Wagner, Steve. Interview October 24, 2018.

Judith Downie: Today is October 24th, 2018. Judith Downie interviewer for the CSUSM Brewchive® with Steve Wagner, co-founder and co-owner of Stone Brewing.

Steve Wagner: (Aside to office staff) Okay. Don't have to worry about that. Alright, great.

Downie: So if you will first state your name and position.

Wagner: Okay. This is Steve Wagner, I am the cofounder and president of Stone Brewing Company.

Downie: Okay. And so if we could get into a little bit of your own background, what the path that led you to Stone would be very informative.

Wagner: Yes, absolutely. My story starts in Evanston, Illinois suburb of Chicago where I was born. 1958 and my parents had attended Northwestern University. So, I grew up in the Chicago area until I was about 10 years old and my family moved to Los Angeles, California. My father took a job with Mattel Toy Company 00:01:00, which was very exciting for me and my brothers. In fact, I think that's where my first entrepreneurial venture was. I would get some of the new Hot Wheels™ cars before they were released and I would sell them to my school mates, at highly inflated prices because they were collecting them and they could get them before they came out.

Downie: Yeah, hot demand for something nobody else had. Boy, you were doing it…

Wagner: It was better, I made more money than the lemonade stand. I'll put it that way.

Downie: Now of course, did you ever get into trouble for doing that either from Mattel or from the school because you were conducting business on school property?

Wagner: Nope. Never got caught. So, okay, let's see. So, interests before brewing. While I was a lifelong musician, I started studying piano growing up in Chicago. When I think when I was six years old, I started taking 00:02:00piano lessons and played all the way through high school, had some incredible teachers and actually in high school I started playing some guitar and bass and started playing in some bands, some high school bands. And then, college I went to UC Santa Cruz. So, I was an English lit major and still played some music, with some friends and things. And then after college I moved back to Los Angeles and I was working in some restaurants and, you know, basically trying to figure out what to do and ended up meeting some other musicians at a party and we decided to form a band. And that was the beginning of the Balancing Act, which was the, I guess you'd say, the most successful band I was in. We ended up self-producing our first record and putting it out on our own label. So again, some, good entrepreneurial experience.

Downie: So was this an LP?

Wagner: It was an EP actually 00:03:00, an extended play. It was six songs I believe were on it. Just vinyl, this was right before CDs kind of became the new format. And, yeah, it was fun and we got some nice critical recognition and acclaim and, you know, played a lot in, in Southern California. And then, we actually got signed to I.R.S. records, which was a pretty cool record label at that time. And we ended up recording and releasing two albums for that label. Got to tour all over the US multiple times and every college town now I think in the US. (laughs) Those were our people.

Downie: And so this was still as The Balancing Act?

Wagner: Yes. Yep. And so, yeah, it was, it was a really great experience and it was four of us and we all wrote songs and sang. It was very much a collective and 00:04:00we had a lot of fun. Yeah, let's see. So, then I started, uh, I think that band, eventually we went our separate ways and I played in some other groups, a band in LA called the Bedshredders and another band called Walker Stories. I did some studio work and played, you know, played on recordings for other people and things like that. But I was kind of at that point thinking, okay, I was, I got married. I was not that keen to go back out on tour and on the road and do things like that. So, I was trying to think of what the next step in my career would be. And one of the guys in, actually I played with in both the Bedshredders and Walker Stories invited me over to do some homebrewing at his house. He was a homebrewer and I went over and did that and was immediately captivated by 00:05:00the process of brewing your own beer. I was already a beer fan and I mean, my touring days, you know, you'd always get, the band would get, a case of beer and I’d like try to get them to give us something, you know, a little out of the ordinary or something local. But there wasn't much choice in those days, but still enjoyed it.

Downie: This would have been about what year?

Wagner: This was the mid to late eighties, early nineties.

Downie: So craft brewing is just starting to get a hold in places?

Wagner: Yeah, you know, Sierra Nevada was around, but I think they were still really only California probably. Yeah, there were a few other things, but not much. So, let's see. So, yeah, I started homebrewing on my own ‘cause I wanted to do it more often and you know, really read up and studied as much as I could about it and brewed a lot and joined some Homebrew clubs in Los Angeles and really tried to learn as much as I could about it and do it in my spare time 00:06:00. And, as part of that journey, I wanted to, they were offering classes at (University of California) Davis in Northern California, extension classes on advanced home brewing and sensory evaluation of beer. And so I decided to make the trip up there one weekend to, you know, try to learn some more and check out the school up there. And so I went, I think on a Friday there was an advanced home brewing class that I went to and then on Saturday it was the sensory evaluation of beer class. And I look across the room and I see this long-haired guy and I go, ‘Wait a minute, that's my rock and roll landlord, Greg Koch.’ And it was funny, you know, I didn't, it was out of context and I think it took me a little while to figure out who it was and I'm like, ‘Oh yeah’, ‘cause we didn't know each other that well. We were acquaintances. Because he tells the story, he didn't know me that well ‘cause my band actually paid that rent on time. So, we rented music rehearsal space 00:07:00from his company.

Downie: Now this was the LA location?

Wagner: Yeah, downtown Los Angeles.

Downie: There was a San Francisco location for a while.

Wagner: Yeah. This was the downtown Los Angeles location. And so, you know, when we had the first break I went up and said hi and we started talking a little bit and realized we had a mutual interest in beer and craft beer and everything. And it was, it was cool. That as part of the sensory evaluation class, If you were a homebrewer, they said bring your beer and we'll taste it. And I had brought some of my beers and we tasted them and people liked them. Greg really liked them. Ironically, it was, you know, since we were such an anti-fruit beer brewery in the beginning, it was a peach ale that I had made, ‘cause I was actually, one of my side jobs when I was a musician, was working for a farmer who came down for the Santa Monica farmer's market and I would sell his stone fruits, peaches and stuff. And so I got some awesome peaches and I decided to make a beer out of it. So funny.

