Whoop. (Dande Bagby laughs) So yeah, came back home, worked that job or some aspect of it for a summer. And then I was hoping to stay on. I’d had several--I've worked there since I was fifteen (years old). So, I had years of experience, knew the program, knew everything and anything about it. So, it was hoping, well, maybe this will be a full-time job, 00:06:00because the program had grown and grown and grown in the time that I've worked there. But they didn't have a position. Good old nonprofits. So, I started just looking for a job. I was living in Cardiff with some friends and I needed money. I needed something to do. So, through the YMCA, I had a commercial driver's license to drive kids around, drive big old buses. So, I looked into driving jobs because they paid pretty well. And I could probably get one quick.

Downie: Yeah.

J Bagby: You know, the degree did nothing for me, so. (laughs)

Dande Bagby: Well, it sounds like you didn’t really want it, too.

J Bagby: Well, I mean, it's not like you go, like, what industry are you going to be like? “Yeah. I have a communications degree from UC Santa Barbara,” like there, so? How's that going to help us do blah-blah-blah. There was no technology jobs. There was no social media jobs. There was no—

Downie: Exactly.

J Bagby: (speaking at the same time) I was, I kept going into radio or like news or—

Downie: (speaking at the same time) But it would have taken time to get employed, and you were saying you needed work now.

J Bagby: Exactly.

Downie: Which is certainly understandable.

J Bagby: Exactly.

D Bagby: So, think about that before we get the degree. (laughs) Just kidding. (laughs)

J Bagby: So let's pay attention and talk about themselves once it’s their turn. (all laugh)

D Bagby: Just saying!

J Bagby: So anyway, let's see, let's see, oh, came across the job, driving job for Stone Brewing Company. And I remembered that I had been in Solana Beach the very first night they'd ever poured a beer and I'd met Greg (Koch) and Steve (Wagner) and tasted the beer. And I was like, “Oh, this would be great.” You know, I remember them, it's cool to see that they, you know, are still going and are making beer and need a driver. So, I just interviewed with Greg and told him my whole story. And he was like, “Well, obviously you're super overqualified. (Downie laughs) So, you know, you have the job.” And it was fun. It was interesting to see some side of the bar and restaurant and beer industry that I'd never seen before. Learning some of the weird rules 00:08:00that are still in laws that are still in effect today and delivered beer. Drove beer truck for three months. And Steve and I were at a festival. I would always hang back after I was done and talk with the brewers and see what they were making and see what was coming on and things like that. And Steve was like, “Well, we need another body in the brewery. We need somebody else.” And I was like, “Yeah, sure. I'd love to.” I was like, “Who do I give these truckies to?” (Downie and D Bagby laugh) So I actually found the guy that took my position as a driver. And he's still my Stone rep(resentative) today.

Downie: Oh my gosh.

J Bagby: Yeah. I still work for Stone in different capacity now, obviously. But yeah, he was a bartender at one of our accounts, he was actually at Pizza Port and he's like, “Oh, how's it going over there?” And “What's it like?” and I'm like, “Well, if you're interested, you could come check this out.” He was a bartender, so he could still bartend and do that. And so, yeah, he came over and I taught him the routes and boom, he was the driver and I moved into the brewery. So, I learned there, primarily from Lee Chase and Steve Wagner. Their methods to brewing, I'll say, which I still today, I think if you ask about mentors on here, definitely those two guys are some of the first. And they gave me a lot of introductions into people like Skip Virgilio, Yusef Cherney, Jack White, Chris White, Gina and Vince Marsaglia, where I spent hours in their restaurant. Several other people that are still working in beer today, and still active. And, you know, we all kind of, you know, kind of go, “Yep, you were there,” you know, when you have these people that have been open for five minutes. (Downie laughs) Not to say it's bad, but you know, it's nice to have that kind of a bond and that kind of a connection to people 00:10:00that remember when there wasn’t all the things that there are today.

Downie: When it was a struggle.

J Bagby: (speaking at the same time) Yeah, big time.

Downie: (speaking at the same time) I mean, not that it isn’t a struggle now to run a business and to start having all that, just to be in the first, the forefront of things.

J Bagby: Oh yeah, there used to--

Downie: There is still some special barriers.

J Bagby: When I was living in Cardiff, in driving for Stone and then actually working in the brewery for Stone, we would go to events like every weekend. Every Friday and Saturday night, you know? Because the sales reps are like, “Hey, can you guys come down and help promote?” Or, you know, whenever we went to somewhere and be like, “Hey, do you have Stone beer on tap?” And they'd be like, “What the hell is Stone?” (Downie and D Bagby laugh) You know, and now you can't find somebody that doesn't know what that is.

Downie: Right.

J Bagby: And back then, it was totally different because people weren't paying attention. People didn't care. There was five tap handles and all five of them are taken up by mass-produced beer, you know? The Heinekens, Amstel Light, Guinness, New Castle, Bud, Bud Light, Coors Light, Miller Light, not Corona, it wasn't going on tap back then but it was in the bottle under the bar. So, it was tough. It was tough for them to gain ground and getting space. And because they came out with a Pale Ale, they were in an immediate competition with Sierra Nevada Pale Ale, which had already, you know, been around for ten years at the time. So, you had that battle. You have this well, “What's, what's different from you? These guys have been doing it for a long time. They make this Hoppy Pale Ale. We've had it on tap. What's the difference?” So yeah, a lot of early struggles, a lot of, you know, almost telling--I like to say this, like Stone told people what to drink. When they came out with a beer like Arrogant Bastard and they came out with a beer like Stone IPA, and it came out with Smoked Porter that came out with these beers that no one was used to drinking and they were like, “No, you're going to like this, because this is what we have to offer. And people would taste it. And I think combined shock, new flavors, new tastes, things they'd never had before, they really grabbed onto it. And they were like, “No, this is, this is cool. I really like this.” Not necessarily knowing why 00:12:00or knowing what about the beer that they were actually tasting. Just that it was exciting and it was new. So, I learned to brew on that, (laughs) professional thirty barrel, professional brewhouse pretty quickly. Helped create the first Stone Barley Wine, Old Guardian. Lee and Steve and I each did five-gallon test batches. And then we, we tasted them all and created a recipe. So, that was fun. And few anniversary beers, you know, when they were taking Stone IPA and Double Stone IPA and Triple Stone IPA for the anniversary beers. Those beers just blew people's minds back then because no beer had had that kind of aroma and power on the hop side, you know? And they're not unlike a lot of West Coast IPAs that are still made today. So that was exciting. The Y(MCA) came calling somewhere in that first year, year and a half that I was in the brewhouse. I got hired at Stone in September of (19)97. And I worked there through sometime in (19)99. Okay. I'm trying to remember exactly when, but I did go back to the Y full-time because they actually have a full-time job for me and they needed the help. So, over the summers I would work a hundred-plus hours a week because I’d work a full-time job at Stone Brewing. And then I would go back over to the Y and help them with everything that they needed for the next day or for the next week of things I hired and trained. Yeah, it was crazy. Monitored staff, bus drivers, all these things while I was still working at Stone. Left Stone to do the Y thing after one of the summers, because I was like, oh, it's too much. And they were going to give me a little bit more money at Y. So, I went and did that and then got stomped on 00:14:00over there. Got passed over. And I was like, “You know what? I'm done with this. I've given my life to you guys and saved you guys several summers and I'm over it.” So, went back to beer, got hired at White Labs (Brewing Co.) in San Diego. I had known--by this time I had known tons of people in the industry. I had done festivals for Stone. I had worked for them in all sorts of different capacities and also knew the Pizza Port people really well.

Downie: So what year--when did you get hired on White Labs?

J Bagby: That was probably (19)99?

Downie: Okay.

J Bagby: (19)99, 2000? I can’t—I’m not positive on that. But somewhere in there. Because I definitely left--I left both the Y I think the--right before the 2000 summer started because they had made some really bad decisions and it bothered me. (Downie laughs) So, let's see. I worked at White Labs for--

Downie: As a brewer?

J Bagby: No, as a sales kind of yeast consultant. Answer questions for people, take orders, you know.

Downie: Was this at their--where they are now? Candida Street or--?

J Bagby: No, this was the location before that. (Silverton Avenue, San Diego location.)

Downie: Okay.

J Bagby: A little--it's kind of an interesting place like offices on front, warehouse in the back, but much, much smaller than where they are now.

Downie: Yeah.

J Bagby: But it was cool. It was definitely educational. It was neat to get to know Chris and Lisa (White) better as well as one of their other then-partners, Chris Mueller. I had already known all of them and met all of them so, it was kind of nice to get a job and work with them. And it was okay. It just wasn’t--it wasn’t exciting for me. And I wanted to get back into the brewhouse and I wanted to get back working with actual beer. So, kept in touch with Pizza Port and the people there, the whole time. I got hired at Solana Beach as an assistant brewer. And so, I was an assistant brewer there and bartender there--

Downie: And who was head brewer at the time?

J Bagby: Tomme 00:16:00(Arthur), at the time. But we had become friends, gosh, right after he got hired there because I knew the brewer before him. And then they're like, “Oh, that's the new brewer.” So, I just like introduced myself and said, “Hey, I really like these beers here and blah-blah-blah” So we just got to chatting and hanging out and doing all sorts of different things. And you know, even when I was working for Stone, we connected just because it's, you know, another brewery in town. (laughs) And back then—

Downie: Well, it shows the value of networking—

J Bagby: Yeah.

Downie: And knowing people, it makes a big difference.

J Bagby: There's also a way to learn back then, you know? Steve and Lee were great and taught me a lot, but also learned a lot from Tomme. And I also learned a lot from a ton of other breweries that I met back in the late nineties and early two thousands. All across the state and even into Arizona. The guys at Four Peaks (Brewery Co.), still good friends of mine, even though they sold their company for who knows how much, they won’t tell anybody. (Downie and D Bagby laugh) Places like Marin Brewing (Company), Anderson Valley (Brewing Company), Russian River (Brewing) now, when he was still in Temecula back then.

Downie: He was Blind Pig (Brewing) back then.

