BeerWise Podcast
The BeerWise Podcast, hosted by Mark DeNote, editor of Florida Beer News, delves into the dynamic world of craft beer, offering listeners a comprehensive look at industry trends, news, and in-depth interviews with key figures shaping the beer landscape.
Each episode explores the past, present, and future of brewing, providing insights into the evolution of beer styles, brewing techniques, and the stories behind renowned breweries. Whether you're a seasoned beer enthusiast or new to the craft beer scene, BeerWise serves as an engaging platform to expand your knowledge and appreciation for the art of brewing and craft beer culture.
BeerWise Podcast
Ep. 44: Brad Clark of Private Press Brewing - Every barrel tells a story
Brad Clark, the brewing mind behind Private Press Brewing Company, pulls back the curtain on his remarkable journey from homebrewing enthusiast to barrel-aging virtuoso in this deeply personal conversation about craft beer evolution, artistic brewing philosophy, and entrepreneurial courage.
From his teenage experimentation with imported beers to his formative years at Jackie O's Pub and Brewery in Athens, Ohio, Brad reveals how a scrappy brewpub in Appalachian coal country became nationally renowned for boundary-pushing barrel-aged creations. The pivotal moment came in 2007 when Chicago brewers at Goose Island and Rock Bottom shared their barrel-aging techniques with him—knowledge that would forever change his brewing trajectory and eventually transform American craft beer.
What truly distinguishes Brad's approach is his poetic understanding of barrel aging as an intimate dialogue between brewer and barrel. "Barrels are like windows—they open and then they close," he explains, describing the critical importance of recognizing when a barrel reaches its peak expression before oxidation takes hold. This philosophy guides Private Press Brewing's distinctive blending process, where Brad meticulously combines different recipes, barrel types, and ages to create harmonious compositions that showcase his nearly two decades of barrel-aging expertise.
The conversation delves into Brad's bold decision to launch Private Press as a members-only brewery exclusively producing barrel-aged beers—no IPAs, no flagships, no compromise. "I knew that my strengths lied within barrel aging and with multi-beer, and that's what I love making," he reflects on establishing his niche in California's crowded beer landscape. Now operating with just 80-100 barrels at a time and producing less than 100 barrels annually, his intimate brewing approach stands in stark contrast to industrial craft beer trends, offering a refreshing reminder that sometimes smaller truly is better. Discover why beer enthusiasts from around the world join waiting lists for a chance to experience Brad's remarkable liquid artistry.
Hello and welcome back to the BeerWise podcast. This is the podcast that looks at what's going on in the world beer-wise. Hello and welcome to the BeerWise podcast. I'm your host, mark DeNote, and I am the editor of Florida Beer News. This episode I'm joined by Brad Clark, the owner and head brewer of Private Press Brewing Company. Private Press Brewing Company is a members-only brewery, one of the few where club members join and receive beers. Quarterly Membership opens periodically and there's been a wait list to join as long as I have known about the brewery. It happens periodically and there's been a wait list to join as long as I have known about the brewery.
Speaker 1:I was fortunate enough to meet Brad when he was making a name for himself at Jackie O's Pub and Brewery in Athens, ohio. It was there that Brad began experimenting with barrel-aged beers and grew his barrel program from a few barrels to a few hundred barrels and made Jackie O's into one of the most experimental breweries when it came to barrel-aged beer one of the most experimental breweries when it came to barrel-aged beer. Brad fell so in love with barrel aging and beer and he decided then to move to Santa Cruz, california, and begin private press and devote his brewing to high-gravity barrel-aged beers. But before the interview, I need to thank Coppertail Brewing for their support of the BeerWise podcast. Coppertail Brewing has been making Florida-inspired beers just outside Ybor City since 2014. Look for Freedive IPA, night Swim Porter, cloud Dweller Hazy IPA or Unholy Triple throughout the Sunshine State, wherever fine ales and lagers are sold.
Speaker 1:Now here's my conversation with Brad Clark of Private Press Brewing. Brad, thank you so much for sitting down with me. I really appreciate it. I'm excited about this conversation because, like we were just talking about, it's been a while since, since we've chatted and caught up about beer, but you've done quite a bit with with your brewing career and with everything that's going on in craft beer. I'm really curious about the intersection between the the club only model and what's going on with craft beer and exploration. But I like to start every interview and kind of want to talk through your craft beer origin story, because there's a lot of folks don't realize what they're doing in craft beer and I like kind of having on the record how you got here. So can you talk a little bit about what got you into craft beer in the first place? Because no one seems to say mom, mom, I want to be a brewer when I grow up one of the best beers, is true.
Speaker 1:Well, mark first off this town that I grew up in outside of columbus um, and you're saying it might have.