Downie: So leading the way with fruit beer.

Wagner: Yup. Yup. 00:08:00And so yeah, I think, you know, that's sort of me running into him there and drinking some beers together and stuff. You know, here this guy was a successful entrepreneur, and I was interested in getting into beer and we, you know, we started talking about maybe we should start our own brewery. I think we were both back in LA and we, you know, we did some home brews together and just kinda hung out together and started talking about things and seeing if we could see a way to do, you know, to start our brewery. So.

Downie: Yeah. So Davis I think was in ‘94, ’93?

Wagner: ’93 I think. I'm gonna say ‘93.

Downie: I've got Greg’s textbooks from that.

Wagner: Well we went back for some additional classes too. That might've been in ‘94, but I think that initial one was before that.

Downie: So it really considering that Stone itself opened up 00:09:00in mid-year 1996...

Wagner: Yeah.

Downie: You worked on a pretty fast track to get Stone up and going. It seems like compared to what I'm seeing for some breweries now.

Wagner: Yeah. I don't know. It felt like a pretty deliberate track to me ‘cause I actually, you know, in, in between there, I moved up to, had an opportunity to house sit for my brother and his soon to be wife up in Portland because they were taking the better part of a year off as a sabbatical. They both worked for Intel. They needed somebody to house sit for them. And so my wife Laura and I volunteered to go up and do that. And it, part of my thinking was, well, I'll find a job at a brewery up there, you know, get some hands-on experience and really make sure I, I enjoy the work and, you know, am as passionate about the work as I think I would be, you know. Yeah, so I think that was Spring of ‘94 00:10:00that we moved up there and landed a job brewing for Pyramid shortly thereafter. Up in Kalama, Washington, you know, 30-minute commute North of Portland. And yeah, started, I mean I think I had two weeks of training and then they handed me the keys for the midnight night shift, the lone brewer in this pretty sizable plant at that point I was like, “Wow, this is happening pretty fast.’ But uh,

Downie: How big was Pyramid? How many barrels do you remember?

Wagner: I think they did about 90,000 barrels when I was there in ‘90. I was there through fall of ‘95, I guess. So, a little over a year, year and a half of it. It was great experience and I really loved, loved the work. You know, just the hands on of brewing and being part of a brewery like that. I had a lot of great mentors that I was able to learn a lot from 00:11:00. It was everything I had hoped it would be. In fact, I enjoyed it so much. I was happy to just keep working there. And eventually Greg got impatient like, ’Are we gonna do this or what?’ But I was like, ‘I don't know, I've enjoyed living in Portland.’

Downie: Yeah, it’s beautiful up there.

Wagner: I’m enjoying working for a brewery, but you know, I realized ‘Yeah if we're going to do this, we need to do it.’ So, you know, so in some ways to me that seems like a longer timeline because I actually, you know, took the time to go get some hands-on experience and do that rather than just, ah, you know (inaudible).

Downie: That was a very good deliberate move though to make sure that, you know, it wasn't just the activity of brewing but you could actually face the day-to-day work.

Wagner: Yeah. Yup and it really helped me in, you know, shopping for our original equipment and putting the brewery together and how we wanted to do things and Pyramid had a pretty good focus on quality of their beer. And, you know, so that became one of our things at Stone too, was to, to create really consistent beers 00:12:00and beers that had decent shelf life. You know, the people would have the same experience every time they tried one. And that, that ended up being crucial for us because, you know, opening in 1996, that was kinda the beginning of the first shakeout in craft beer where a lot of people had rushed in who maybe didn't have brewing expertise and were looking to be quick buck and stuff. And there was a lot of issues with, you know, bad beer out there that wasn't consistent or had off flavors or different things. And so you know, I think that the time I spent at Pyramid really benefited us. The ability to pull off quality and consistency. So, because you know, when we first opened Stone and go out to try to sell our beer, I mean, Greg was the, you know, he was our lone salesman at the time. That's what I mean, he'd go out or it was all these, a lot of people who didn't want to take craft beer, they said, ‘No, we've done it’s a fad. You know 00:13:00, it's like the beer never tasted the same twice or you couldn't deliver it when we needed it. So we're not doing that anymore, you know?’ So that's what we were up against when we started the company. It was possibly the worst possible time to start it.

Downie: Well, you sink or swim.

Wagner: Yep, exactly.

Downie: And so since you've been talking about your education, did you do any other education after opening Stone or were you just so busy with running Stone?

Wagner: You know, before we had opened Stone, Greg and I would go to the craft brewers conference, the national conference, the annual conference. So, we would go to that every year. And as part of that, you know, obviously there there's a trade show, but they also do a lot of educational seminars and things like that. So, continued to take advantage of that. Even in the early days we would go to that and helped us keep up with what was happening in, you know, brewing techniques and science and equipment and stuff. Um, I'm trying 00:14:00to remember. I think I might have taken some other classes, but I think they might've been more finance- and accounting-focused because I had sort of assumed that hat in the brewery too, you know. It was interesting the dynamics when you start, at first I felt like all the pressure was on me, you know, to order the brewery equipment, get it installed, get it, get it working, get the beer to where I want it, you know, get the beer brewed and then all of a sudden all the pressure shifts to Greg. Right. It's like, ‘Well, here's all these kegs. You better go sell it.’

(Wagner and Downie laugh.)

And to his credit, you know, he did it. But at that time, you know, maybe I was only brewing once a week or something. So, I took on the task of, you know, the invoices are coming in and collecting payments and paying our vendors and doing all that and just getting into the, you know, the accounting, finance end of it. And uh, never had really had experience doing that. But I kind of learned by doing and I realized I enjoyed being 00:15:00familiar with the numbers and understanding what was happening to the company, financially. So I really, you know, kind of had a…

Downie: Somebody who got to watch those numbers.

Wagner: Yes. Yup. It was important.