J Bagby: Yeah, I had met him (Vinnie) and Natalie (Cilurzo) back then. Untold numbers of, you know, going to the Great American Beer Festival (GABF) for the first time was probably my biggest eye-opener to all of that and meeting more and more people because now there was the whole U.S. and all the brewers in the U.S. in one room and back then it was easy. You could go and talk to people. I was working for a brewery at the time and that was 1997. It was my first GABF. And I'll never forget going up to people and trying beers and went, “Oh my gosh, that's awesome,” you know? And just making that acquaintance. And I know a lot of those people still today that I met that year at that GABF. So really cool stuff. And that just kept 00:18:00building, you know? Every time I could go to a conference, every time I could go to another out-of-town festival. Meet more people. (laughs) So, you know, at Solana, I was there for probably two or three years doing assistant brewing and bartending. And then a position opened up. I had met Tom Nickel through all of this too. Because he was good friends with Tomme. He was a part of the early Ballast Point (Brewing Company) and Home Brew Mart. Tom and I are still very good friends today and Tomme. And so, he said, “Hey.” He was working for Stuft (Pizza and Brewing) at the time before it was Oggi’s. And then when it became Oggi’s, they had one in Vista that opened, their brewer was leaving. And so he's like, “Hey, if you want a head brewing job,” I was like, “Hell yeah.” (Downie and D Bagby laugh) So, took it. I had interviewed with a couple others. It was just, well I interviewed at Kona and just decided I didn't want to go and live on an island. (laughs) So, and there was an opportunity in my backyard, so, why not take that? So, did that for a while. That was fun. That was really the first time I got to see my influence on brewing, make a difference for somebody's beers or somebody's restaurant or somebody's beer culture, you know? It was the first time I'd won medals on my own with my own beers. You know, we'd done very well on Solana Beach. But this was cool because it was like my stuff. And worked with Tom (Arthur). He became their corporate brewer for a short time up in San Clemente. And I worked at that location for a while until Pizza Port Carlsbad had an opening for a head brewing position and that was a bigger brewhouse. That was more beer and it was more money and it was Pizza Port was kind of my first forte. So, I went back to that and ran, within a year, was running all 00:20:00the brewing operations on all of their pubs. Helped them open Ocean Beach. Hired, trained, promoted a ton of different brewers who are still in the brewing industry today. Yeah, you’ve got Yiga Miyashiro, the head brewer at Saint Archer (Brewing). Greg Peters, who's the head of Barrel Program there. Ignacio Cervantes, who was the head brewer of Carlsbad after I left and then took over (Pizza Port) Bressi Ranch and is now working for a new company in San Diego (Chula Vista Brewing). Noah Regnery, who also part of that company and Brandon Edwards is also a part of that company. All guys that were head brewers at Pizza Port went on to several different breweries and have all kind of come back together in one way. I'm sure there's other people. (laughs)

Downie: Yeah.

J Bagby: But it was a good experience and, you know, going all the way back to my Stone days, you know, Lee and I worked in this warehouse by ourselves, you know? Day in, day out. So, you get in these conversations, you're running, you know, a four head making bottling machine for eight hours while you're filtering a beer, you know? Like, you know? You are brewing, you get into conversations and you know, both of us were like, “Yeah, I really would like to own my own place at some point,” you know? And my thoughts at that time were, I'd really like to just have a beer bar or have a place because I've enjoyed that aspect of it. I enjoyed teaching people about beer, telling people about new styles and new things that were coming out or that the Pizza Port had just come out with. So, I said, “I don't know what, I just really want to my own place. And Lee was like, “Yeah, me too, me too.” So, it's funny that both of us have had that come true-

Downie: Yeah.

J Bagby: Over time. But in the Pizza Port years, having, you know, kind of pulled from my YMCA experiences with hiring and training people and building sort of a management approach to running the bars at the Pizza Port, they were, for lack of a better term, they were pretty chaotic 00:22:00and not very well managed. And the companies were, even though they were making money, hand over fist, they weren't making as much as they could because they were losing money, hand over fist because of their bar staff. So, I tightened up that. I taught their bar staff and what, you know, beer education programs, you know, you had to spend a day in the brewery with me, all of these things. And that carried on to all of the locations. And in doing that and forging that, that's when, you know, I started having conversations with Dande. We had met and I showed her--actually I was still working at Oggi’s when we met. And, you know, started talking about, well, “What do we want, what do you want to do with this? What would you do with this?” And I was like, “Oh, I want to open my own place.” And it was funny because people would come in while I was brewing in Carlsbad, say, “Oh, we're going to open a brewery.” And I was like, “Oh, cool.” Well, this is, you know, “I've been doing this for a really long time and I'm not ready yet, but you know, good on you.” Or somebody would come in who had just opened a brewery and I'd want to help support them. So, we had guest beers at Pizza Port, we would put their beer on tap and, you know? I would talk it up and everything. And then it was funny because by the time I left Carlsbad, I didn't have that approach. I was like, “Okay, bring your beers in and then I'll taste them and we'll see what we can do.” Yeah, “We'll give you some feedback or we'll see if we can get you into rotation or not,” you know? We have a big board, there's a ton of trends, and there's a ton of spots. They're almost always taken whatever the case was, but I wasn't as eager to just blindly accept the keg as I had been in the past, when there was, you know, “Let's promote local beer and let's get this scene going.” And it transferred all the way into here because now there's even more breweries. But now that I'm one of those people that's trying to sell beer to people. (laughs)

D Bagby: Yeah.

J Bagby: It's always so-- I get it. And, you know, hopefully, you know, the things that we had talked about 00:24:00before we opened and the things that we wanted to do is largely what you see today. When you come here and it's not just a beer aspect, it's a food aspect, it's a space and feel. It's also our cocktail and spirits program, wine program. All the things that we do here are things that we talked about ten years ago. Of course, it took us a very long time to get to that point. And I think we've surpassed many mountains in that process of getting to where we are, which is something that feels really good. But it's also a constant struggle when there's, you know, things that we deal with every day. And somebody asked me the other day, “Oh, would you go back and do it again?” Yeah, I would. Hopefully I know a little bit more. (all laugh) As Dande was talking about earlier with managing the construction, but it's been a crazy, crazy road. It's been fun to have been a part of San Diego beer, to have kind of put my efforts into not only just promoting the people that I worked for, but training other people into that and, you know, really teaching and promoting what good beer is and making sure that I did everything I could to make sure that San Diego was seen that way and perceived that way across the country and across the world. And I believe that I still do that today, even though there's one hundred and fifty or what odd breweries in town. I still make my efforts to make sure that that happens if that makes sense.

Downie: Yeah, it does.

J Bagby: Cool.

Downie: So, what made you decide to basically take down Continental Motors? (J and D Bagby laugh) What made you decide on taking this piece of property and rather than taking over--

J Bagby: Good question.

Downie--a building that you could just kind of refurbish?

J Bagby: Yeah. Well, I kind of still ask myself that question a lot. (D Bagby laughs)

D Bagby: Depends 00:26:00on how good the day is going.

J Bagby: That 3,000 square foot warehouse looks pretty cool somedays. (laughs) No, we had a location in Encinitas that we were pretty fond of. I wanted to be the first person to make beer and Encinitas since there was one little tiny spot that was open for like nine months in downtown Encinitas called the Red Kettle.

D Bagby: The (19)80s?

J Bagby: And it was like (19)89 to (19)90, something like that, I think it was open. And sounded like the guy didn't know a whole lot about what he's doing. And it would be interesting to see if you find any more information on that.

Downie: There’s very little on the Red Kettle. I’ve been looking.

J Bagby: There's like one article you can still pull up online. Vince Marsaglia, I remember he'll tell me stories. He's told me stories about going in there and talking to the guy about brewing. But anyway, I wanted to be like, “No, I want to open up a brewery and want to, you know, it's not going to be a restaurant with the little kid in the back.” Like, yeah, I want to do that in Encinitas ‘cause Encinitas neighborhood made it look cool there. But building situation fell through. We had spent some time, even some money getting people together. We had met with everyone at the city of Encinitas. So, we knew it was going to be a bit of an uphill battle with what's going down there on the Coast. It was on Coast Highway in Encinitas, big, beautiful, gorgeous eighty-three hundred square foot building with a wooden barrel ceiling and twelve-foot brick walls. Gorgeous place. And the landlord--we had never actually spoke with the landlord. We had only spoke with his representative and he had edged us along the way. “Yeah, that's good. It's good. Yeah. That's no, he's, he wants to do this.” And we put in our LOI (Letter of Intent), you know, spent, like I said, I spent time with the city. This is what we're thinking about doing. Architects, all sorts of things. Structural engineering, because the building's old. It was an old Safeway or something, I think.

D Bagby: It was a grocery store.

J Bagby: Yeah, it was a grocery store at one time. That's why. 00:28:00And all of a sudden we just weren't hearing anything back from the rep. So, I just called them up and, “Dude, what's going on?” Like we were going forward, we think this is happening. We've heard nothing. And he just basically said, “No,” without, you know, I tried to reach out to the landlord. The owner said, “Hey, just meet me. Just--let's have a conversation.” Could never get there. And from what I hear, that guy's kind of a maniac, so I'm kind of glad we didn't get in that situation. (D Bagby laughs) But I do miss the idea of being there in that building and being in Encinitas. I think that would have been really, really cool. But--

Downie: As a hometown boy.

J Bagby: (laughs) But, we took that setback. Or, yeah, it was a setback, because we were, you know, not that we'd put all our eggs in that basket, but we definitely—

D Bagby: Several months.

J Bagby: But, yeah, we spent several months of time on it.

D Bagby: We kind of mentally moved into it too. You start to really put yourself there and how to Jeff, as you mentioned earlier, like, we had been talking about these ideas that you now see here for a long time. And so, you start to sort of layer those ideas over the space and figure out how things might go. And, it was really--it was a huge disappointment.

J Bagby: Yeah.

D Bagby: But we got over it pretty quickly and moved on and...

J Bagby: Yeah. So, we decided to, not to stop, but to kind of regroup. We got married and after we got married, we decided to enlist the help of a commercial real estate. So, we, through some friends we found a really good broker. And he gave--started just giving me--I met with him--he gave me no less than I think a hundred properties throughout the county to look at. And we had already found out a little bit on our own through some other connections, you know. Basically, no one's going to give you any cash. If you're in a strip mall, you're going to be paying even though, your rent might be lower, you're going to be paying other fees that make that rent 00:30:00go back up. And they basically only take national conglomerate stores that have very, very deep pockets these days. Not too many private strip malls out there taking breweries and first-time owners and let alone, “Oh, you want to open a restaurant and a brewery? Okay, yeah. High risk, high risk. No, don't do it, all those things.” So, we sought out to find private owners and properties that started to fit what we what we had or what we wanted on there, which was coastal North County, enough space for a restaurant, enough space to have a decent sized brewery, and a space that will allow for indoor-outdoor dining. We love the aspect of letting people or giving the people the opportunity to eat outside in this gorgeous weather that we have almost year-round. So, I'd never thought about Oceanside, but I knew that anything in between Del Mar and Carlsbad was going to be extremely expensive and extremely difficult to find. Especially for the uses that we wanted to do. You know, we were trying not to have a conditional use permit. We're trying not to deal with the (California) Coastal Commission. We're trying to get into a spot where we could build or remodel, I should say, for the most part.