Speaker 2:I may have stolen years some beer from them. We've um over my time working there when I was 15, 16 and 17, and some of that stuff was like all the different Samuel Smith stuff. Some of that was like Amstel White, some of that was Flying Dog, doggy Style Pale Ale, it just like it covered a lot of different ground and while all my other you know high school friends were, um, drinking a lot of natty or um, you know, ice house or I don't know um anything that was cheap and cheap and easy, um, I I always was walking in with like a six pack of, uh, craft bottles and um, so yeah, I was, I was into beer. I mean, like Newcastle and Bass and like all this stuff, guinness seemed very exotic or, you know, very imported, whereas it's just kind of a staple these days.
Speaker 2:But yeah, when I went to college in Athens, ohio, at Ohio Ohio University, I started buying homebrewing magazines and started buying all about beers and all the different brewers' publications that no longer exist anymore. And then there was a little brew pub in Athens, ohio named Ohuli's, which had been around since the early 80s, but it became a brew pub in 1996. But this is 2001, 2002. And so I found that place and I started going there and then started drinking beer there with a fake ID and all this stuff.
Speaker 1:And the honesty of this interview is so overwhelming. The actual limitation probably passed.
Speaker 2:This origin story has been out there for years and years and years. But I turned 21. The guy that was brewing there at the time had opened up a little homebrew shop. His name was Eric Hedin. Eric has since passed away. Rest in peace, eric. But he was kind of like this homebrewing figure within the small community of Athens, ohio, and so I started working there when I turned 21 as like a door guy bartender working there. When I turned 21 as like a door guy bartender, I then also started um home brewing.
Speaker 2:First homebrew batch was a uh, going back to 15, 16 years old, was a clone of winter welcome from Samuel Smith. Um and uh. And then um, like a year and a half later, um, it had changed hands. Uh, a friend of mine, art o strike, uh had purchased ohulis from the former owner, jim crowdy, who was also no, no longer with us. Um, these guys were all kind of trailblazers within southeastern ohio. Um, but, and I became like the head brewer of this little brew pub in this little college town tucked away in the foothills of the Appalachian Mountains in southeastern Ohio, and I didn't really know what I was doing. I had like 30 extract brews under my belt. My first, all grain batch was on the seven barrel brew kit at the uh brew pub, which is still there, uh, and operating today. Liam mcdonald runs the brew pub operations at jackie o's um. But anyways, yeah, that became jackie o's.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I went to siebel brewing institute um in 2007 for the little like six week um course there and learned a lot. And then when I came back from that, that's when I started making stronger beer and short. Very shortly after that, that's when I started. Barrel aging happened in 2007 as well. So I'm almost, you know, 20 years into barrel aging. Technically, I started, you know, I started working at a Hoolies in 2004. So maybe I'm 21 years into working at a brewery.
Speaker 2:But Wow yeah, half your life almost oh, yeah, yeah, I mean I'm, I'm, I'm 42, so yeah, yeah, maybe a little before, maybe a little more. There you go yeah, I'm right, I'm at a fork in the road right now that's okay.
Speaker 1:Um, so then, what was your? What was the first beer that started to get you know? It started to garner attention for Jacky O's when because I remember the what drew me to you was really the barrel stuff Did you start to. Was that? What kind of started things off, getting Jacky O's name out there?
Speaker 2:Yeah for sure was definitely um, the barrel aged dark beer. Um, that started, uh, doing that, we did our first release in um december of uh 2009 and those were like bombers and there was, like you know, 60, some bottles of a few and like 100 and some bottles of either. It was basically, I would, I kegged off a single 15 gallon keg or two 15 gallon kegs into bombers and we had like a triple ipa. We had a barrel aged um. We had barrel aged dark apparition man. We had some sour beers Chunga's Revenge, which is a sour brown. We had like bourbon barrel Imperial Raz wheat.
Speaker 1:Oh, wow.
Speaker 2:You know, 11 something. Who knows what the ABV really was Back then we could make anything over 12. So you would come into Jackie O's and it was like all these barrel aged beers and every single one of them was 12%. But yeah, so that, like you know, that became like this thing us doing releases but the big beer that really kind of like put us on the map, especially within, like, the beer advocate forums and the rapier forums back in the day, and talk beer came a little bit after that but, uh, that would have been, um, the rum, barrel oil of aphrodite. The first batch of that that came out in 2010.
Speaker 2:That like put us on a much bigger, um, regional and and like, um, uh, within just the us, um, you know, and there there was like a lot of that happening at that point, like these little brew pubs that were, you know, sure, doug from cycle at pegs was doing stuff. Obviously, obviously that's from like, your, your neck of the woods, uh, cigar city was going off. Then you had shorts in michigan. Wow, um, I mean it, it just kind of goes. You had like Bullfrog in Pennsylvania. Um, yeah, the the guy, uh, uh, terry Hawbaker, that was running Bullfrog.
Speaker 2:Then he was the original brewer at Jackie O's or sorry, at O'Hooley's in 1996. Terry and I go pretty far back but like there's, yeah, there's, there's all this fun stuff happening right. Yeah, mackenzie's was like making mixed fermentation saison before really hardly anybody was I mean, south hamptown House might have Sean Hill before Hill Farmstead maybe was doing that at the Shed out of Vermont, but hardly anybody was touching that stuff. It was just like, yeah, it was a hotbed and that's before. A lot of these other breweries that really brought craft beer to everybody's fridge came, came out, so that was, uh, that was an exciting time yeah, yeah.