Downie: So that does kind of answer down here in the Stone section. I did ask about your role in Stone's early years besides brewing. And of course, I have photographs from Greg's collection of all of you doing stuff. You know, building and you know, moving equipment and all that sort of thing.

Wagner: Yeah. ‘Cause you know Greg had construction experience from building his rehearsal studio and that sort of stuff. So, he, he was very savvy with contractors and how to do that kind of stuff. So I focused more on, you know, figuring out the right brewery equipment for us and finding the best deal on that and getting it shipped. And he did a lot of the, you know, the construction stuff that we needed at the brewery, the trench drains, the different things.

Downie: Was there ever a discussion between you and Greg about how the jobs were going to fall out or you just said, Greg, you've got the MBA, you've got 00:16:00, you know, and you just kind of naturally took that on and like you say, you were brewing once a week, so somebody had to deal with the invoicing, and all of the rest.

Wagner: You know, there was always more than, you know, there was always too much to do. So it was, it was very much a chip in where you could ever, you could help type of situation, you know, whether it was deliver your keg to a customer who had run out over the weekend or something. You know, we both did a lot of that. You know, I would go out and do sales calls and things too, you know, to, to try to expand our, our impact. Yeah, it's very much a, you do whatever it takes type of thing.

Downie: And Pizza Port was the first, in Solana Beach, was the first location to take a keg?

Wagner: Yep. Yep.

Downie: ‘Cause I've seen the plaque down there.

Wagner: Yep. Yep. Greg, he tells a good story about that too. It gave us a very unrealistic view of the distribution business because they came and picked up the first keg ‘cause they wanted to be the first. We are like, ‘Oh this is easy. Everybody just comes to you and gets it.’ Right.

Downie: 00:17:00Yeah. There you go.

Wagner: That might've been the last time anybody did that.

Downie: Other than maybe somebody picked up a keg for their own personal party, you know?

Wagner: Yeah.

Downie: You know you learn as you go along because that's really, there were so few models for a craft brewery, you know, a smaller brewery. You know, you can't take the models that work for AB (Anheuser Busch) or anybody else and apply them to you. It just doesn't work. Okay. So, um, we'll jump back up the list here. How, how, and why the name Stone Brewing. Oh good. You're laughing.

Wagner: You can see the list of the names from the wheat beer that we did. We, we came up with a lot of names and we disagreed quite a bit about names, you know, I think, which was good. It kind of helped us make sure that we came up with something that we both thought was good and that usually it was better than something that only one of us thought was good. So 00:18:00, we went through a lot of lists of names and a lot of rejection of names that that didn't work for us. And, you know, I mean we came up on a deadline, right? We had called our corporation Koochenvagners kind of a play out our two names, but we're coming up to a deadline to, you know, we wanted to release a beer and we didn't have a name yet. And so we're feeling the pressure of that. And I think Greg came in with the name Stone one day. I think he might've had umlauts over it or something like that. (Laughs.) But, but there was something about it that I liked that it was just a simple and kind of classic and, not tied geographically to any place, you know, because we weren't sure we wanted that. We didn't, you know, there already was a San Diego Brewing Company, there already was a San Marcos Brewing Company. We kind of wanted to do something different. So, and I think also 00:19:00it stimulated a lot of kind of creative marketing ideas too. You know, the, you know, that as we thought of things that were made of stone and that the gargoyle kind of came out of that and our, you know, original tap handles were beach stones that we'd collect at the beach, which is probably illegal now, but we don't do it anymore. Yeah. It's funny because one of the (laughs)

Downie: Probably the statute of limitations is out by now.

Wagner: We started draft only, so we didn't have bottles, but one of the, the ideas that I came up with, you know, as we were thinking of slogans and stuff was, well Greg, our first one was “Welcome to the Stone Age”, you know, which is Greg's, which is kind of clever. I like that one. But I came up with one “Leave no stone unturned”, which we never actually used that. But now it's like a, you know we’re in a lawsuit with Keystone (MillerCoors) about them shortening their name to Stone. Now, they use that actually, which is funny.

Downie: Oh, okay.

Wagner: (Laughs.) A little side humor here.

Downie: You know, that's an old, old, old 00:20:00phrase, you know, whoever decides to trademark gets it. And so you kind of said how the gargoyle because it's made of stone, became the representation. And also there's certainly text on the early bottles explaining, you know, the gargoyle protecting from bad taste and sort of…

Wagner: I think we kinda felt like we needed to explain it ‘cause people like thought that it was the devil or something. I don't know what gargoyles actually do. You know, they protect them in their own churches. They protect against evil spirits. And so, you know, Greg and his creative mind kind of turned it into this protecting our beer from the evil spirits of cheap adjuncts and materials.

Downie: That's a very good way explain it.

Wagner: Yeah.

Downie: And to eradicate the devil situation. Um, so, and you kind of talked about dealing with distribution issues. What about dealing with suppliers? I mean 00:21:00, since you were a smaller brewery again. Yeah. And was there much locally available or did you have to go far afield?

Wagner: We had to go pretty far afield for, you know, no matter what it was brewing equipment, you know, raw materials. Obviously hops mostly came from, you know, Washington and Oregon. Malted barley came from, you know, Canada or the upper plains States in the US and, uh, even our water came from Colorado probably. (Laughter) Right. Yeah. You know, there were, there were people locally who could do good tradeswork and stuff. You know, we had, we had wonderful, uh, stainless steel welders and plumbers and you know, just great contractors and people to work with here locally in San Diego. But…

Downie: But the actual supplies were another story…

Wagner: Yep. That comes from the places that, you know, 00:22:00that's, that's tricky when you're not ordering a lot and you're trying to, you know, protect cashflow and things that you could, you know, you can find yourself short sometimes and critical moments. But you know, that's one of the, what are the cool things about craft beer that we found out very early on is that people are very supportive. And fellow brewers, you know, obviously Pizza Port, you know, Gina and Vince (Marsaglia). I mean they had their own brewery and their own place and still they wanted to serve our beer, you know, help us out and just, just passionate about good craft beer. So that's willingness to help and to, you know, sell somebody a bag of malt if they come up short or some hops or things like that. It still carries on to this day, which is pretty incredible. A lot of businesses like that.