Downie: Yeah (laughs).

J Bagby: But pretty much ended up re-building. If you saw what we did to this place before we rebuilt it—

Downie: Yeah.

J Bagby: We basically tore it down. Anyway, he gave me a list of seven, eight properties in Oceanside here. So, I just grabbed my camera, my notebook, and my bike and rode them all. And I came across this one and it was--you could go all the way around it, but you couldn't see much. Where the brewery is now, were solid roll-down doors. It was their maintenance garage. Up front was a showroom, so, I could look in the windows there. That building to the south, you can kind of look in there too, but you couldn't tell what was exactly going on over here. You can see a little bit, all closed, 00:32:00looked like it had been, somebody had moved out. And so, in my head it just started clicking and I'm like, “Oh, what if that was there? And what if we put, you know, the brewery in here? What if we did this here?” I took, I don't know, fifty pictures of the place looked at the other properties and went home and told her. I'm like, “I found it.” And she's like, “What are you talking about?”

D Bagby: You actually called me from the space. (J Bagby laughs)

J Bagby: I’m like, “It's an old car dealership.” She’s like, “You're fucking insane.” I’m like, “Get in a car, come down here.” (all laugh)

D Bagby: It’s basically what happened.

J Bagby: (laughs) So, yeah, we just kind of went from there. We told our broker, “Hey, can you, you know—" super sensitive about contacting the realtor—realtor rep, landlord, anything like that.

D Bagby: Because of our experience in the industry.

J Bagby: Yeah.

D Bagby: We wanted to make--just kind of proceed cautiously. And we did not have our hopes up. We had no idea what they would--what their response would be to any kind of inquiry.

J Bagby: We obviously originally thought that they wanted car dealerships to take it over again. Just because they were set up that way. They have the lifts, they had the excess parking. They had, you know, frontage on South Coast Highway. There's seven other places, you know? So, we thought that's what they were going for. And they originally, they kind of said, “Yeah,” because use is that, it'd be easy for their somebody to just take it over.

Downie: Right.

J Bagby: And a couple of inquiries they had because the space was so big and nobody wanted it all. They would want just that building or just the parking lot, or just part of this main building, main parcel. So, I said, “Well, we're kind of interested in all of that.” (laughs) And so anyway, the original conversation with rep-between-rep, the idea of a brewery got brought up by the rep from here and unsolicited--

D Bagby: By their broker, yeah.

J Bagby: Unsolicited from our broker at all. And I was like, “Yes. Okay, cool.” And so, I'm like, “Hey, can we get in it? Can we look around and see what's going on?” So, the very first day we came to look at it and the landlords was here, the 00:34:00owners were here. And they wanted to meet us and they wanted to hear about what we wanted to do. And if we thought the space would work. And they're still friends of ours today. They still come in here and eat. His father was from Bamberg, Germany, which is a huge brewing scene in Germany and malts. There's two big malt companies in Bamberg. Then I said, “Well, I buy malt from Bamberg.” (Downie and D Bagby laugh) So, we had this, you know, this back and forth. Their son is into beer. And he really liked the idea of the legacy of the property that his father had started going into another family business of some kind. I think that probably in the end was what attracted them the most to us. But we poured our hearts out like, “Hey, this is what we want to do. And we totally get it. Like, you know, we've never opened a business. This is a huge spot. We have to raise a ton of money.” All these things, but we really want to do it.” And they went for it.

D Bagby: Much to their credit, honestly.

J Bagby: Yeah.

D Bagby: They took a big risk on us. And, it's a big point of pride for Jeff and I--

J Bagby: Definitely.

D Bagby: -- to count them among legitimately among friends. And, we're just, we're so grateful to them for just being open-minded. It was their family's business that was here and then that they had to close and they still own the property. And they, you know, we have a long long-term lease and several options. So, we don't own the space. I'm sure the property will stay in their family forever, which I think is fine. It's perfect. But they just really--they were very interested in us as people and--

J Bagby: Yeah.

D Bagby: --what our vision was and what we wanted to do and how we wanted to do it. And I think that aligned, even though they're totally different industries, it really aligned with their values. And, yeah, much to—

Downie: Their European background.

D Bagby: Yeah, definitely that that's probably part of it. (laughs) But 00:36:00I remember when they finally agreed, it was sort of like, obviously it's exciting, but it's also instantly terrifying.

Downie: Yeah.

D Bagby: You don't--And we didn't even realize at the time what we had just done, I don't think. (Downie D Bagby laugh)

J Bagby: It took me six weeks to get the lease exactly where we wanted it.

D Bagby: At least.

J Bagby: And it's like, I think it's sixty pages of like, eight, nine-point font. It's like line-by-line and you just, you have to know, “Okay, what does this lawyerese mean?” And then go and read through and go, “Okay, no, that's what we don't agree with. Here's the change we need,” you know? And so, we just--the back and forth, back and forth, back and forth. And then we start with contractors interviewing contractors, and that is a whole fiasco in and of itself because they're intense. And they realized that in the end, throughout this thing, I think they realized that their relationship is never going to be a great one, just because of the nature of the industry.

D Bagby: It can’t.

J Bagby: It just can't. There's too many variables and there's too much money and there's too much time involved for--I've never met anybody who was like, “Yeah, I loved my GC. My project went amazing.” They're full of shit.

D Bagby: It’s like a disposable relationship in a weird way.

J Bagby: Yeah, you just--

D Bagby: You need them, they you need but then it's over and we're done. We don't want to see you again kind of thing. It's terrible, but that's just kind of the nature of it.

Downie: Now did your general have any background in building a brewery?

J Bagby: (speaking at the same time) No, in restaurants.

D Bagby: (speaking at the same time) In restaurants.

J Bagby: Yeah, restaurants, and commercial or retail. But mostly restaurants and bars is what we were attracted to him for.

D Bagby: Small company also--J Bagby: Smaller company. Had the reputation of being able to do something like thisD Bagby: Had worked with the architect—

J Bagby: Yeah, he had worked with our architect on a project before and yeah, I mean the architect firm went down in flames pretty quick. (D Bagby laughs) I realized, oddly enough, we got an apology email from him last week, which was--D Bagby: A little late. 00:38:00J Bagby: Frustrating two years later. But, yeah, they just weren't equipped and we didn't know that they weren't equipped.

D Bagby: We didn't know enough to know that.

J Bagby: Yeah. And then, you know, I spent countless hours going to the counters at the city to talk to the engineers, to talk to the--

D Bagby: The building inspectors.

J Bagby: The building inspectors and just going back and forth. “No, we need this. Okay.” So, because I'm trying to facilitate--we're trying to facilitate this project and keep it moving. And there's obviously no one in the world has any incentive, but, or the most incentive than us to get it done. And so, we're just, like she said, we just took it on. We project managed, we--every day, we'd come here and walk through and see what was done wrong or what hadn't been done or why isn't, so-and-so working today, you know? And part of that was on the GC, part of that was on their architect, and they both fell down. The architect first and then the GC. We went through five superintendents here on our project to the general contractor.

Downie: Oh dear.

J Bagby: And by the end I was like, “Him or no one else.” And so, we got this last guy just to get through and get our building final then and everything. But you name a discipline, you name a part or a section or a wall. I spent time on it. She spent time on it. It's--so now, you know, we're like, we're telling them, we're like, “You guys get to go, you guys get to pack up your shit and leave.” And we get to turn around and actually do what we wanted to do six months ago, or, you know, a year ago.

D Bagby: When we started construction, yeah.

J Bagby: Yeah.

D Bagby: When we thought we’d be done, especially.

J Bagby: We, you know, we need to spend time on--I mean, we're still taking on investors, but we have to start the project. We're still searching out for investors. We're still trying to find our key executive management team and how the hell we're going to run this place. I'm still trying to figure out how to get the rest of the brewery finished off and actually making beer because we didn't want to open without our own beer. And it was just, you know, just kept on, I didn't, I think I lost 00:40:00forty pounds and that last like six months of the other projects before we opened, just because I could never eat, I could never sleep. And I was constantly doing something on a project that sent my stress levels through the roof. So, it was very--

D Bagby: And then you get to operate your business.

J Bagby: Yeah, and then you open and you know, there's five hundred people here on a Saturday and they all want food and beer.

Downie: Excellent.

D Bagby: Which is great, yeah. I mean, there is that question. I mean, you just, you don't know until it happens when you open the door for the first time. Is anybody going to be here? And I know that sounds ridiculous when you think of the size of this and even just people curious. Obviously, there will be people that are curious that are cruising by, but you really don't know. I mean, it is, you don't--you don't really let yourself think that because you can't. You just have to continue to stay true to your goal and your vision. And once you start, you can't stop. I mean, it's go time. And so, when you do finally open the doors, it's amazing. It is. It's kind of amazing that people are here. And I remember the first, like week we were open, it felt really strange that there were people here I didn’t know. I was like, “Who are these people? Oh, shoot. They're supposed to be here. That's right.” (Downie laughs) It was just very weird. And we had spent so much time here over the, you know, proceeding two years that it was--it was home. We were here three hours to one, the number of hours, or four hours to one, the number of hours we would spend at home for sure. And so, this was home. And so, we knew every contract, we knew every subcontractor. We knew everybody. And they knew us. And so, when it was time to let strangers in, (laughs) it was weird. But, you know, you get over that pretty quickly.

J Bagby: Yeah.

D Bagby: Because they are spending money.

Downie: Of course, talking about the ‘curious’ issue, are you going to come back?

D Bagby: Yeah, of course.

Downie: Because just a one-time visit isn't going to keep you going.

