Meet the Homebruer: Keith Pumilia

We certainly have a lot of new faces around The Bruery lately. Our newest cellarmen comes all the way from Louisiana. Keith's energy and enthusiasm for craft beer is infectious (no pun intended), and it's no wonder when you learn about his homebrew background.

How did you become interested in the hobby?
In 2005 I was visiting my future in-laws in Japan and my future father-in-law showed me how he had been homebrewing for years there. I was immediately hooked.

Meet the Homebruer: Josh Reyes

If you've been to our Tasting Room on weekends recently, you may have noticed the occasional option to sign up for tours of our brewhouse. Though we're working on relaunching an improved tour program in the near future, in the meantime Josh is able to parade a few interested folks around. Josh is one of our newer additions to The Bruery family, but he's by no means new to beer and brewing.

When did you start homebrewing?

Much like many of our own Bruers, I started homebrewing in college.

Meet the Homebruer: Brian Cockle

Brian Cockle is one of the silent heroes here at The Bruery. He keeps our tech stuff running smoothly during the day, but is a homebrewer and dad by night. He's a bit notorious for his huge & techy homebrew set up, which you can see even more of over on his blog.

When did you start homebrewing?
Like a lot of people, I started homebrewing back in college.

Meet the Homebruer: Sean Flannery

You may have already tried Sean's pilot batch brew back in February during one our Meet the Brewer nights. Like many of our homebruers we've posted about on this blog, Sean began pursuing the hobby in school before becoming a pro.

When did you start homebrewing?
I started homebrewing in college with a friend that had a malt extract Hefeweizen kit and invited me to assist. The beer came out with a ton of sediment and we packaged it in 3L plastic bottles. It tasted ok, but was just the beginning for more ideas.

Meet the Homebruer: Andrew Bell

You may have recently had a chance to meet Andrew Bell, our experimental brewer who oversees what's happening on our pilot system. Andrew has been a fan of The Bruery for a long time, and we were stoked to hire him on two years ago to brew on our team. Before he brewed professionally, he was an avid homebrewer and a bit of a beer geek, (and we like that).

When did you start homebrewing?
A few years before I was legally allowed to purchase alcohol. I started by making ciders and eventually moved on to brewing early on in my college career. I was curious about the science behind fermentation, as well as seeing if I could actually create something good.

Meet the Homebruer: Jamie Burns

Surely you remember Jamie's friendly face from all those trips to pick up your Reserve Society or Preservation Society beers from the Tasting Room.

Jamie has been with The Bruery for three years, but about a year and a half ago she had the opportunity to get her hands dirty with a homebrew lesson from one of our former brewers.

When did you start homebrewing?

Meet the Homebruer: Tyler King

Sometimes it's hard to believe we just started brewing in 2008. Our first employee those six years ago was Tyler King, who signed on to do just about anything that was needed.

He was still in school and tasked with marketing and advertising our summer seasonal as part of an internship with The Bruery, but he was also going to be brewing with Patrick. Tyler is now our Senior Director of Brewing Operations, overseeing all the beer happenings here.

It wasn't only the timing that was perfect when hiring Tyler -- he also had proved himself with his homebrewing prowess, which was apparent with the success & praise of his Flemish Red recipe, which has over time become the beer you may know as Oude Tart.

When did you start homebrewing?

Meet the Homebruer: Benjamin Weiss

Our third employee ever, Benjamin has worked in just about every role at The Bruery. From brewing, to packaging, to marketing, to arts & crafts, he's worked his way finally to Director of Marketing here. But he wasn't always working such a dreamy job. Ben came from the music industry and followed his passion for homebrew, which lead him to this very blog, before becoming a Bruer.

On a foggy Venice Beach day in late 2006, young Ben decided it was the perfect day to crack open his roommate's homebrew kit and boil some wort. Roughly a year later, he got to know a certain Patrick and Tyler.

What happened that made you start homebrewing? 

Meet the Homebruer: Cesar Alfaro

On the cusp of releasing Batch 1000 BRYEIAN, we are profiling some of our homebruers on our staff! Many of our team members developed their love for The Bruery via homebrew clubs, and today those clubs and their members are still very important to us. That's a big reason why we host our Batch series competition for milestone brews.

One of our homebruers made his first batch in 2008, and today he works in our packaging department, carefully bottling and lovingly boxing bottles of beer to be sent out for your enjoyment. His name is Cesar, and he has excellent hair.

What sparked your interest in homebrewing?

Meet the Hombruer: Matt Olesh

Homebrewing is where Patrick and the OG Bruery crew first got their adorable little beer making sea-legs. The homebrew community is certainly still a priority to us, and so for our milestone batches we host a competition where the winning recipe comes from ... you guessed it: homebrewers! So far we've made Batch 1, 50, 300 and are now on to our 1000th batch featuring a recipe from Brian and Bryan (AKA Briyan) from Colorado. They'll be coming out to visit us in mid-July to help brew Batch 1000, a Cascadian dark rye.

Though we are a larger company now than when we started only five years ago, our passion for brewing (and goofing off) has only grown stronger. Whether we work in the office, tasting room, or brewery itself, lots of us homebrew when we're off the clock, even though we're around it all day!

We're highlighting our "homebruers" in a series of blogposts in support of our upcoming Batch 1000 beer. This time we're featuring a man who is no stranger to many of you who hang at The Bruery Tasting Room. Matt Olesh is our Director of Retail Operations and he's been a homebrewing for about 5 years now.

Meet the Homebruer: Rich Ruelle

We're pretty excited about brewing our 1000th batch of beer this year. You can read more about the homebrew competition and winning recipe for Batch 1000 in our blogpost Homebrued from Batch 1 to 1000, and Beyond.

As the magical time to brew Batch 1000 approaches, we're profiling some of our very own hombrewers homebruers on our staff.

First up is one of our longtime employees turned brewers, Rich Ruelle. He's been with us since 2009 and held basically every role you can imagine at The Bruery (well, almost every role. Calm your imagination down). Now a homebrewer for a decade, Rich's recent concoctions include the damned delicious, summer-friendly Humulus Palm, which you may have had the pleasure of enjoying in our Tasting Room during May.



When did you start homebrewing?

HomebRued from Batch 1 to 1000, and Beyond!

For milestone batches like our first, 50th, 300th, and now our 1000TH BREW!!!, we've asked you guys to enter beers in our homebrew competitions. After the best recipe was selected, we brewed a limited quantity at our place with the winning homebrewers.

We're pretty excited about brewing our 1000th batch of beer this year. The recipe for our upcoming Batch 1000 comes from Brian Pramov & Bryan Keas of Denver, CO. Their hoppy dark rye, Night Ryder, won this round's competition beating out 199 other entries. In the spirit of Batch 1000, we'll be profiling some of our very own hombrewers homebruers on our staff in the coming weeks here on our Bruery Blog.