Downie: Well, I mean, I have the articles, copy of the articles of incorporation for the San Diego Brewers Guild from 1996 with Greg’s signature on it. And so that shows that, you know, early on there was this established 00:23:00environment of work together and cooperate or it's not going to happen, which I think was just really essential to the success of San Diego craft brewing.

Wagner: Definitely.

Downie: ‘Cause I get, I get that question from people elsewhere. It's like, ‘Well, why San Diego?’ And it's like, well I know that they've always collaborated with each other. When you don't fight with each other, you can spend your energy doing better things, hopefully surviving, you know. And so, how has your role changed over the years? You know, I mean early on you were, you know, were of course doing the brewing, but when I talked to you one time I asked when was the last time you brewed and you just kind of went, ‘I don’t know.’

Wagner: I am actually brewing tomorrow.

Downie: Oh good! Good for you.

Wagner: Probably ‘cause you asked me that. I'm like, gosh, it's been too long.

Downie: You have to get back to your roots once in a while.

Wagner: Yeah, definitely. Um, so let's see. How has my role changed? Yeah, I mean like in the, you know, in the early years, besides doing 00:24:00, I mean for the first six months or so, I did all the production work, you know, the brewing, the filtering, the packaging, everything, and then, you know, gradually was able to get some part time help and, you know, because I ended up managing the distribution part of things, you know, just the, the logistics and the managing the drivers and the warehouse. You know, as we started to add people. At first I think we just had drivers pull the beer and load their own truck and um, you know, manage the flow of invoicing and payments, and then accounts receivable, accounts payable, Human Resources. And to start doing that, you know, I was doing payroll and everything. So kind of doing all the operations and back office stuff. While Greg was out selling and he, you know, continued to create marketing momentum for us with all of his great ideas and things.

Downie: So at what point did you formalize the HR and like release doing the payroll and 00:25:00things like that?

Wagner: Yeah, I mean, we didn't, yeah, we probably waited too long to get some professional HR help. Yeah, at one point, I promoted my assistant, I had a kind of an assistant who was, you know, sort of an office manager type person to doing payroll and of some of the basic HR filings and stuff like that. But, yeah, I'm trying to remember how that transitioned exactly. But gradually we, we realized, you know, that it's a, it's something that needs to be done by the book and you know, somebody needs to pay attention to it very carefully. And so, we started hiring professional folks to do that.

Downie: There are so many facets besides the brewing that, you know, really have legal ramifications if nothing else. And then, you know, employee climate.

Wagner: Yup.

Downie: Do you want 00:26:00to make sure you're doing things right and your employees are happy?

Wagner: Yeah, absolutely.

Wagner: So, yeah. Um, yeah, that's, that's one area that's gotten a lot more complex and difficult in the 22 years that we've been in business too. You know, plus as your company grows there, you know, a lot more rules and laws come into play. Right. When you're smaller kind of, you know, when you're under 10 people, it's pretty simple. When you're between 10 and 50, it gets more complex once you’re over 50 that it's, you know, you get the whole rule book thrown it. It was a lot to keep track of and lots to make sure you're doing right.

Downie: Well, something I've gotten a sense of from just the photographs I was going through to scan for the documentary (The Beer Jesus from America), it seemed like there were a lot of events for employees. You know, either charity events like Dye Your Head Red. Um, there was also something where people had green hair at one point?

Wagner: Well, we were doing it, I don't know if we did it every 00:27:00year, but at one point we're doing it every other year and we would change the color each time we did it. So, it would kind of rotate between blue, red, or green.

Downie: Okay. I haven't seen any blue hair photographs, but there's a very distinct one where Lee Chase was walking around and obviously they had had to bleach his hair white in order to dye it green and it was up in what I call ‘the Smurf comb up’, you know, and it's like, wow, that's, that's really throwing himself into the green hair thing. But it seemed like it was something that the employees could get into and have some fun. But you also had a charity element. So, did Stone have a charity element from the beginning?

Wagner: Uh, from our, yeah, I mean, because, you know, we, we realized early on, it's one of the best ways to get your brewery name out there is that, you know, California law allows brewers to donate beer to charities for their events. And so 00:28:00, um, you know, that became our grassroots marketing. We didn't have money to spend on marketing. You know, we're not buying advertising or anything. We still don't do that. But it was a low-cost way to get out there and tell our story, you know. So, we would, um, donate beer to these events and then we'd go and set up a booth and you know, pour the beer and tell people about us. And, uh, you know, it was just word of mouth that, you know, it's great, ‘cause people get sample the beer and taste and decide if they like it, but also they see you're out supporting the community in supporting nonprofits and things. So it was really an effective way to, to market and grow our company. And it's, you know, just sort of something Greg and I like to do anyways, you know, be involved in.

Downie: Yeah. And it certainly has established a model where you see a lot of that going on now with even the very tiny, tiny craft breweries, which is wonderful. You know, charities need all the help they can get.

Wagner: So that was the sort of the turning point was, I guess it was our second anniversary 00:29:00‘cause our first anniversary we just had it within the brewery, you know, our licensed operations area. ‘Cause it was, you know, pretty small and we didn't charge admission or anything. And, but then the second year we, you know, we wanted to make it bigger and have more people and so to do, in order to do that you have to partner with a charity. They have to pull a special one-day license to allow you to, we wanted to take over a little bit in the parking lot to have our anniversary. And so that's kind of what started it. You know, we went to the, to the mayor I think in San Marcos and said, you know, we need a charity partner that we can partner with to do this anniversary party that we want to do. They said, ‘You know, Boys and Girls Club San Marcos is best organization in town. So why don’t you talk to them?’ That's, you know, they ended up getting me on the Board of Directors for 10 years there. A couple, couple 00:30:00terms as chair of the board and we continue to support them because it's a, you know, great organization that's doing wonderful work for them, the youth of San Marcos.