D Bagby: That’s right. Yeah, that's right. And that's still something that's, you know, on the operational side that we are always striving for. We want to be that place that people are like, “I can't wait to go back there.” 00:42:00We're still young though. And I that's the counterpoint to that is first of all, never stop trying. I mean, there's always something we can do better, always something we can refine. Always a better way or a more efficient way or a way that's going to make our guests happier. So, we are always pushing. We never, ever stopped. And I don't think we ever will. That's just our personalities. And luckily, it's the same--those personality traits are reflected our management team. So, they all feel the same way too. There's absolutely nobody on that team that is not completely there with us. Ready to just keep pushing and pushing and pushing. And our staff, it goes all the way to them. The people that are attracted to a place like this to work here. They, you know, they like that it's family. They liked that it's unique and different. They like that we're always pushing the envelope, trying to come up with cool new things or new ways or whatever the case. And so, it starts to draw in people who are naturally attracted to that. And so, they have a really kind of an inherent flexibility that is critical, but we couldn't have scripted that. I didn't really realize that, but it is true. We are--we ask a lot of them. We ask them to be very nimble and to do something very different one day than they did the day before, because we're trying to—

J Bagby: Sorry, I’ve got to go downstairs and talk to them for a minute.

D Bagby: Okay.

Downie: Okay.

J Bagby: Okay, I'll be right back. I got to set up a potential account with some tasting.

D Bagby: Doing some tasting. Do you want to bring them upstairs for a taste?

J Bagby: You did ask a question and that was what attracted us to this? Just going to finalize that and say the space. (Downie and D Bagby laugh)

D Bagby: Yeah, the space for sure was the deciding factor. But when he called me from here and I've told this story before, and he said--I asked, you know, the data, like, how big is it? What's going on? And when he started to rattle off the statistics, I'm like, in my mind, “There's no way this is going to happen. (Downie laughs) There's no way.” And then every little hurdle you cross over, you knock that domino down 00:44:00and then pretty soon you're signing your lease. And it still doesn't really feel real until then. And then even then it doesn't feel real until—

Downie: But you've been disappointed once already so--

D Bagby: Yeah.

Downie: So it was kind of like you don't exactly want to get too invested—

D Bagby: Once you sign the lease though, and you are a personal guarantee on that. It's yours. And so, then it's like, what do you do with that? Because there is a certain amount of money that if you just--even if you decide to never do anything with it, you're paying on your own personal account for that. So, and we knew that it was a big risk of the landlords, the owners. We knew that we wanted to not disappoint them too, as another layer in all of this. But I really didn't believe it was going to happen until it started happening. (laughs) And then the train was going and there was no stopping it, which is good.

Downie: Yeah. So, what about your background, Dande? As far, as you know, you said you worked in a Fortune 500 company. Well, what's your path that got you here? And to actually be supportive of something that you could have very easily said, “No, I don't want to do this.”

D Bagby: Yeah. I still do say that sometimes. No, I'm just kidding. No, my background is really weird. But somehow it all sort of feeds into to all the things that we do here. So, I worked in restaurants in high school and a little bit in college. I ended up working for a very small sort of family-run or just a couple of friends started the small kind of Mexican food chain. It was a kind of a spinoff from the Rubio’s chain. So, they had helped Ralph Rubio start Rubio's and they started their own thing. And so, I, you know, started working there my first restaurant job and worked my way up into management. And I'm still friends with the owners of that. They've since sold it all off, but it was really exciting to be a part of a small, very small and growing company. When I first was hired by them, they had one location. And then ultimately, I think they had seven or eight. Not when I worked there, but at the end of the sort of end of the line for them. And what happened though, was that they set the bar really 00:46:00high. I mean, they treated this little single location, you know, eight hundred square foot taco shop. They treated it as though it was a corporate--very, very organized, very dialed in, very high-quality, high standards when it came to customer service and food service and all of that. Even though it was a walk-up counter. So that was my only exposure to restaurants was that. And so, it really, it changed how I saw things, whether it was from a business perspective or from a restaurant perspective. And that was sort of, that became my benchmark, for how to be. How to be a manager, how to be managed, how to treat employees, all of that stuff began then. And it was my first real job was there. And I worked there for many years while I was--and then I went to school--my degree is in biology from Cal State San Marcos (California State University San Marcos).

Downie: My goodness. (laughs)

D Bagby: Yeah. So, I was a molecular cell biology major. But, before that, I wanted to be a zoologist. So, I started at Palomar and my very first class, my very first semester of college at Palomar, was as zoology class. And it was just life science, check the box, get that out of the way. And I fell in love with it and it was everything. I loved it. It was--my instructor was amazing. I don't think she's alive anymore. Dr. Jessup was her name. And she was a genius and I just wanted to absorb a hundred percent of everything she could teach me, I wanted to learn it. And so that kind of led me-- I worked for the Zoological Society of San Diego for about seven years. So, I left restaurants and did that and finished my degree at Cal State and left. And I taught biology and environmental science at the high school level. I taught labs--biology labs--at the junior college level for a few years. 00:48:00And then ultimately worked for SDG&E (San Diego Gas & Electric Company) in their Environmental Science Department. And, that's about when I met Jeff. So, I had done all of this sort of teaching and I hadn't worked in a restaurant in a long time. And when he and I first met, he had, like he said, he had beer on tap, both at Oggi’s in Vista where he had been the head brewer and at Pizza Port Carlsbad. And I had always liked beer, but I knew absolutely nothing about it. It was completely foreign to me. I didn't even--it didn't really occur to me that it was something that you could learn about. It just sort of was a thing that existed. And of course that's--couldn't be more wrong (Downie laughs) even then in 2005, even then. And so he's like, “Well come and let's taste some beer at in Vista.” So, we went out there and he just did the tasting, not a flight. I mean he pulled--we had tasters of every beer that was on tap. There must've been a dozen beers or more. And he kind of just lined them up how you would want somebody to kind of learn about beer. And he just was like, “Okay, what does it look like? What does it smell like? What does it taste like? Where do you think that's coming from? What is that? Did you do--?” you know? I remember specifically the hefeweizen he's like, “Do you think we added anything to make that taste like that?” And I was like, “Well, yeah, you probably added some fruit or you added some spice.” And absolutely not. Just from the yeast, and that tied into my biology background.

Downie: Right.

D Bagby: And understanding sort of a little bit about, you know, yeast chemistry, yeast metabolism. And then it started to click. I was like, “Okay, this is cool.” And then of course that led into ales and lagers and how they're, you know, metabolized differently. And all of the life cycle and all of that stuff. And so that really kind of itched, or what do you say, like “Scratch that itch” or whatever that science-y stuff. I really, really appreciated on the cellular level, which I had kind of departed 00:50:00from working in environmental science. So, that was a really huge eye-opener and that was kind of it for me. So, we tasted through all the beers and that created this sort of framework for me that I still rely on today. That's just sort of styles and, you know, parts of the world. And, you know, this is like this. And that's like, you know, whether it's hops in English IPA versus an American IPA and why and how, and, even just the physical I'm like, “I don't know what hop is. I have no idea.” So, he went and he grabbed a handful of hops and was like, “This is what they are. This is what they smell like. This is what they look like. This is where they're grown.” Of course, that led into hop harvest. And that led into fresh hop beer. And I remember specifically that season going down to-- because he still was bartending. So, he had, he left Pizza Port or--excuse me, he left Oggi’s and Vista and he was head brewing in Carlsbad and he was still bartending at Solana Beach. And I lived in Cardiff at the time. And so, I would go visit him on his bartend. I think he would work Wednesday nights and same thing. He'd be like, “Well, taste this, have a taste of this.” And I specifically remember fresh hop beers that season because it was unlike anything I'd ever had before. They were--it was just amazing to me. It was this bouquet of--it really tasted like drinking flowers. And that was really exciting. So, every new experience was just something to be learned. Unlike Jeff, I loved school, I loved being a student. I loved studying and I still do. I still love to learn. So does he, but even in that, even in an academic setting, I loved at all. And so it created this never-ending quest for information and knowledge and then that tied into experience. And so, when we would travel to whether it was in California or abroad or wherever, it creates this sort of, I don't know, structure, if you will. This kind of map or pathway for learning that, you know, whether it's about people or 00:52:00history or the ingredients and where they came from. And so that became, it became a passion of mine as well. And this was pretty close to right away. So, you know, within the first year or so of us dating, you know, we were going to events, we were traveling for beer. We were, you know, it just became part of our shared thing. But also, I loved learning from him too. And, yeah, and he's right. We started talking about opening a place, or that he wanted to open a place, pretty quickly. I mean, it was certainly not something that was going to be happening anytime soon, but it was again part of the discussion. And so, when you're traveling somewhere, you're going--his family, his father's side is from Northern Arizona, Prescott. Little town called Prescott. So, you know, we were traveling out there once or twice a year to visit his grandfather and kind of hang out and there's Prescott Brewing Company. So, we'd go there and just kind of talk about whether it was the beers or the styles or the hop choices or whatever to--do you think how’s the service? Is that are--what would we do differently? What about the glassware? Does this seem right? And--or how's the check presented? I mean, everything, it just became part of the fabric of what we talked about. And, yeah, that lasted and it's still true. It's still true today. And we go places and we look at how just the, how the operational side, how people are solving their own problems and you know, are those things we can borrow or are they things that we would never do because they don't fit with who we are. So that's how, that's the weird biology-biologist into brewery owner.

Downie: Everybody comes from somewhere.

D Bagby: That’s right.

Downie: Actually, you know, like you say, the whole hops chemistry. You know, Jackie Trischman in Chemistry at Cal State (University San Marcos) is working with Stone investigating hops chemistry.

D Bagby: That’s awesome.

Downie: So, you know, Bonnie Bade (Cal State University San Marcos) in 00:54:00Anthropology is medicinal plants, Native American medicinal plants, and looking at how those can be incorporated into beers and things, so…

D Bagby: Absolutely.

Downie: So, it's--you can pull a whole lot of different disciplines and interests and experiences into--

D Bagby: Absolutely.

Downie: The whole world of beer.

D Bagby: Absolutely. And that, and the whole historical piece too, is something that both Jeff and I are really passionate about. And that's a big reason why we have such diversity in terms of the beer styles that we brew here. He brews here because of that. They, you know, a Belgian blonde brings us--brings us back to Brussels. It brings us back to visiting with our friend Yvan (De Baets) from (Brasserie) de la Senne, you know? That to us is a big reason why we wanted to do this also is to bring pieces of these experiences that we've had all over the world right here. And if somebody is able, isn't able, or doesn't know they want yet to go to Belgium or they don't know they want to go to Germany or maybe they never will, you know? If we can bring a little piece of that to them, that's whether it's the beer, the glassware, the, you know, a little bit of history lesson through our employees. That's all--that's a big, that's a huge piece of this for us. So having a big staff is a challenge. Per slight understatement.