Speaker 1:Well, and so being so young and uh, and as a brewer and being into barrels, was that something that, um, did you just kind of take everything you could get your hands on, or were you, were you able to be selective about what was out there? And at what point does, at what point did you start to think that barrel aged beer was was going to be kind of your forte for the future?
Speaker 2:well, there are a couple different things. So, um, one of the main things at um siebel in 2007 and that was based in, uh, chicago, and it was the classroom at that time was in like a banquet hall room off the side of the goose island tap room. That was at um clybourne, um, which is I don't think it's there anymore. I think it left quite a while ago, but anyways. So the brewer there at that time his name was Will Turner, and Will Turner was doing barrel aged beer in that brew pub and had been for a long time. That's where, like Bourbon County Stout was invented, was at that location, was invented, was at that location, and you know he just had a number of barrels kind of stuffed into these corners and wherever he could. And that year at GABF he won in bourbon barrel strong for, like a bourbon barrel wheat wine. Wow, and a funny part just a side note here. And a funny part, just a side note here Will Turner was the original brewer at a brewery the first brewery in Santa Cruz called Seabright Brewing, which is no longer here. But all these little things that have happened all of a sudden, like I'm in Santa Cruz now and these people know Will Turner from like the early 90s, and these people know Will Turner from like the early 90s and I know him from the like early mid aughts, but anyways. So I got to spend time with Will and then also down the street from Goose Island was the Rock Bottom in downtown Chicago and Pete Crowley was the brewer um there, and he had also won a number of awards for his barrel age beers.
Speaker 2:Okay, so I get out of seable, I go back, I make a couple imperial stouts, I make a barley wine, um, doing some weird stuff, because I'm like a big dogfish sam head at that time, you know, and really into like experimental brewing and anyways, um, I, I want to start barrel aging, um, and so I go back to chicago and I'm able to meet up with both will and pete and they're packaging their beers for the world beer cup and, um, they just gave me like the playbook. You know you need to get a racking cane. This is what it looks like. Here's our barrel contact for Woodford Reserve. Wow, and this is how you do it and this is kind of how we do it and you can do whatever you want, but you know, and so I came back and we bought like four woodford reserve barrels and I filled those and um, and then it just kind of just slowly started building.
Speaker 2:We were really limited on space at at the brew pub, um, at that point in time. But by the time I left jackie o's in 2019, there was somewhere between 800 to maybe 900 plus barrels within the barrel program and about half of them were clean and half of them were funky, and some of the clean ones were also funky. We had some issues with that, but it had grown from, you know, starting with four to having 400. And then, yeah, going back, you know now I deal with, I don't know, maybe about 80 to 100 at a time. But yeah, those were the things. So that's the barrel aging side of it.
Speaker 2:The multi side of it was there was a big hop shortage in, I want to say, 2008. And we were so small at Jackie O's that we didn't have any contracts. I was buying all my hops through a little homebrew supplier named LD Carlson, which is based out of northern Ohio, and all of a sudden they were out. Which is based out of Northern Ohio, and all of a sudden they were out, and all we could get were these Argentinian cascades which were, like, I want to say, 2.2 or 2.4 alpha. So for a year straight, I made ambers, reds, browns, porters stouts. I didn't there was, there were no IPAs on draft for almost a year straight. And so, you know, I got really creative with mold, um. I got creative with other techniques, with other um ingredients outside of mold or hops, because we didn't have any hops, um and um. That's when I really fell in love with malt, um and uh, like yeah. So within that moment, 2008, I became just infatuated with making malty beers, aging them in oak and seeing what you could do with malt and oak.
Speaker 1:Okay. So then what did you put? So gosh at that point if you had to fill a tap list and all you have are multi beers with us, with Argentinian cascade. So that's so you got creative with multi beers. Did you age some of the lower gravity beers and wood to see what would happen and fill the tap list?
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah, we did some things like that. We also served other people's beer, okay, so it was also. I mean, for those who haven't been to Athens, ohio, it is a college town. There's almost two dozen bars within a mile, and um jackio's in the earliest stages and still now, I mean, it is a full bar. You can get okay, get a mixed drink, you can get shots, you can get um, whatever, um. So you know, as like we were building this beer program, you know, like before I started making Dark Apparition, I'd be pouring Dragon's Milk or some other like Michigan, illinois, midwestern Imperial Stout, ok, and that would be, you know, prepping our customers for what we have coming, you know, and we would pour that in in a snifter. And that was very confusing to a lot of people in Southeastern Ohio.