Downie: So there are so many, how do you spread yourself and how do you choose between all of these very deserving causes?

Wagner: Yeah, yeah, yeah. It does get difficult. And so we're kind of in the mode now or, I mean the good news is that there's a lot more brewers in town too. So, it's like if we say we, you know, we're already supporting the maximum number of organizations we can right now. We can't take on another one, but here's some other great local brewers that would likely be happy to support them.

Downie: Again, part of that collaboration and directing people, you know, whenever I worked with somebody and I can't give them what they need in the way of research help, I try to get them somewhere where they can. I mean that's just, I think that's just good humanity if nothing else. So excellent.

Wagner: But that was kind of where it turned from, you know, us supporting the nonprofits 00:31:00by donating beer to them, to us realizing, you know, it's our anniversary, but it became more popular and we partnered with a charity that we could charge admission and raise this money and then raise our own funds to give to the, the nonprofits that's become, you know, really the way we create most of the funding that we do for local non-profits.

Downie: I’m a member of Society of Barley Engineers they’re very tolerant of my dumb questions about brewing and they're always real pleased to be involved with, you know, homebrewing the sodas that you know are good for the designated driver.

Wagner: They always do some really crazy stuff too. It fits in well.

Downie: With the 21st Anniversary, I was walking around and I saw a young, obviously quite pregnant young woman and her three friends were all drinking. So obviously she was the designated driver and I said, ‘Do you realize that there is non-alcoholic soda here that you can have?’ ‘Cause she wasn't drinking. It's like kind of, you need to stay hydrated. 00:32:00She was like, ‘Oh great!’ You know, so she was able to get something.

Wagner: They always have some amazing ones too. I always try them when I’m there. They're just…

Downie: Yeah, they pride themselves on, you know, coming up with something new and different. And a couple of the Barley Engineers now have collaborated with Stone on beers. Chris Banker with Xocovesa and Corey Magers with Mojay. I don't know of any others, but then I haven't really surveyed the home brewing clubs to see who else has done this.

Wagner: I’m not sure who else from the Society of Barley Engineers.

Downie: It's on my list of, you know, further research.

Wagner: There's definitely some other, there's some folks from QUAFF (Quality Ale and Fermentation Fraternity). I think some other ones too, that uh, won the homebrewers contest that we do. So yeah.

Downie: When did you start the homebrewers contest, do you remember?

Wagner: Gosh, that's a good question.

Downie: I know it's hard to ask for dates.

Wagner: Well, it wasn't until we had the bistro (located in Escondido) open ‘cause we would do it at the bistro. So, it was either 2007 probably would have been the earliest 00:33:00. But yeah, it certainly wasn't long after that, I can look back at the beers probably and find out when we released the first beer, which is probably the Ken Schmidt, the coconut porter.

Downie: I think somebody who said…

Wagner: ‘Maui Ken’ Schmidt. So, the original that I can find that out.

Downie: Yeah. I have people ask me things like that. You know, when was the first this, when was the first that I'm like…

Wagner: It’s not in here is it (referring to Stone timeline from their website)?

Downie: I don't remember how far. I think that ends about 2006 on most of its information.

Wagner: So the AleSmith/Mikkeller/Stone (collaboration beer)/ Let's see. We did some with brewers that says the Ken Schmidt one was 2009.

Downie: Okay.

Wagner: That was the winner of the Stone Age. That might've been the first one.

Downie: Okay. 00:34:00Oh, of course they'll remember.

Wagner: ‘Cause then we did the 2010 was with Kelsey McNair, I think he was in QUAFF. Right. And he started North Park.

Downie: Yeah. He would've been in QUAFF.

Wagner: North Park Beer Company that says. Yeah.

Downie: Okay. I see. Good thing I brought that list. So, when you started Stone, you started with the IPA?

Wagner: Well, Stone Pale Ale.

Downie: Stone Pale Ale, okay.

Downie: And then where did Arrogant Bastard fall in, into your first beers?

Wagner: So the Stone Pale Ale was the first beer, released in July of ‘96 and then our second beer was, we did a, a seasonal called Winter Stone that I think was probably released in November of that year. And then we ended up keeping it around ‘cause we had a few customers who really liked it on draft. And so 00:35:00we changed the name to Stone Smoked Porter and kept brewing it. So that was our second beer.

Downie: Stone Smoked Porter ‘cause I've seen those bottles and I think I've seen a Winter Stone.

Wagner: Yeah. And now I'm talking about the year-round beers. So there may have been a couple of other ones in there. But then the Stone IPA was released on our first anniversary, so July of ‘97. So that was our third full time beer. And then I don't think Arrogant Bastard came out until 1998, till November of ‘98 I believe. We had the other year-round beers because we started doing some bottling then. Yeah. Just keeping up with what we had.

Downie: So it was late ‘98 when you started bottling?

Wagner: (paper rustling) I believe so. Okay. I'll confirm that 00:36:00. I think it's pretty sure it's (November of ’98).

Downie: Well since when I asked you about that date code on the bottles and you made the very good point that that was probably when the bottles were printed, not when they were filled. I was like, ‘Oh yeah, that would make perfectly good sense.’ Okay. Now I don't even have to worry about the dates on the bottle anymore because that can be from any time really. That was, there went, a myth ‘cause I saw Chris Cochran, just after that and 00:37:00I said, well Chris, because Chris and Greg and both said, we think this is when the bottles were when beers were brewed. I said, well, Steve says, because you bought bottles and they sat in the warehouse, he goes, Oh, okay. So you know, busting that mythology there, which brings me to…

Wagner: Yeah we used to put the date on the case boxes at first. You know, we didn't have the technology to put it actually on the bottle. It was, we were doing these little (inaudible) bottling machines.