Downie: How many employees do you have?

D Bagby: We have about sixty employees now. Yeah. Which is the smallest staff we've ever had. We--when we first opened and you always open with more than you need, but we had over a hundred employees at one point.

Downie: Wow.

D Bagby: Which is a big, huge thing. Lots of people.

J Bagby: Through all of that, through all of the construction, through all of the opening and employees (unintelligible), I like to tell people that absolutely nothing surprises me anymore.

D Bagby: No

J Bagby: Nothing.

D Bagby: No, no.

J Bagby: I've heard it all, seen it all at all. Been through it all. Yeah.

Downie: And you're still standing.

D Bagby: Yeah. We are. Yep.

Downie: So, you've already said that you really 00:56:00don't look to expand beyond this site and it seems like it's large and you have plenty of elbow room but—

J Bagby: We could even expand onsite because we have a building that we haven't really even touched--(speaking at the same time)

D Bagby: (speaking at the same time) Touched. Yeah.

Downie: You’re kidding.

D Bagby: Yeah.

Downie: So you have expansion elbow room.

J Bagby: (speaking at the same time) Yes.

D Bagby: (speaking at the same time) Yes.

Downie: But since you're not canning beers now, what are your plans for the future in, you know, distribution or canning or--?

J Bagby: So, we've gone back and forth. What--we looked pretty seriously at purchasing a canning line. Mike Hess (Mike Hess Brewing) was selling theirs. So, I went down and looked at it, kind of ran some numbers and looked at it. But we wouldn't have been a good idea for cashflow for one thing. And the other was, we didn't have that output really. So, we'd have this really--

D Bagby: Beautiful.

J Bagby: Nice canning line and it would be lovely to put a ton of beer in cans, but no output for it.

Downie: Okay.

J Bagby: Which, you know, cart before the horse or not, or whatever, it's sometimes you just have to jump in. And so, we decided not to at that point, but it is something that's on the mind, especially with a lot of our beers that tend to be growing in popularity and that we think would be really good in a package or in the proper package. So, that's still a possibility. But we haven't decided what step we're going to take first in doing that. So, there is a possibly of that in the next year or two, three. Other than that, I really want to continue pushing our draft distribution because it's something that we can do in the framework that we have. We have the beer, we have cooperage, we can get more cooperage very easily. And the capital outlay isn’t as much, and the space requirement is not as much or as intense as packaging. What else, what else?

D Bagby: We one hundred percent self-distribute in California. So, we don't have a distributor anywhere.

J Bagby: Out of state we have (unintelligible).

D Bagby: Out of state, yeah, 00:58:00we (unintelligible).

J Bagby: We’re not sending a lot out beer of out of state, yeah. (Aside to D Bagby, Forgot to tell you I talked to Matt Bonney yesterday about Washington.)

D Bagby: Oh, okay, cool.

J Bagby: So, we'll do some stuff up there, but anyway. (laughs)

D Bagby: There you go. Heard it here first before I even heard it. (laughs) No, just kidding.

J Bagby: And he called me during the party.

D Bagby: Yeah. So self-distribution. We want to do that as long as we can. As a young business, (unintelligible), the margins on draft wholesale beer are already pretty, pretty low. So, you want to try to maximize as much revenue as you can at this stage of a business. There's also a lot of interesting things happening. I try to kind of dial into this a little bit as much as I can. There's a lot going on with this whole notion of hyper-local and, you know, being the kind of brewery that, and there are lots of them, that have these humongous, very ambitious goals to be in every state or to be in twenty states or to be all over the place right now. And I certainly don't disparage that, that's part of their business model and that's what they think is awesome. Go for it. But it's really feeling a lot like people are more, appreciating more and more, what's right near them. And you see certain breweries that are drawing back from that, that broad scale distribution more and more--

J Bagby: Or just staying where they are.

D Bagby: Or are just staying where they are, yeah. They say steady is the new growth. So, I think we're just, we're kind of a cautious company. We don't take a lot of big risks. Maybe because we have such a gigantic property here and so much going on that we don't have to. I mean, we don't even have the energy really to make big plans. But, no, we do talk a about what's next and where, where are we going to grow. And I do think even locally--we, you know, Jeff said, when he tries to sell someone beer, we actually haven’t actively sold any beer. Every drop of beer 01:00:00that hasn't been sold over our bar here at the pub has been somebody coming and saying, “Hey, I want to have your beer on at my place.” So, they reach out to us either, you know, usually via email.

J Bagby: That’s who I just met downstairs. And he is a friend, but they came to us to taste. More traditional sort of setup like, “Hey, can you send your rep by and bring some of your beers? I'd like to taste them on tap.”

D Bagby: Yeah, we do not have a rep. (laughs)

J Bagby: I'm the rep.

D Bagby: We don’t have one of those. Yeah. (J Bagby laughs) Part of it is too--and so that’s, it’s kind of nice that that’s, because then we know the accounts that have come to us really already get it. They already understand what we do and appreciate that enough to reach out, but we do not, we understand that is not sustainable. And the growth that we really do want to realize on the wholesale side is only achievable with some outreach. And that’s something that is--we know, we both acknowledge that that’s really important. But we also, again talk about kind of risk aversion. We were—it's still too close to us. We don’t want to just hire a sales rep and tell them to go out in the world and sell the beer. It’s really hard to let go of it and to, you know, just be those, just say, “Oh yeah, go for it. Volume volume. Get it.” Because it still really matters to us who’s pouring it. How they’re pouring it. Are they taking care of the kegs? Is the glassware appropriate? Is it clean? Are the lines clean? All we need is somebody to have a beer like this Kölsch that I'm drinking that is so delicate. And such a light beer that, you know, if it’s not cared for it is going to be flawed. And you know, most people don't drink a beer and think that they don’t like and think that it isn’t the brewer (laughs) or the brewery. Most people do not say, “Oh, those lines must be dirty. That's why this does not taste right.” So, it’s just cautious and definitely overly cautious. I’ll say we are very careful. And, you know, that’s, at some point we're going to have to start peeling our fingers 01:02:00off those kegs a little more forcefully and get out there in the world and really see. We hear from time to time that people believe that we just don't have any beer to sell. Because we aren’t actively selling it, which isn’t true. We make a lot of beer and we sell a lot of beer over our own bars, but we definitely have some volume that could go out much more than it is. So, we’re working on it. Got our hands pretty full. (laughs)

Downie: Now, this is something, you know, because you are both cautious people, but what if something happened and your landlord decided to sell the property?

J Bagby: So, there's provisions in our lease that say that I can’t change our lease.

Downie: Okay.

Downie: It was very protective.

D Bagby: Yeah.

J Bagby: It was very protected line by line that thing to make sure things like that like they couldn’t say, “Oh, we are going to sell a parking lot to a developer for apartments.” They can’t do that, you know? So, if they sell it our lease stands.

D Bagby: And we can buy it too, we have to be considered.

J Bagby: We don’t have first right of refusal.

D Bagby: Something else called that.

J Bagby: Their landlord or their rep did not want to give that--our landlords have kids. I would not see them giving up this property to somebody unless we just came by and plopped the amount of money on them, which can happen. And, you know, I know that the people that own these shops kind of behind the alley--

D Bagby: West of us.

J Bagby: The other side, are trying to develop it and turn it into apartments.

J Bagby: I'm like, that is a six-year project. If Coastal Commission--

D Bagby: It’s the Coastal Commission.

Downie: Yeah, it’s a coastal commission. Will even allow it.

D Bagby: Yeah, if the city--

J Bagby: We are so lucky to avoid those things, you know? We don’t have a conditional use. It was in the beginning we had some neighbors that were complaining. And I think it was just because people were parking on the street. It’s public parking on the street. And they were just getting mad 01:04:00because they used to park in front of their house at a certain time of night. And it wouldn’t be a problem. You know, because we’re—anyway. Somebody came and complained and said, “Oh, well, I'm going to go to the city. And you know, I’ve already started signatures to get your conditional use removed and dah-dah-dah.” And I was like, “Well, that’s cool, but we don’t have a conditional use.” And (the city has nothing to do over what we do here as a business. Because we’re permitted as a right. So, (whispers) sorry about that. (laughs)

D Bagby: Yeah, it was, we haven’t really, honestly, for being as close as we are to residential, we have had virtually no issues other than the first probably month we were open where people were kind of caught off guard maybe by the volume. But that’s, I mean, at least as far as I'm aware, we haven’t had any issues. We haven’t had any issues.

J Bagby: I had a couple of things. There was that one guy that, you know, I think he just wanted to come in and kind of rant. And I was nice to him. I just let him go. And when I said, you know, “I want to work with you. I want to work with the community, but you got to realize that, you know, the streets are public parking and unless you get that changed, which you're perfectly willing to try to try to do, but I don't believe the city is going to let you just for your spot in front of your house. And you know, I want to help you. We have the required parking that we're supposed to have for the use that we have here per our agreements with the city. And, you know, really sorry if there's any incidents or things that, you know, please feel free to call us.” Like just, you know, kill them with kindness kind of thing. And you know, reminded him that he really could not do anything about it.

D Bagby: Yeah, you live on a commercial zone, basically the boundary of a residential and commercial coming together. And that can be a challenge, especially because there wasn't anything here, no operating business for years. And even when the dealership was still going, I mean, they wouldn't--there wasn't so much parking demand. Yeah. That would have ever affected them. So, I get it. I would be upset too, probably, but—

Downie: But yeah. And change is always going to have somebody not happy.

D Bagby: Absolutely. 01:06:00That's true. Yeah.

Sweat: I actually have to go. I'm overseeing an event in Encinitas here in a second, so I have to run.

D Bagby: I hope you don’t run into any traffic.

Sweat: We’ll see what happens. (laughs)

Downie: It should be pretty good by now.

Sweat: I'll follow up with you tomorrow just to make sure you have everything you need and just see what any next steps are. But, let me know in the meantime if you need anything.

Downie: Thank you, Holly.

D Bagby: Thanks Holly.

Downie: I wish you a safe and easy drive.

Sweat: Thank you, I know.

D Bagby: I hope so too. Holly, we'll look at those pictures today, too. I know you guys are asking and we just have had a crazy few days.

Sweat: Yeah, we know with your party.

D Bagby: Yeah. (laughs)

Sweat: It looked like a lot of fun.

D Bagby: It was a lot of fun.