Speaker 2:Uh, in um, you know the late aughts, um, and and if we were going to do a sour beer, we'd start pulling in some joolly Pumpkin kegs or whatever and pour those in a tulip, and that you know that was very troubling for some as well. You know they were just, it was shaker pint culture, which, which it still largely is. I mean, there, I believe, most of the beers are still poured in shaker pints, and there's nothing wrong with that, is, they're still poured in shaker pints and there's nothing wrong with that. I don't know, we're all just here to like drink a cold pint, um, whether that's a willie belcher or a shaker or an imperial or whatever, yeah, it's just semantics at that point. Yeah, so we were pouring other things. So you know, and at that point in time we we only had two fermenters there, seven barrel fermenters. I could only make six batches per month. A couple would be amber, there would be a raspberry wheat, there was probably a brown. It's hard to remember back to what the others were.
Speaker 1:It's come so far since then and the Barrel Project grew exponentially. As you look back on your time at Jackie O's, what lessons did you take with you from there? Because I want to spend some time talking about private press and what you have going on there, but I think Jackie O's is where a lot of folks kind of got to know you and your brewing style. So what did you take with you from Jackie O's and how did that experience shape the brewer you are now?
Speaker 2:So a big part of that was obviously just spending a lot of time with barrels. It was also having the luxury of being able to brew styles of beer like barley wine often, and Imperial Stout. Of course. Imperial Stout was, you know, easier to sell. Barley wine's still kind of a hard sell. It's still. I always refer to it as being like subterranean. You know, you're like, are you into barley wine? It's like if, like you see, I don't know if like you're like a metal head and you see a guy with a metal, like a metal, shirt on, you're like what's up, dude?
Speaker 2:hey man, yeah, yeah type of a thing, but um yeah, I've had that experience.
Speaker 2:Yes, I know exactly what you're talking about yeah, like just being able to brew barley wine often not just once a year for this annual release and and being able to like touch so many barrels and taste so many barrels different types of barrels, um, different recipes in different barrels and then also, um, that's where you know I was blending a lot of things. I was, I wasn't't just like. I mean, we did things that were like well, this is dark apparition, aged and, let's say, woodford Reserve for 12 months. Ok, that's kind of what we do every year with dark app. Or we might change up the barrel, but it's kind of the same thing every year. We might change up the barrel, but it's kind of the same thing every year, and that's what dark tap is, you know, which is very traditional and that's what most breweries still do and whatnot. But I was also able to experiment and do blending a la the Firestone anniversary beers.
Speaker 2:I mean, firestone 10 was a pivotal beer for me, kind of blew my mind, um, along with a number of other ones. But that one, you know, was like oh well, you know, let's start playing around, and that's what created the cellar cuvee series. Okay, at jackio's um, and all in like, uh, cigar city was doing the uh, capriccio Oscuro. Yep, exactly yeah, and like Gabe was at Midnight Sun in Alaska, it was doing like a bunch of like conceptual brewing, like the Planet series, the Pop Art series or Joe Short doing like the 750 mil series. It was just like you know, it's just, it was just different stuff, right, um.
Speaker 2:So all that stuff was, um very inspirational to me and I also had a platform where I could like explore that, right um so that, and also figuring out, like how to make infected, or how you make infected beer more often than you would really like to admit to, and also how to like clean that up and you know, and how to like tighten up a barrel program after it gets a little away from you program after it gets a little away from you Um.
Speaker 2:So yeah, yeah, there were like tons of um, you know, big, big highs and and and some crushing lows and, um, honestly, just, uh, when you put all of that together, it's a, it's a really humbling experience and so I have all the heads deep within me and that has guided a lot of the decisions around private press and how it operates and what I put first and second and third. But yeah, I mean. There's no way I could be doing what I do now without the 14, almost 15 years that I spent at Ohuli's and Jackie O's leading up to my move to California in 2019, six years ago.
Speaker 1:Wow, Okay, so that's a great segue. So the next question of course I'm going to ask you, it has to do with what made you go. First question is what made you go smaller?
Speaker 2:So you've seen so much distribution, You've seen so much volume that you are doing at Jack EO's and what made you decide to go niche and go smaller. Well, so when I was moving here, knowing that California has over 1,000 breweries just within that state, I think with closures and whatnot, it might be at 1,000 again, but anyways it's a lot. And obviously it's West Coast. So there's just so much IPA, whether that's West Coast, hazy, pale, whatever cold, however you want to chop it up Any breakdown.
Speaker 1:yeah, yeah, yeah.
Speaker 2:There is a lot of hops happening. There's also an incredible amount of great lager happening out here, and that's true for the whole West Coast. You go to Portland now's like it's just like the lager game is so strong up there, and it's the same in Washington too. But anyways, part of me was like, well, I don't think Santa Cruz or Northern California or California needs another IPA. California needs another IPA. There's always room for great beer, but not all beer is great. There's. There's a lot of room within that and, and you know, coming from Ohio and from Jackie O's, I mean I think we made good, good IPA. There are certain batches of Mystic Mama that I think were right up there with Headhunter at times, but you know, but it wasn't great IPA, it was really good and I loved it. And I miss having Mystic Mama off the canning line.