Downie: Yeah, yeah. You're, you're running lean and mean. You've got to get it out there. Yeah. But that does bring me to another mythology which, how Arrogant Bastard was born. You know, the higher hopped beer. I have heard from people who of course want to speak with some authority, but you would be the authority, that you accidentally double hopped a batch of beer.

Wagner: I did. That is absolutely true. I think everybody agrees on that. You know, we were working 00:38:00out of Greg's condo in Solana Beach to, you know, start the business basically. And I was doing a lot of research on equipment and then I was also doing some pilot batches to, you know, work on some, some recipes for some of the beers. And we had, I had my own kind of homebrew equipment, then we invested in a nicer system that a little bit more capacity, I think it was like a 10-gallon system or something like that. It's, so it was one of the first brews I was doing on that system. And so all my calculations changed on volume bitterness units and all that stuff. I screwed up the first calculation and I way over hopped this beer. (Laughs)

Downie: But then you didn't release the results of this mistake until a couple of years after being established.

Wagner: We have differing opinions, Greg and I recall it differently because we definitely know I screwed it up. The question was, I think I thought 00:39:00I realized it right at the time and I just wanted to dump the batch, you know, Greg said, to my memory Greg said, ‘No, let's, you know, you've already made it. We might as well let it ferment and then we’ll bottle it. And then Greg's memory of it is that I didn't realize it until we tasted the bottles and then it's like, ‘Ah, geez, I messed this one up.’ and Greg is ‘This is the best beer I've ever had.’

Downie: Okay. Well it's nice to actually be able to say definitively that part that, that mythology is true. And so what is your role in developing new beers now?

Wagner: You know what, I don't have a huge role other than, you know, tasting the new stuff that we come up with. Maybe making some comments here and there if there's things that I don't think are quite, quite what we're looking for, but, we have a super creative team and I'm happy to enjoy the fruits of their labors. We've got an innovation team 00:40:00with three guys, Chris Ketchum and Jeremy Moynier and Steve Gonzalez. They're just making unbelievable beers. It used to be such pressure for me to come up with a new beer as well, you know, doing all this other work in my day job and all this stuff. It's kind of nice when we got to that point where other people can contribute. You know, Lee Chase was the first who helped out with that. And then Mitch Steele came on board. You really embrace that, which is nice for me because…

Downie: Speaking of Mitch (Steele) and Lee (Chase), did they start as volunteers or did they start as paid employees?

Wagner: Yeah, I don't think we had volunteers that I recall. Lee started part time ‘cause he was, you know, he had been working at Brewers Union down in San Diego, the brew-your-own place and then I think he was working at White Labs too, maybe even doing some stuff for Pizza Port. But yeah, we hired him part time to help me with the brewing and kegging 00:41:00stuff ‘cause I just couldn't keep up with everything. Then eventually we got to the point where we're able to make him full time.

Downie: And then he went out on his own.

Wagner: Great job of growing with us for a long time. He was with us for 10 years or something. Super creative guy. Yeah, doing great on his own.

Downie: Yeah. And he's a, he's another hard person to reach. But I am persistent. If nothing else, it does pay off eventually. What happened to your early brewing equipment?

Wagner: Uh, my earliest brewing equipment, I actually have it. Yeah, do you want it? my musician friend, The guy Doug Freeman, still mine who invited me to homebrew with we, uh, I have that equipment actually.

Downie: Yeah. If it's not as big as this (holds arms out indicating the current brewhouse),

Wagner: it’s a 5 gallon.

Downie: I would love to have it. That would be wonderful. Oh, I would love to have it because that's one thing I don't have 00:42:00is you know, equipment because that's kind of a space factor. But the, where it all started very first time, that would be…Oh, that would be so incredible, that that would just be so much fun.

Wagner: Alright, it would make my wife very happy.

Downie: And I'm sure, yeah. That's what I get from a number of the wives of brewers. It's like, ‘Oh, you'll only take that much?’ Oh, I can only take so much and I don't want anything that is not San Diego related. I'm sorry ‘cause I have women going, ‘He's got a hundred growlers and they're from all over the country.’ The boss has told me to stop collecting growlers. I’ve got about 45 so far. But the artwork on them is so incredible, you know, I mean I think just everything that you do to represent yourself says so much.

Wagner: Yeah.

Downie: It's like Karl Strauss and Ballast Point and they've changed their logos. They've changed their stories 00:43:00a little bit. So yeah, I just, I just love to collect real stuff because then people get really excited when they see, you know, a piece of paper they don't get too excited about, but when they see the real thing, they just get really excited and happy.

Um, so, just if you care to talk about this, a couple of lows and highs in the progression of Stone, things that have happened that…

Wagner: Let's see, I mean, you know, some of the highs were, let's see, in the early days, that'd be just some big wins on getting our beer to some places that, you know. I remember one of them, because one of the reasons I used to come down here was because my brothers were in school at UCSD and I was, I was already out of college and I was living in Los Angeles, but I'd come down and visit them and we'd go to the Del Mar racetrack and stuff. You know, it was just fun thing to do on the weekends and you know, so when we first 00:44:00got Stone Pale Ale on tap at the Del Mar racetrack, I thought, ‘Wow, it doesn't get any better than this.’ Yes, they're just little things. but just those little incremental things, sometimes...

Downie: Well, they may feel a little but, that was really a big thing getting, getting out there with so many different people are going to be tasting your beer. That's huge.

Wagner: So, yeah, that's what I remember I mean, you know, the first time that we'd started shipping our beer to another state, to Arizona. That's pretty big deal.

Downie: Yeah. Especially Arizona was early. I mean, they passed Prohibition four or five years before the nation did. Yeah. That they were one of the reasons San Diego Brewing failed, or Mission Brewing, failed pre-prohibition because Mission was making Hopski which was a near beer and Arizona wouldn't even allow that in the state. And that's what actually caused Mission to shutter. Oh, I've got all kinds of weird little historical trivia.

