Putting in the Work

There is a significant difference between pumping out beer at home 5 gallons at a time 3 times per month and pumping out beer hundreds of gallons at a time in compliance with all of the relevant regulations and laws. For one thing, when a 5 gallon batch of home-brew gets screwed up, you’re out $50 max and 4 hours of your time. No big deal, head to the home-brew store, pick up some more milled grain, go home and try again. If you screw up brewing for real, not only are you out hundreds of dollars, you have no product to sell to pay the rent, your employees, the water bill, etc.

With that in mind, I have taken a low level job at a local brewery in order to learn the ropes of the industrial side of the business. I am absolutely the low man on the totem pole, with pay that reflects that position. My goal is to immerse myself in the processes and determine what equipment I will need in order to make my dream a reality. I’ve chosen a brewery that has an attached restaurant so that I can get as much useful information as I can. The weird thing is that the actual day I was getting ready to send them a letter asking if they were hiring, this brewery posted a job that popped up in my email. Fate.

So far, this is the best job I’ve had since I worked grounds crew on a golf course in college. I have enjoyed many of my other jobs, but mostly because of the people I was working with as opposed to the actual work. I have been in the job for almost a month now and already my operations plan has had a couple of major revisions. There were a couple of key pieces of equipment I didn’t know I’d need and I’ve refined certain aspects of the product mix, primarily in the sphere of the packaging, based on what we do at work.

The professional development program I am enrolled in at San Diego State University has been on hold since March (thanks COVID!) so I’m still 3 classes shy of my level two professional certificate in Craft Brewery Management, but with a little luck, that will change come spring. The PDF version of the level 1 certificate is sitting on my desk. I haven’t been able to bring myself to frame it even temporarily because it seems a bit like a poke in the eye. The up side is that I am now entitled to a discount on future classes as I am technically an alumnus. It will be interesting to get back into the swing of things and compare how I feel about the program now that I have some experience in the actual job as opposed to just theoretical knowledge.

All of that being said, I’m still pumping out beer at home as well. So even when I’m not working at the brewery, I’m usually still brewing. The long march toward the dream …