Speaker 2:But I knew that my strengths lied within barrel aging and with multi-beer, and it's also this that's what I love making. So I just was like, okay, I can fill this really small, you know niche, and I can be all barrel aged. I can start a year before I'm going to sell anything. Make the beer, age the beer. It's all going to be blended. It's going to be like this, very intimate. You know, like this is, you know, brad Clark in beer, and um, it's, you know, I'm bottling it, I'm blending it, I'm writing the notes, I'm you know it's, it's just a really intimate thing.
Speaker 2:And uh, and there were a couple of different business plans. One had like a tasting room and a brewery. One had a brewery and then one had no brewery and it was member only. And uh, at some point I just started like running out of money. And uh, so I was like, well, we'll just keep it super simple and pure, and then I can continually make it more complicated, um, over time.
Speaker 2:But yeah, the, the, the intention was just um, how do I stand out in this really huge, huge, very advanced beer market Not only just the brewers but also the consumers, you know and how do I stand out and carve my niche?
Speaker 2:And I'm so fortunate that I chose to do what I did, because the pandemic hit and I hadn't sold any memberships before then, I hadn't sold any beer, I had beer in barrels. Um, you know, money was spent, space was occupied, leases were signed, um, but uh, I didn't have a tasting room, I didn't have employees, I was doing it completely solo at that point and uh, um, so I didn't have to furlough anybody, I didn't have to shutter any doors. I sold my memberships and by the time I was shipping beer, um, or having people come to pick up, everybody knew the program you order online shows up to your door or you show up with your mask and I'm behind plexiglass and here's your bottles and thank you and enjoy. And so I didn't skip a beat, whereas a lot of people were scrambling and I really felt for them. But I felt it was just serendipitous that it worked out for private press in that fashion.
Speaker 1:Wow, yeah, because if any, if it happened at any other time, it might've there, might've been there, might've been some, some friction and some, some hurdles to overcome. Whereas everybody was at home anyway, and everybody's on their computer all day.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah, I mean not to say that starting private press was easy by any means. I just you know that if I would have hit that friction, uh that you're talking about like that probably would have broke me, because it was it was. It was really challenging getting everything open and uh and just in in, in, stepping out of your comfort zone. I mean, I am a brewer by heart. I like making beer, I like cleaning tanks, I like being on my feet, I like you know touching barrels, I like just getting in it, you know running QuickBooks and answering emails and making sure I'm compliant with government and local federal state. All that is really not does not come naturally at all.
Speaker 1:So then are you the people-facing part of the beer too, so you're answering the emails and you're communicating with members and you're the order fulfillment department as well.
Speaker 2:Yep, yep, yeah, as of right now, I've got one, I've got one 10 hour a week employee, wow, and that's, and that's kind of gone up in waves, but that's where I'm at right now. I'm looking to add maybe another part-time employee, but it's also kind of the nature of the business. I wanted to start something that I ran instead of it running me, and for the most part that has been accomplished, because I'm, you know, taking out the trash, sweeping the floors, you know, communicating with my bookkeeper, sending out all the emails, running the Facebook page, answering every email, all that. You know it's kind of hard to get away from it. Sure, which can be taxing, yeah, um, but uh, but the other thing that makes this club run so smooth is that, like there's, it's just a direct line to the owner operator.
Speaker 2:So, um, I think people value that, hopefully, and it also cuts out like a lot of the bullshit. You know, um, if you've got a problem, you're emailing me and we're going to figure it out. So it keeps everybody kind of like in check and we're all in this together type of vibe, or at least that's what I hope. I try to be really transparent, try to be really honest with everybody and for the most part that's worked out really really well for me and for private press, so yeah, what's been the biggest challenge, then, in launching this?
Speaker 1:the the barrel aged, all barrel aged, members only brewery.
Speaker 2:It's primarily been budgeting.
Speaker 1:Okay.
Speaker 2:Because I get like four or five chunks of money a year.
Speaker 1:Okay.
Speaker 2:So that's got to cover all my rent and I'm in Santa Cruz and I've got a decent. I've got 6500 square feet of space. I don't need all that, but those are the chunks that were available and that's kind of how it's working. Um so, uh, let's just say there it's close to $2 a square foot.
Speaker 1:Okay.
Speaker 2:Um, and I last year, uh, I sold 67 BBLs. Okay, there's no zeros in front of that. Seven, it's six, seven. I've never broken 92 barrels a year. When I left Jackie O's, we were pushing 13, five, maybe close to 14,000 barrels a year. So it's a really different approach. And yeah, yeah, year, so it's a, it's a, it's a really different approach.