Wagner: 00:45:00Yeah. Let's see. The low points. I don't know. The, you know, the losing good people is always tough, you know? Um, what do you feel like you've let them down or something and not been able to provide the career path or the compensation they need or whatever it is. You know, sometimes that hits you hard when it's somebody who, really, really valuable member of the team that moves on from whatever is, it could be personal reasons, can be professional reasons. Um, those were some low points. You know, obviously Greg talks about when we got turned down by the distributor, you know? Yeah, yeah. That was a pretty big setback. Yeah.

Downie: That, that would be terrifying.

Wagner: Yeah. I dunno for me though, it was just, it just made me mad and it's like, alright, let me just, we're going to beat these guys at their own game. 00:46:00That we’re going to take action in those situations. But yeah, you know, it's, you don't really know how long you have to make a success of it, you know, and how long can the negative cashflow go on before decides just not gonna make it, you know, and we were close to that point. So it was definitely an inflection point.

Downie: Do you have a year that you realize you had gone into the black?

Wagner: I think it was about, I think it was probably ‘99 was probably our first profitable year. I can look back and I might still have some of those.

Downie: Yeah, well that's not, that's not because Peter (Zien) at AleSmith says it was six, six years or so before he actually…

Wagner: I think it was the first full year with Arrogant Bastard. ‘Cause I think that kind of took off pretty quickly for us. It really changed things around. You know, because we had just been trying to grow in San Diego and 00:47:00you know, do it the hard way. Right. Just hand to hand. So, it was a slow road, but that kind of gave a us a big shot in the arm.

Downie: Well, a name like that, you know, I mean if nothing else, people are gonna buy it just because of the name. Yeah. Okay. Well then, I know we've talked about this before, but for the record, if Stone hadn't worked out, you know, I mean you did have a time where you came close, I'm sure. What would have been your plan B?

Wagner: Yeah, I think the plan B, I mean I definitely wanted to stay involved in craft beer, you know, enjoyed brewing and a lot of aspects for it. So, you know, I thought about that since we talked a little bit last time. I think it probably would have been moving back up to Portland because both of my brothers and their families lived up there. Uh, looking for a job with a brewery up there. Really enjoyed living up there too.

Downie: Yeah. Well I liked your, your response 00:48:00last time you said, ‘I didn't think about it.’ It wasn’t not going to happen.

Wagner: I thought about it since you said like ‘What would we have done?’ Probably, you know…

Downie: So, well it seems like you were so busy you didn't have time to think about what that plan B would be.

Wagner: It’s really true, I think we're so focused on just a…

Downie: Yeah, if you don't admit that there could be failure, you know, you haven't left yourself anywhere, but to go, but keep going, I guess.

Wagner: I feel like we just put our heads down and just kept working with it.

Downie: You obviously, you obviously did, I mean some of the photos from the buildout on Mata Way. I mean, obviously you're just, you're asleep in your chair. You just kept going until you couldn't go anymore. But you know that that hard work has paid off here 22 years later, 23 years later. So do you have any words of wisdom for future brewers?

Wagner: Wow. Yeah, you know 00:49:00I used to say all those things like ‘chase your dreams’ and ‘if it's your passion’ stuff but the way the industry is now, I'm not sure. (Laughs) I'm not sure the best advice to give somebody, but, yeah, I mean, if you're, I would say if it's, if you're willing to commit everything to it and work harder than you've ever worked and you know, and you should only do that because you really love it. Then, yeah. I mean it's, it's great to do something that you love. You know, I think, I think you, you know, you have to have realistic financial expectations these days. You know, people aren’t going to grow into a $1 billion company probably at this point, you know, but, uh, but if you are passionate about it and you can find a lifestyle that works for you with the, you know, with that sort of employment or a job, I think it's, there's something to be said for it.

Downie: Yeah. And Stone 00:50:00has certainly given rise to a lot of other brewers who have gained experience here and then gone out and been successful.

Wagner: So it's not just us, it's the other brewers that had been around for a while too.

Downie: Yeah. I tried to develop a genealogy, kind of you know, who had worked where with who and I gave up. It was such an inner tangled, shifting, people popping back and forth. I said, no, somebody else can do that. I'll just track the breweries because they're a fixed space and I can deal with it.

Wagner: That, um, that would be a very complicated…

Downie: What was the, I'm sure you and Greg have probably talked about where does Stone go from here, you know, as far as both expansion and what, when you both say ‘we want to step back, we want to retire’. Or whatever.

Wagner: Yeah. Yeah. I mean that's something we're, we're, you know, we're actively trying to figure out every day pretty much. It's how can we leave the company 00:51:00independent and you know, still a going enterprise, you know, when we're not involved anymore, can't be involved anymore. So that's still our goal. You know, we want to leave a company that has the ability to go its own way and not be told what to do. Uh, you know, be run by the people who work here.

Downie: And hopefully hold to your founding principles of, you know, the quality, consistency...

Wagner: Yeah.

Downie: No paid advertising, you know, just good, good culture for people to work at and, and, and all of those. I mean, it seems like you've developed a very good, strong core of principles that have really served Stone well.

Wagner: Yup.

Downie: Hopefully they will remain.

Wagner: Yeah. You know, we're, we're trying to figure that out. It doesn't seem like it'll be a family business at this point. You know, my sons are still a little young, not even sure if that something they'd be interested 00:52:00in. You know, Greg doesn't have any kids or anything, so it's not, it's not going to be like a family business that's passed on generation to generation probably. So, yeah.

Downie: Well, have your children ever come in and like work for the summer helping out?

Wagner: My youngest son was a host at the restaurant this summer.

Downie: Okay. I'm never sure, I'm never sure if that's really a good insight into the world of, you know, the food and beverage business.