Sweat: And honestly, if you are only able to decide on like, a few, I could do the ones of Jeff just to get them to see.

D Bagby: Yes, I'll do that tonight before I leave. For sure. And how many do we need to give her? Total? Or selection?

Sweat: It’s in the email, like, how many you guys agreed to pay for.

D Bagby: I can’t remember.

Sweat: It might be one or two or Jeff.

D Bagby: Okay.

Sweat: That we agreed upon.

D Bagby: Okay.

Sweat: But yeah.

D Bagby: Thank you.

Sweat: It’s nice to see you both.

D Bagby: You too. Drive safe.

Downie: So, if you can still give me a little more time. I know I had just an hour, so I don’t (unintelligible)--.

J Bagby: Sure. I might check in on that account in a minute, but yeah, if you have some more questions, for sure.

Downie: You both sound like you're very, very invested in education, you know, which is a wonderful thing. What would you say, I mean, do you support any charities or causes through the brewery that you feel like you want to talk about? Or, are there plans to expand your reach into, you know, goodwill gestures besides listening to irate neighbors? (all laugh)

J Bagby: It's hard, you know? We get approached almost every day about some sort of donation for something. We have an outlet on our website where you can fill out a form and apply. And while we like supporting charities 01:08:00and the community, it's difficult because there are so many of them. And we like to look at the ones that either we've supported either personally in the past, or that we have a connection to through a family member or a very good friend. Where we can say, “Okay, you know, this is important to us because of this.” You know, while we like also doing this, we're also running a business. So, at some point you can't--you have to close the doors a little bit on it and say, “Look, we want to help you out. But you know, you're asking—" we could do it. The easiest thing for us to do is donate beer. But the hardest thing for us to donate is beer because of the licensing required for the nonprofit to actually get it. And they don't understand that.

Downie: I’ve run into that. (laughs)

J Bagby: And we always have to be the one that's like, well, “We'd love to help you out, but there's this, this, this, and this.”

Downie: Yeah, and more education. And what Stone did—because I approached Stone about some beer to maybe put into a scholarship raffle that we do through the Society of California Archivists I belong to. And it was, “Well, what did the ABC (California Department of Alcoholic Beverage Control say?” And then I ran into the ABC and I just went, for the permits we'd have to get, it's just, you know, it would eat up what little money we would make. So, and I understand that completely because (unintelligible).

D Bagby: Yeah, we’ve seen it. But, with that said, we are involved.

J Bagby: Yeah, I mean, we just had two weeks ago or, not this past week and the weekend before, we had a gigantic breast cancer benefit festival on our parking lot that a lot of our staff members donate their time to. We donate beer to, we donate food to—yeah, we donate space. And basically, we host the charity. And that was something that I started with the woman who founded the festival back at Pizza Port.

Downie: Is that Brewbies?

J Bagby: Yeah.

Downie: Yeah.

J Bagby: So that's the biggest one that we have. And then this one that we just had almost raised almost fifty thousand dollars for charity.

Downie: Wow. Wonderful.

J Bagby: And so, you know, knowing that and having been involved with this one for nine of them now, 01:10:00and being in the beer industry in general, I'm always getting asked, I'm very diligent about when we get a request for a festival because sometimes, first and foremost, sometimes the festival isn't necessarily great for the charity. There'll be a promotional company--excuse me, that we'll get out there, go up to a charity and say, “Hey, we can make you five thousand dollars if you pull the license for this,” you know? But they don't realize the potential risks involved or the insurance liability that they have to take on, different things like that. And the production company ends up taking the majority of the money because the proceeds. Now it's illegal because one hundred percent of it with that one day ABC license is supposed to go to the charity.

Downie: Right.

J Bagby: So, if someone squats, the ABC can say, “Hey, we need to see your books.” And then not only does the charity get in trouble, which they may not even be aware of.

Downie: Right.

J Bagby: But that promotional company, and even the breweries could get in trouble because they donated to it. Another thing is on our side, not only are we just donating beer but probably donating two people's full day’s worth of time to get the beer ready to go to the event, to get all the equipment together, to drive to wherever it might be to set up, to pour, take it all down and bring it all back home, clean it all. And so, people don't realize what really goes into it on our side when we're donating. We're not just donating a beer, we’re donating quite a bit more so we're pretty diligent about those. But that's really the easiest way for us to support a charity or a community event, unfortunately.

Downie: But those are facts that, you know, people need to be aware of. And you both talked about how much learning you've had to do along this path.

D Bagby: We’ve done some kind of other fundraisers, though.

J Bagby: Yeah, we've done some onsite things.

D Bagby: There have been a couple of military things that we've supported and—

J Bagby: And the dogs, yeah.

D Bagby: So there's a few things that we really, really kind of key into that mean a lot to us. But yeah, I think as a—

J Bagby: Firefighter--

D Bagby: Pint Project.

J Bagby: Yeah. A couple of onsite things that were pretty successful and, you know, we're just--you get back to this, like you can't do them all, you know? And as not nice as it sounds, it does need to benefit us in some way as well. Because we are offering up a lot when we do these things and why we want to help the community, we want to help these people that need help in some way, we just have to be careful.

D Bagby: Yeah. Exactly.

Downie: Yeah. Because, you know, I mean, not every charity is a 501(c ) or is required and you get into all kinds of thin ice. So, very understandable. But, no.

D Bagby: Now that's one of the things that I think is a benefit to us as Jeff has made it his mission and his absolute business to know as much as he can about ABC licensing. Just any sticky situations that are pitfalls. 01:12:00The San Diego Brewers Guild (a nonprofit organization that promotes San Diego breweries) just hosted like a ABC meeting at a local brewery a couple of weeks ago. And I feel like we knew a lot of that stuff that was mentioned, but it's still great to go and be a part of that.

J Bagby: It’s like a refresher course.

D Bagby: It’s a refresher. But you can just see in the room, people—

J Bagby And you get questions and hands go up. And you’re thinking “You can’t do that.”

D Bagby: Yeah. yeah. So, it was really interesting to see people's reaction to these rules that many of not all--I've been really long standing for a long time, but if you don't know, you don't know. And I think there's a lot of ask for forgiveness later, which may have worked in the past, but as the ABC gets more versed, they get--there are certain things that they were getting very particular about as they should.

Downie: Well, once they see it as a continual problem, that it keeps happening, they're going to start coming down and—

D Bagby: Yeah, and it's, you know, it is--I believe that it is your job as if you're going to have a license that you should know how it works and what--it's a responsibility. And it's hard for us to sometimes see other breweries who don't know. And that's fair if you don't know initially, but that blatantly break these laws all the time. And you don't want to see them get in trouble, but you also don't want to set up. It sets expectations on the customer side it sets expectations on other breweries’ sides were like, well, “They did it, why can't I?” And so of course for people like us who, like I said, risk averse, we want to make sure that we're--I mean, our biggest asset, those are the alcohol license. That's why we're here. So, if something happens to that, it gets jeopardized that's--that is a bad thing. (laughs) Very bad. So, yeah, it's, it's been talking about education. That's something that I've learned a lot from Jeff. 01:14:00And we've offered up if anybody has questions certainly here locally, you know, we're always available. People want to bounce an idea or, you know, find out more, we're happy to help.

Downie: So, you're active in San Diego Brewers Guild. Because I saw you at Guild Fest (SD Brewers Guild Fest) and you just mentioned a recent meeting. Are there any other organizations you're active in or are members of--?

J Bagby: We’re members of the Brewers Association, the National, um—

D Bagby: CCBA.

J Bagby: And the California Craft Brewers Association. Also, the MBA, the Masters Brewers Association of America.

D Bagby: I'm actually a board member on the—

J Bagby: San Diego.

D Bagby: Brewer’s Guild. But yeah, there's a lot of those little things like that.

J Bagby: I think those are the main ones, but those are all, I mean, there's some international stuff, but yeah.

Downie: Yeah. What are you going to get involved in? I mean, again, it's kind of like the finding the charities that are actually going to be beneficial. Is that going to benefit you?

J Bagby: (unintelligible) international. Well, yeah. I was going to say the only benefit for us because, you know, they have incredible conferences and technical courses. (Downie laughs) That would probably be the only reason for us to really be a part of those. And there's some competitions, there's some, some bigger European competitions that are gaining a lot of speed and a lot more Americans are actually sending beer over and winning medals. So, it's something to watch. But yeah, it's not like, you know, where we're going to Brau and Nuremberg every year or something like that.

Downie: Well, that does bring up. When did you start putting your beers into competition?

D Bagby: Good question.

J Bagby: That was back when I was at Pizza Port at Solana Beach. We entered beers at Stone, but they weren't really--I didn't have anything to do with the recipes of those beers.

Downie: Okay. You were an assistant.

J Bagby: I was just standing there, but when I got to Solana Beach and was working with Tomme, some of those were 01:16:00my ideas and my things where I brewed them, or we brewed them together. It's a bit more intimate and I was a little bit more involved. So, I would say there, really. And that's where, you know, won, our first, or my first time across the stage. (laughs)

Downie: Have you kept a list of all the awards you've won (unintelligible)?

J Bagby: She did quite a bit of work on that before our business case. Before we opened. But I think she ended up just tallying GABF awards and World Beer Cup awards. Because there's certainly other things, too. There's like Alpha King. I’ve won that three times. That's the Hoppy Beer Competition that they hold during the GABF, that’s not associated with the GABF. Some awards at San Diego International Beer Festival, what do you call it? Beer of the Year, three times there. And some various other medals in, you know, have we ever entered LA county? A couple of times. So, you know, some things here and there. IPA festivas up and over North and Hayward. Years ago, I won medal at the Alaska Beer and Barleywine Festival.

Downie: Oh, Alaska. Wow. You've really reached out here.

J Bagby: It's a very long running, very famous festival.

Downie: I’ve heard of it, yeah. But it just seems very interesting to me that if somebody were keeping a list of what beers they had won awards for, I think that would tell a story about some of the changes in styles and some of the expansion of styles of beers.

J Bagby: Yeah, yeah. Maybe, I don't know. I was talking to somebody. I was in Miami at a festival this past weekend. A friend of mine, his anniversary for his brewery. And he throws a festival that coincides with it. It's invitational. Anyway, he invited me and I was like, “Yeah, I've never been to Miami. I'll go.” So anyway, I was talking to another brewer friend who was there and he was like, “Oh, well, you know, you won lots of 01:18:00IPA (India Pale Ale) medals,” and you and I was like, “Boy, yeah, I won some of those,” but also won in Belgians and a lot of different stout medals. And, I even have a couple of German pilsner medals. Some other like, you know, Scotch Ales, like Brown Ales. It's kind of a wide gamut. So, I don't know if my medal history would necessarily tell much of a story in that way. Maybe.