Speaker 2:And um, yeah, yeah, um, just budgeting on that small scale and being this, um, this hands-on, um, you know, sometimes things get like really really tight, um, but um, that's just kind of how, like I think that's just how it goes with this model and so that's been difficult. You know, I mean there's, like I said, just being out of your comfort zone running a business, interacting. I mean I interacted with a lot of the customers and I was, I was the face of jack is for a long time. Um, but this is like this is personal. Now, you know, um, or that, that like intimacy that I talk about with this club and like with the beers that are coming out and how I I also internalize it, it as a small business owner operator. That's also can be like kind of difficult to like let go of or, you know, or like to like take things personally when they aren't. You know, it's like sometimes you just need to pick up the phone instead of texting, you know?
Speaker 1:Yes, yes, it's a different, yes, different kind of interaction. Every, every, everyone, every text, email, phone, it's all different. Yeah, yeah, yeah, what? Um? So then what is your release cycle look like? So, when you, when you have an idea for a beer, it could be a year or more until it comes to fruition. How do you keep that straight?
Speaker 2:And how is that for creativity? Having to wait so long for a finished product? I've gotten pretty used to it over the years. I try to work about 18 months in advance and I also don't try to like force things. Um, I've gotten um pretty comfortable like in the blending space, um, or especially like within my physical production space where the blending happens okay, um, so, like I'll usually have the next year planned almost a year in advance. This year has been a little different. It's been a little chaotic.
Speaker 2:A dare, and I bought another brewery here in Santa Cruz, santa Cruz mountain brewing, and I opened up a tasting room. So I actually started putting like ideas on my dry erase board about next year, which will, which is awkward because it starts in September. I don't do like fiscal year, like most people do, but I just started putting that on the board yesterday. But I also know like what's in my cellar. I know what I can do, got some ideas on maybe what I can do, but ultimately I do quarterly releases and my annual club cycle is September through August. Okay, my annual club cycle is September through August. Okay, and it's that way because I ran out of money in July of 2020. Uh, and I started releasing beer in August of 2020, or like I sold memberships in June of 2020. Anyways, um, yeah, so like quarter one comes out in September or October, quarter twos like January, february, and so it's a little different.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah. So then, in between, that are you, you're managing barrels, you're but, you're not brewing IPA to to keep the tap lines full. No, no, no, no, my bad.
Speaker 2:So yeah, I mean at santa cruz mountain. Uh, I might be overseeing some ipa production, but at private press mainly I am. So I release like three to four beers every quarter, right? So I spend about a month blending and working with the barrels, figuring out what barrels are going to go into what blend and the way I approach that is, I have an idea in my head of what I want and then I blend towards that. Okay, so within my cellar there's five different stout recipes, four different barley wine recipes, two to three different Munich wine recipes, a wheat wine, a quad, and every single one of those recipes is also extrapolated across two to four to maybe six different barrels, and then over the five, years that I've been doing this.
Speaker 2:See this, yeah, um, there's double barrels and older barrels and younger barrels and some triple barrels and so there's all these things floating around there. So I just I stay connected with all of my barrel stock and that means sampling periodically. You know, like I don't need to be hitting a barrel like every month or two months, but you know I check in and I kind of have this mental note. You know I'm like there's only 80, maybe maybe a hundred barrels within my cellar at any time, so it's enough that you can kind of eat most of it up here, uh, within your head, or or on on your palate, um, and so I know what's ready and what's not, and um, and so then when it comes time to blend, know, I'm like okay, I'm, I'm gonna try to make these three beers and some of the blends come off like really quickly because they're so they're so like specific.
Speaker 2:You know it's like this is double barrel, I'm gonna do my double barrel stout and and the loose construct of that is that the majority of the blend needs to be stout that's been double barreled, and when I double barrel it means I age in one barrel and then I rack that barrel into a fresh barrel and then age longer. It's not like two different barrel age beers blended together, it's double barrel. So some of those come together. But every once in a while I'm like, yep, I'm going to be able to do this and I cannot find the blend within the cellar. So then I have to pivot and come up with a new idea.
Speaker 2:But usually through that trial and error of trying to make something work, you find other things okay, um.
Speaker 2:So I try to keep a pretty open mind, try to be pretty flexible, okay, and uh, yeah, um, and just uh, and it's all completely palette driven. I, I don't, um, I don't care so much about AB, like matching ABV, matching color, matching, matching residual sugar, um, anything like that. It is basically like this is my barrel age stout, and it could be two different recipes of stout, or three or four all blended together, and there might be a double barrel in there and there might be some young stuff and some really old stuff. But whatever creates the most rounded expression at that moment in time is the best and like I like it, then that's what I go for, and then I move those barrels into a tank, then I send it to lab and that's when I get all the data back, be it ABV, srm, ibu, caloric residual extract, whatever. But it is all completely pallet driven and it's all just about like what is happening with my barrels at that moment and are they ready to come together or do they need some more time?
Speaker 1:so do you? Do you ever in the club? Have you done the same, the same blend, more than once?
Speaker 2:oh, yeah, yeah. Yeah, there's blends that come like every single year, but they're all different in some respects. That's like you know. There's this thing of like new, new, new, new, new. Right Now I could name every single, just like what I refer to as like single barrel aged out. You know they're not double barrel, because that's a different thing. You know I could put a different name on it every single year.