Wagner: Yeah. Yeah. People are not always that pleasant. It was good for him because he needed to come out socially a little bit. So, you know, you're having to deal with strangers and be nice to them and make them happy. That's a good thing.

Downie: Yeah, that's, it certainly it makes you appreciate what service staff go through.

Wagner: Yup.

Downie: If you work a little bit of it yourself, it's a very different world for them on the other side. And are there any styles of beer you have not tried? You know 00:53:00, I mean, it seems like there was a real explosion of beer styles for a while. Now, you know, the Brut IPA is the most recent thing I've heard of, but are there other styles that you have heard of that you haven't tried or other styles that you see Stone maybe experimenting with or at least investigating?

Wagner: Uh, let's see. I'm sure there's styles that I haven't tried, but they're, they're probably more the historical, obscure type ones that, you know, maybe nobody’s brewing anymore or has tried to brew in a long time.

Downie: They're not being made for a reason.

Wagner: That’s right, most of them, most of them are not accepted styles. That'd be both, you know, between being a judge at GABF probably judged all the categories, the hundred or whatever there are, including the malt liquor category. Sometimes you have to pay 00:54:00your price. I mean, as far as places we’re looking or, I mean, you know, one of the nice things is having a brewery in Berlin now that sort of opened up a whole new range of things we can do there, you know, as it relates to more traditional styles, more traditional European styles and things. So, it's kinda fun to experiment with those, you know, doing the Berlinerweisse and doing some different Pilsners and lagers and things like that. So, yeah, I dunno, there's nothing we'd rule out, you know, I mean, there's such a lot of, uh, innovation going on with hop varieties and stuff that's really exciting to us. So, obviously we're doing a lot of different IPAs using those, you know, testing new hop varieties for the growers and things. Uh, let's see. Yeah, I don't know.

Downie: Well, there's, there's still lots, still lots out 00:55:00there available to experiment.

Wagner: You know, the ability to create new flavors and beers is pretty much limitless, I think. So we still want to be leading that charge for sure.

Downie: But never giving up on your stable, the stable core beers.

Wagner: Yeah. You still have to sell beer too.

Downie: But somebody was bemoaning the oaken, the Oaked Arrogant Bastard and how much he missed that. And that was I just like ‘Never had it, can’t say.’

Wagner: The beautiful thing is we, you know, we reserve the right to bring back any beer at any time if we want to. Pretty much any of them we could brew again and we probably will at some point just for fun.

Downie: Yeah. As long as those particular hops and all are still available.

Wagner: Yeah. The Stone Pale Ale, although somebody told me, I was talking to Jeremy or somebody who told me something. They said that some of the growers are starting to plant the Ahtanum hop again. I guess, which is interesting. So 00:56:00I have to keep posted on that, we might have to do a throw back version of the Stone Pale Ale.

Downie: What was old is new again.

Wagner: Yeah, exactly.

Downie: Well, is there anything that you would like to contribute to this history that we haven't touched on?

Wagner: I'll have to think of that a little bit if I could get a second swing at it. But, no, I just think it's an amazing story of how San Diego ended up being this epicenter of it, you know, Capital of Craft™ and just, uh, you know, my best memories are just the wonderful people in this industry. You know, I consider many of them friends, just really good people who you know really pull together and help each other out. And I just thought that's something that we can keep going, you know, as it gets more competitive and things like that. ‘Cause it's, it's a pretty special place to be.

Downie: Yes, exactly. Yeah I told Jen (Jennifer Fabbi, Dean of the CSUSM Library) 00:57:00, I said, if, if this was a combative industry, I would have come back to you and said, no, we do not want to get involved. Yeah. But I said, everybody has been collaborative and sharing and open and enthusiastic, which has really made developing the Brewchive® a joy because, I think there's, I don't know if the stars aligned right for San Diego or what, but it does seems like it's a really, there's something about this area and the people in it that has just created a very good place for the craft beer industry to be successful and be collaborative.

Wagner: Yeah. And I think if there's one, one thing in particular that Stone did to make that happen was to take our beers outside of San Diego, you know, and probably the first ones to get any sort of serious distribution outside of Southern California to attract attention for, you know, Arrogant 00:58:00Bastard and then Stone IPA and some of those beers that, you know, I mean obviously there's a lot of tourism and military stuff for the word would spread about San Diego breweries, but we actually got the beer out there to the East Coast and other places where people, helped people realize, wow, there's something going on in San Diego.

Downie: Yeah. And somebody sampling it here, they may not have any pull where when they go home to get the beer brought in. So yeah, you have to kind of push it to a receptive community.

Wagner: You have to convince the distributor that you know that it will succeed or that there's people that would,

Downie: And so now there Stone brewing, Stone has a distributorship. Um, I know Greg's got like the nut butter thing going on. (Wagner laughs) It seems like there's becoming a many-headed Hydra, not in a negative way.

Wagner: That’s not a Stone thing (nut butter) though 00:59:00, that's, you know, he's got a couple other things he's involved in, you know, whether it's the, yeah, the nut butter or the wine thing, there are some other breweries and things. And I've got a little bit of that too with some of the brewers that I help out. But, yeah, I don't know. I think, you know, our three big pillars are obviously the brewery is the big one and continue to make beer that people want to buy and the challenges and the distribution. It's just a key strategic thing for us that allows us to control our brand and our sales in our home market. That's something that we'll always have that, you know, no matter how rough it gets out there and other parts of the country and stuff, we feel confident that we can, you know, always have strong sales here in Southern California. And then, uh, the hospitality is basically our marketing. You know, we don't invest a lot in advertising or those sort of traditional things for us. It's creating a good experience where people come to your place and you know, they leave and the next 01:00:00day they go to the store, they want to buy a six pack of Stone because they have these fond memories, you know. So far it’s worked. Will it continue to work? We’ll have to see.

Downie: Well, sounds like it will. Well, I will end the interview here. I want to thank you so very much, Steve.