Downie: Yeah. Well, I think the more pieces of evidence there are, the more our story can be put together. But have you ever done judging?

J Bagby: Oh yeah. Yeah. I've been a judge at the GABF (Great American Beer Festival) and the World Beer Cup for thirteen years. Thirteen, fourteen years now. I don't remember my first judge GABF. It was like 2003, I think. So, yeah. I've been doing that for a long time and I'll be doing that this year in National.

Downie: Yeah. I've heard comments that GABF has gotten so big and so many categories that has just really become kind of overwhelming. How do you feel about that?

J Bagby: I wished that they would, on the organization side, that they would grow the competition to represent the growth in the beer industry. I get what they're trying to do and what then they have limitations, but sometimes I think they're being a little harsh on the restrictions on their side. You know, there's almost eight thousand beers in there, in the GABF last year, and I'm sure the World Beer Cup will be around that. And I think there's seventy-nine categories. They haven't expanded the categories too much in the last five years. I think maybe ten years ago there might've been sixty-something categories. So, it hasn't expanded a whole lot, but what has is the entries, right? So, brewers used to be able to enter around eight beers per brewery, or brewhouse, location into the competition. 01:20:00They've changed that and they have several different categories in ways, you know, like a Pizza Port that has five locations. You know, what if all five locations enter beers? Well, they have stipulations on how many beers a corporation, or a set of breweries, that are under one ownership can enter. So, every year that we've been a brewery, we've entered the maximum number of beers that we can enter into the GABF. And that makes it difficult because you only have four shots, right? Like we're sending four beers to the World Beer Cup. So, it's a more difficult. But so does everybody else. And so, everyone else has to make the decisions and the kind of cuts in their mind of which beers they want to enter, which ones that they're going to pass on for this year or this competition or whatever it is. So, it's still very fair. I think it's still judged very fairly. Probably the most fair competition there is in beer because of the qualities, the qualifications of the judges, and their palates and their history and their tenure as judges judging beer. It's all judged blind. It’s done very, very well. The problems I see with it are the categories that are masked, or you have over two hundred beers in the category: American IPA, Imperial IPA. I think American Pale Ale is pretty high. Some of these other ones that they get close to, you know, that are well over one hundred beers. You're getting into a situation where the algorithm isn't--so, you know, when they're spitting out their initial rounds and the algorithm that isn't accounting for past medal winners. Or beers--so you could have a round that has eleven beers in it, say it's American IPA, 01:22:00and that round might not have a single beer that's ever been in the competition before, or all new breweries that have never been to a competition for it. Then you could have another set of eleven beers where every single one of those beers has won a medal in the American IPA category before. And they’re, as far as I know, they're not accounting for that. And to me, that changes the game a little bit. Because even if you're a judge and you, at which has happened before, you'll get around and you'll be like, “Man, it was tough to pass on three of those beers, really could have passed on two or even just one and save the judges down the road some tasting.” Well, they require you to pass on three. They really push you to pass on three. If you absolutely can't then they want to hear why and want to hear an explanation. And so, I just believe that in that sense, you know, well maybe it's okay, but in the other sense where they're like, “Man, we had eight good beers. It was really hard to only pass on three beers.” So, now you've got this thing where you might have a potential medal winner that gets knocked out early because it was in a round with all excellent beer.

Downie: Yeah.

J Bagby: So that's--if I had a complaint about them, I wished that they would account for that. Especially in those--there's only, I'm talking to a handful of categories where that is really something I think that comes into play. The only other thing might be, like I said, to have grown with the competition or with the industry and allow brewers to enter more beers. But that takes more time. It takes more judges. They try to get the judging done in three days. If they didn't, they'd have to get another day, which is paying more, but you have to pay to enter the competition. So, to me, there's some work that probably 01:24:00could still be done. And there is a lot of brewers out there that are like, “Oh GABF. It's kind of eh.” You know, I believe in what my beers are and I send them and either I don't win medals or other beers win medals in the category that I entered that I don't think are as good as my beer. I think you have people that feel like that. But having been a judge, I've been on the tables. I've never been in a case where I was like, “That beer should have won a medal and it's not in the top three,” you know? I've never had a case where there wasn't a lot of thought and a lot of time spent into the beers that actually win medals. They’re medal-winning beers.

Downie: Okay. I had a question and it’s just completely slipped my mind.

J Bagby: Sorry. I know.

Downie: No, that's okay. It still had to do with this. Um, I don’t know. (laughs)

J Bagby: With the competition, or--?

Downie: Well, oh, I know what it is. The brewers themselves decide what style of beer they’ve brewed. Have you run into cases where you taste a beer and you go, “This has--should have been in this category, you know. What were they doing putting it in here?”

J Bagby: Yeah. Yeah. And the BA (Brewer’s Association) is real upfront about that when they tell brewers, you know, read the style guidelines and make sure that your beer fits into those guidelines and they give you everything. They give you a verbal description of the bitterness, color, aroma, mouthfeel, text--you know, everything. And then they also give you actual numbers for alcohol range, color range. Those are the things you need to pay attention to. And I feel like there is brewers that still don't pay attention to that. I don't know how or why. Or if they've just mislabeled their beers or what happened. But, they're—it’s pretty upfront. Like, this is--the judges have this when they're sitting at their table and they're going to read this before they start 01:26:00judging your beer. So, why would you enter something that doesn’t fit?

Downie: Yeah, because you don't know why. Because I was thinking, well, maybe it's just their taste buds are different? Or it didn't transport well. (laughs)

J Bagby: Yeah. I think, you know, for instance, she (D Bagby) sent me a picture one day. She had a Kölsch earlier. I can't remember what brewery she was drinking at. But she sent me a picture and it was this hazy beer in a straight sided pint glass. And she wrote “Kölsch--?” And so of course I went, “What does it taste like? Where are you at? Blah-blah-blah.” But a lot of people would look at that and go, “Well, Kölsch should be bright,” you know? Any German from Cologne is going be like, “That's hazy,” that’s got--you know. Even chill haze shouldn't really be there in a Kölsch.

Downie: Okay.

J Bagby: And a brewer's interpretation is one thing of what they call it on their menu board versus, you know, what category they might enter it in GABF. So, a beer like that might be an entered in a Keller beer. Because it might be an unfiltered Kölsch. So, they might say, well, “Yeah, it's German style Kölsch,” but it's actually a Keller beer because it was brewed in the vein of a Kölsch, but Keller is a German style beer.

Downie: And that’s “K-E-L-L-E-R?”

J Bagby: Yeah.

Downie: Okay. I'm still learning all the—

J Bagby: Oh yeah, there’s tons. And that's--

Downie: There’s huge number of beer styles.

J Bagby: Yeah, and there's, you know, historical beers that are becoming more popular and more rare, more obscure recipes and styles where there's a little bit more confusion or debate over what is actually correct. The Brewer’s Association does a good job of refining their categories and reviewing them each year. So, they take judge's interpretation—or judge’s comments on style descriptions. “No, no, this actually should be this way,” or “This should allow for this and this as well as this,” you know, so they do a good job of keeping up with that. But yeah, if you, you know, taste a brewer’s 01:28:00altbier at one brewery, and then he goes to another brewery and tastes another brewer’s altbier, they could be completely different beers. So, there that slide in judgment, but when you get into competitions, where's the category of your beer doesn't fit in it, then don't enter it. (laughs)

Downie: Well, I mean, brewing is such a creative process. And there are as best as you can try certain factors like, you know, a Centennial hop may not be exactly the Centennial hop it was the year before due to the growing season, the factors there. So, it really is a creative process, but I've been kind of interested in the whole, you know, yes, I've seen some of these categories and descriptions and I'm like, “How can you always guarantee that those beers?”--well, obviously not. Not surprised.

J Bagby: Yeah, there's interpretations of (unintelligible) category descriptions in different ways, for sure.

Downie: Well, while you were meeting that account, Dande was telling me how, you know, when she first met you, how you were educating her into all the varieties of beers, you know? How she has found that to be so helpful. And then just the brewers I meet all seem to be that way as they to educate someone who--on the various styles that they're brewing or they're enjoying right at the time. Do you find that wearing? You know, continually trying to educate more people?

J Bagby: I think when it's--if I was doing it every day, I think it might get—or the same exact set of beers every day or the same exact descriptions of the same person or the same, you know, whatever. I think I might get a little tired of it. But to me it's kind of exciting, especially when you have somebody that's open to it and isn't restrictive of themselves in their own palates. So, if you have somebody that's like, “I've never tasted German-style 01:30:00Weisse beer. I've never tasted American Red Ale,” which is kind of a better example. “I've never tasted Irish dry stout. I've never tasted—" you know? Whatever it may be. And if you can get five or six of those things in samples right in front of somebody, that's going to be a really cool conversation. Especially if that person's open to tasting and listening and identifying with what you're talking about in each one, you know? When you say, “Oh, what do you smell on that? What are you getting that? Okay.” Those types of things come from this ingredient or this timeframe or this hop or this malt and--or whatever other specialty ingredient might be there. And when the person identifies and goes, “Oh wow, that's really cool. I never thought of it like that.” All of the sudden you've got somebody who thought they hated German-style hefeweizen and going, “No, actually I'm going to order that the next time I'm out because I want to compare it or I want to see what it's like again, and kind of—"you know? I think people like, you know, connecting the dots in their heads. And if you've given them a little bit, just to even a little bit to bite on like English-style bitter, or an Extra Special Bitter, you know, what does that mean? What does that, it sounds, it sounds harsh, Extra Special Bitter. Well, no, there's actually some really nice malt depth in ESB (Extra Special Bitter) and it should be there. Well, it should have a firm bitterness, but what kind of bitterness? Well, it's not American piney, citrus, passion fruit, floral. And it's not that kind of hop it's the more herbal, spicy, earthy hop from the English varieties. And even just that much, and a person can go, “Oh, well, I really liked that.”

Downie: And it makes it more accessible.