Speaker 2:But I think it's more interesting if it's just like you see the evolution of the seller. You know, if in year one it was, let's say, uh, I don't know, 12.8 percent, but most recently it was 16.9. Like how, how did we get there over five years? And I give members like exactly what recipe was in the barrel, how, what barrel it was in, how long it was in there, all that stuff. So you can kind of just see how this program changes and the members that have been with me for the last five years, or even four or three years, a lot of them really value that and are interested in to see like what it's going to be like next year. Or, you know, maybe I get on this like rye barrel kick and all of a sudden it's just like year four was like a ton of rye barrels. You know how is that different than year three. Or you know how's that going to be. You know what's what's year six going to be like.
Speaker 2:People start doing verticals, right, and it's not just like every single one of them's. You know 11.8%, they're all over the place, and there be munich wine and that barley wine or or wheat wine in there, or there might be, you know, like all it. If I need four oak barrels to get two bottles per member for a release, I'll start trying to blend, find the four barrels that work together, but if I can, well, I'll add a fifth barrel or a sixth barrel to get the complexity that I want, and then I'll take that extra 50 or 100 gallons and I'll rebarrel that. So then you have the blend being further aged that I can use in whatever I want. Wow.
Speaker 2:And so there's no rules, really. There's no, there's no rules really. I mean, if it's going to be stout, it's going to be stout. It's going to be barley wine, it's going to be barley wine, right? Um, there's certain like stylistic things that you can't really get away from because at its core, that's what it is Right. But then I mean it can, just it can go any direction at once and it's all. I'm just trying to make the best beer that I can at that moment in time and as long as I put forth my due diligence and blend until I'm like, all right, that's it. Um, then I feel good about it. I'm putting something out there that I know that I put effort into that. I know that I really eked out all the different possibilities and it was the best beer that I could make at that time and largely that's worked out really well for me at Private Press.
Speaker 1:Okay. Okay, I could talk to you about barrel aging for so much longer. No, I did too. What's so? A couple more questions on that, because I want to be respectful of your time too. But, um, how has your preference for barrels changed as you continue along this journey with barrel aging? So you talked about a rye kick, or you talked about so with bourbon. How do you feel about different brands, and do you get different flavors from different brands? And then what puts you on a kick?
Speaker 2:yeah, well, so I'm kind of like a opportunist, if you will. Uh, within that, um, I'm not brewing all the time. I definitely don't have, like, a brewing season, I don't have a brew house, so that's one thing, that. So I, over the last four years or so, I primarily brewed all my beer at Santa Cruz Mountain Brewing, which is right next door and that goes back before Adair and I had purchased it about a year and a half ago, and Faction Brewing outside of Oakland. They were the first ones to help me with my project, roger and Claudia, who are dear friends of mine, so I still brew most of my beer there. Right now I'm brewing most of my beer at santa cruz mountain because it's next door and I I've been co-owner now and my uh brewing team there is uh awesome and they uh and they've been just hailing giant beer uh, which they had never done before and they've, they've really taken to it, which which I'm eternally grateful for. But so I only really use one barrel broker, which is Midwest Barrel.
Speaker 2:Going into this, I had lots of barrel broker contracts, you know, contacts and Jackie O's. I would kind of like look around at all of them to see what we could get, and you know, and we were just buying a lot of barrels Now I buy eight, 16, 24, maybe 32 at a time, but that's rare. So, um, I've kind of settled with Midwest barrel, and so, when it's time for me to order barrels, I look at what's in their inventory and I just choose from there. The main thing that I want to do, though, is, if I'm making a beer at Santa Cruz Mountain, I'm doing a single rip on it. I'm only going to fill four oak barrels, so I want to try to take that recipe, and I want to try to put it in a rye a weeded, an old barrel and a newer barrel, and these, these two would be more bourbon.
Speaker 2:Bourbon, yeah, um. So let's say I've got like a couple batches going through Santa Cruz mountain. It's going to be eight barrels. Well, I'm going to try to order two or three rise, couple weeded and, uh, a smattering of bourbon. Um, both old and new. So that way, when it comes time to blend, I've got my one color, or my thread, or whatever, but I've got it in four different shades.
Speaker 1:Okay.
Speaker 2:And so if I'm looking for more baking spice, I can hit up that rye. If I want something that's going to smooth it out, be a little sweeter, I can hit up that weeded. If I need something that's going to really bring more of a oaky barrel tone, I can hit up that old one. Or if I need some heat, I'm going to hit, I'm going to hit up that younger barrel or that like wetter barrel that I got, which I which I would like note on it Um, but I really don't. Um, I mean, there's certain barrels that I'm excited about getting. Uh, there was like Buffalo trace, kind of disappeared off the map for a little bit. Now it's back. So it's great to be able to get like Sazeracs and Blantons and wellers. Um, those always make great beer, but at the end of the day, I've made good beer out of every single barrel. Okay, out there, um.