J Bagby: And the next time, the next time I see it somewhere, I've got that connection in my brain to go, “Yeah, I know what I'm ordering it and there it is. Affirmation.” I'm drinking it. And it smells and tastes like I remembered. And I was told that it should. And I get that a lot where somebody will say, “Hey, you mentioned that, you know, this style beer can have this, this, and this. But I tried it over here and I got this, this, and this.” And 01:32:00that's sometimes where the brewer’s discrepancy is between styles or different ingredients or maybe just something is slightly different. But you can explain that away. And therefore, they've learned a little bit more and they have their file on whatever that beer was just got a little bit deeper in their head. So, the next time they try it and they connect the dots again. And I don't know, to me that's fun. That's exciting. And it's really exciting to see when someone's open to that and is engaging in that. It's kind of a little bit difficult when somebody says, “Oh, I don't like bitter beer,” or, “I don't like hops.” And you're like, “Well, you just haven't tried the right hops yet.” It's like, if you like beer and you're say you're a beer drinker, I believe--yes, you can have your favorites and the ones that you don't think are as great to you, but you got to try everything. You know, there's some newer, crazy styles out there I get, but the basics, ales and lagers, and the families within there, the style of families, if you say you're a beer drinker, you should know those or have a basic framework and understanding of what those are or have the desire to go, “I've never really tried that. I'm not really familiar with that, but I want to see. I want to see what it tastes like so that I know if I really like it, or I don't.” To like, find that out later, you know, like give yourself the chance to like it.

Downie: It's like the three-bite rule with the kid and the vegetable. And then, you know, you got to at least try three bites of it. And then if you don't like it, we'll go from there. So that's a good way to do it. Now, do you have a favorite hop? Is there one that you like brewing with more than others?

J Bagby: There’s definitely hops—plural--that I like using. We're a pretty classic traditional brewery. So, we stick to pretty traditional classic styles of beer. So, we're not using too many of the new, exotic, crazier hops. We're sticking to more of the classic American Pacific Northwest American hops and then the Nova varieties and then the English varieties. 01:34:00So, on the American side, you know, we're using a lot of Cascades, Centennial, a little Amarillo and Simcoe, and Columbus and Chinook. And that's kind of our core for the American side, but then the English ones are really wide and Noble hops as well. We use a lot of different varieties and again, not a lot of real new flashy ones, in part because of our contracts, we didn't know how and when our brewery was going to open. So, I bought a lot of hops because I was afraid that we weren't going to have any when we opened. So that drove that a little bit. The other part was just, yeah, I really liked those more classic American hops over some of the newer ones. Not to say that I don't like sprinkling a little of them here and there in brews, but I tend to favor those classic ‘C’ hops (referring to Chinook, Citra and other hops starting with the letter C.)

Downie: And so you don't, from what you're saying, I'm hearing that you probably aren't planning on doing, you know, real strange and experimental beers either, you know? You're going to stick with the more--?

J Bagby: No, I think if anything, I would pick some of the more obscure older styles. I’ve talking with some friends about a smoked wheat beer that used to be made that is actually--I believe it's actually a lager yeast and it's a fairly bright beer. But it has a smoked character to it, and a little bit of bitterness and wheat malt character to it. But I'm always afraid to brew smoked beer because I think, I always think that it's going to be me and like three other people drinking it. (Downie and D Bagby laugh)

Downie: Yeah, it could be a big mistake if you brewed it on your big system. So, do you have a small system that you can do little test batches on?

J Bagby: No, it’s—

D Bagby: It’s all or nothing.

Downie: Well, that goes to being risk averse again.

J Bagby: Yeah, we have a little lager on right now. I think it tastes fantastic. I just think it doesn't--I just think it's not exciting 01:36:00to people. It's a Belgium style beer. If you're familiar with Belgian style dubbel, which is basically like a Belgian style brown ale, but it has a Belgian yeast character to it. So, it's a little spicy and dark fruit and things like that. Well, take that and cut it in a little less than half with alcohol and flavors and everything else. We dropped it down to only about four and a half percent. It still has a lot of those characters, they're just a lot more mild and it's not as big and it's not as heavy. But it's not selling at all. (laughs) So, even somebody even called it dark Bud Light in the online comment.

Downie: Oh dear. (laughs)

J Bagby: That was fun to read yesterday. (laughs)

D Bagby: That’s alright. It’s not for everyone.

J Bagby: Nope. And that's exactly. That's kind of how we thought about it.

Downie: One person's interpretation.

J Bagby: Exactly, exactly.

Downie: But yeah, if you're seeing that it's not really selling then, you know? You kind of--

J Bagby: Yeah, we (unintelligible)--

D Bagby: We had a few beers like, but that's, I mean, unfortunately, a few of them were Belgian styles.

J Bagby: Yeah.

D Bagby: But, Bruges Cruise was on for a long time.

J Bagby: Well, that's because it was over eleven percent. We had people that loved that beer. But, we sold that at eight ounces at a time.

D Bagby: Yeah, but we had it on tap for a year, also.

J Bagby: (Unintelligible).

D Bagby: They do A12. They do A12. Which is good.

Downie: So, do you have much of a barrel aging program?

J Bagby: We started one. We had, uh, we did twelve barrels and then we did another set with a different beer of just four barrels. All, most, all of that is gone now. So, we just brewed up Imperial Stout and we're getting ready to purchase thirty barrels. Just deciding what other beers we're going to put in those barrels and talk with the broker about making sure we get them as fresh as possible and which barrels they'll have available at that time. So that we're not filling barrels that have been sitting around drying out 01:38:00for months. They were nice and fresh.

Downie: Yeah, you want to be able to extract something out of those barrels. (laughs)

J Bagby: Exactly. But it's fun. I like doing it. But we do all straight up beer. We don't use any Wild Geese (blended whiskey) or--

D Bagby: Cupcakes.

J Bagby: Or anything like that. (Downie and J Bagby laugh) So yeah, that’s fun. That's, to me, that's--I don't know, that gets to the uber fun side of brewing. You're like, “Oh, I'm going to put this thing in here.” Well, we had that beer that she was talking about in there for eighteen months and I just served it in Miami last weekend and it tasted phenomenal.

Downie: (laughs) Love it when something works.

J Bagby: Yeah. And sometimes they're don’t. That’s true. Knock on wood, we were pretty lucky with our barrels. Yeah.

Downie: Okay. Well, I think I've exhausted all my questions. I learned a lot from you both. I've very, very, very much appreciated your time.

D Bagby: Oh sure, our pleasure.

J Bagby: If anything comes up or you're going through things and just feel free to email me or her and follow up.

Downie: Come back with something that didn't record or transcribe or something.

D Bagby: Don’t hesitate, we're happy to happy to help and also believe in what you're doing, and also--

J Bagby: Definitely.

D Bagby: And also love to talk about all this kind of stuff, people that--

J Bagby: Yeah, it’s fun.

D Bagby: People that are interested in it. Because, you know, we work so close to it, it's our life. But we are still--we are very passionate about it. And hopefully that comes through a little bit, even in construction stuff, and crazy things like that.

Downie: I definitely see you have a future as working as a brewery construction consultant. (J and D Bagby laugh) Because really, you have gone through a lot of effort to educate yourselves and to do it right. And that kind of knowledge really should be shared. I mean, that's something I admire about Mike Hess. He wrote that, you know, ‘starting up a brewery’ webpage, but that still doesn't tap on everything. And especially, you know, doing something like this, of course every situation is going to change with every city you’re 01:40:00dealing with.

D Bagby: But there are some basics that I think we would have really benefited from big time. And I think we would have heeded, we would have paid attention if somebody was like, “Hey, we just did this. Here's our experience. I'm here’s just how you can, you know, maybe avoid some of the pain, some of the pain points.”

J Bagby: Yeah, the building part and you know, the construction management. I mean, I think part of that goes a lot. Like I can use the comparison as somebody's going to buy their brewing equipment and calling up three different equipment manufacturing and saying, “I want to buy a ten-barrel system, give me a quote,” and get three quotes and then just choose which one they want and order the equipment and get it sent. Well, I went up to the equipment manufacturer’s warehouse and talked with the engineers for two days before they even started drawing plans for my tanks. And then when they were about to start doing the finishing and they connection piping and all the process piping, I went back up there and stood in my tanks and looked at all the cores and looked at all the valves were and told them where I wanted to move things moved or changed. And the different specs on all--every single tank, not just the, the brewhouse stuff, but the cellar as well. Because you might get your tank and go like, “Why the heck is it like that?” And I kind of compare that to construction. Like we could have probably sat around and worked on other things and let them take forever to build this place and would have had something in the end, that would have been, but it wouldn’t been us and it wouldn’t been right. And that's just how we operate. So, I think while we spend a lot of time on that and we feel that it was absolutely one hundred percent necessary, some other people might be like, “Well, he didn't really need to do that. You could of—”

D Bagby: Get by.

J Bagby: But it's not us. I guess that was what I was trying to say.

Downie: You have invested heavily in this, so why not have it right? But, Plan Nine (Plan Nine Alehouse) over in Escondido, I was over there one day and they didn't have any of their own beers on tap. 01:42:00And I said, “Gee, you don't have any of your own, I thought you were brewery.” And he said, “Well, we got new equipment and we've had continual leakage.”

D Bagby: Oh no.

Downie: And they, you know, this was like nine months that they had been dealing with it. So, you were exactly right in going--and I mean, even if you have to stand in your tanks and (unintelligible)—

J Bagby: Well, and it’s kind of fun too. (laughs)

Downie: Yeah, yeah. They will say, “Hey, I stood in my tank.” (all laugh) But, yeah.

D Bagby: That’s too bad.

Downie: So, something like that can go very, very wrong.

J Bagby: Yeah, looking at welds and not (unintelligible).

D Bagby: And also not having the support, because if you--when, you know, when you got your, whatever it is, whatever contractor you have or manufacturer having--actually, we're just dealing with the meeting before you got here or talking to a new point of sale company. And part of the reason is just a sheer lack of support on our current system. There's no one we can call and say, “Hey, you know our business, you know how we operate. These are the problems we're having.” There's just no one. And so, this other company that's--you absolutely have a person. So having your tanks leaking, you're losing money. You're, you know, that's literally money down the drain, and frustrating if you're a brewery owner, you’re a brewer, you definitely don't want to see your beer going down the drain. Yeah. Do you have the support you need from the manufacturer? Who's going to back up their work and if not, then pay a few more bucks and get somebody who will.

J Bagby: Yeah.

Downie: Yeah. So, a lesson to live by.

D Bagby: Yes, that’s so true. Well, thank you so much.

Downie: Thank you. Yeah, let's see. Where's my stop button? (Downie and D Bagby laugh)