Speaker 2:And I always tell beer producers or people that are getting into like barrel aging, like barrels are like windows they open and then they close. So if you're not engaged with your barrel program, you will miss when that window opens and you will find it when it's closed and it's oxidized and old or just unusable. So you know there's these periods. So, like you know, you can check in. You know, check in on it at three months it's. It's going to be like kind of rambunctious and kind of weird and awkward like, you know, like a teen or something or tween, and then you'll see where it starts to get its confidence. And that's how I always like talk about, you know, like composure, or like the confidence of the liquid coming out of that barrel when they're, that's when it's open, it's like, and so you need to use it within a certain period of time, or else it's going to, it's going to gonna, it's gonna start to lose some of that.
Speaker 2:So I don't believe in age statements. Um, like we age this for 48 months. Um, you know that stuff can sell beer and that stuff can also be incredible beer. But I also want my beer to taste like it's still got life to it, like it's still nimble, it's still got some zeal right. It's not just we're old barrels that finally made it out, um, type of a thing. And uh, that's no disrespect to my you know, know, fellow barrel aging cohorts, but cohorts, but yeah, I mean it's just every once in a while something just kind of tastes like flat and old and you got to like throw in like a seven month old ripper and it just, it just lights it up, you know. And it just it just lights it up, you know.
Speaker 2:And so that's why I really just I don't overthink age style, type of barrel. It's just what is this missing? What does this need? Or, you know, you find that incredible barrel and you're like that's the anchor, how do I build off this? And I've got multiple different recipes and multiple different barrels at different ages. So let's just let's, let's figure this out and that that's what that month of blending is all about. And then it's, you know, and then it's carbonating it, packaging it, pasteurizing, if, if needed, labeling, pre-selling, packing boxes, doing pickups, and then I'm back to the next quarter and it's time to start blending again and that's like that's my quarterly rotation.
Speaker 1:All of these years. Do you ever get tired of barrel-aged beer?
Speaker 2:Mm-mm. No, no, I'm having more fun with it now than I think I ever have. That's amazing. I'm like I'm still figuring things out. It's been almost 20 years and still cracking codes, figuring things out, finding different approaches. Figuring things out, finding different approaches and like, and a lot of that comes from just kind of like not trying to be in control of everything and having these like really strict release schedules, but just being it's like kind of I'm like the old artsy guy. Now, all of a sudden, I'm just like, I'm just, it's just me in the barrels.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:Well, that's it, and we're just, and we're just vibing and I'm like playing vinyl and it's all true, and and and but it it works and and I'm still having a really fun. Um, you know, there's definitely challenging moments and periods and things where you're like what am I doing? And, uh, you know, can I really do this for another 10 years? Can I really do? Know, right now, private press feels really good and I'm like I said before, I'm just, I'm just, I just feel super fortunate to be here in Santa Cruz, to have my partner Dare and to have like a successful project like private press, that a lot of people are like, oh, it's like a passion project, which, which it is.
Speaker 2:I mean, it's a very passionate project, but I still have a lot of people ask me what my day job is. And it's, and it's this, because it's like super calculated and uh, you know, um, there's nothing else like it in the world. Can you think of another brewery where you walk into the tasting room and all you can have is barrel aged barley wine and barrel aged stout and that's it, that that as as a barley wine lover, I mean that that's a dream come true.
Speaker 1:It happened when when cycle cycle closed. Yeah.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:And he had about five barley wines and about probably seven or eight barrel aged stouts on. Yeah, as the IPA drained and everything else drained, those were still on and if I didn't have to have drive it would have been a little bit better. But yeah, that's so. Is that still in your tasting room?
Speaker 2:it's stouts and barley wines in the barrel age yep, there's only four things on draft, so I try to have, you know, like a stout, barley wine blend, a stout, something with adjuncts, and something that's like barley wine, barley wine adjacent um, that's kind of the idea and um, and then there's this extensive bottle list for in-house consumption. But yeah, yeah, we just do, uh, three ounce and six ounce pours. There's a sign out front that says we serve very strong beer and small glasses at 55 degrees. Um, it also says we spend whole albums both sides but that's the whole vinyl side of things. But, yeah, but I'm pouring barrel aged beer at 55 degrees in these tiny little glasses and it it's shocking, um, the people that are coming in that don't know anything about it, never had beer like that before and um, are like connecting with maybe maybe the beer, maybe they're connecting with the space or maybe it's. It's happening all together and um, yeah, that's, that's really fun to um witness. That's awesome, yeah that's awesome.
Speaker 1:Well, I I have. I have other questions, but I love where we are at the end of you. I like, ok, the last one that I have and I've got a lightning round. So the last big question is what do you want people to feel when they open a bottle of yours in a year, two years, three years?
Speaker 2:Good question. I want them to know that, like, the product that they're drinking was like, very intentional, even though, like the, the way I might have gone about coming around to that, but like there was, there was time spent, like it was, it was thoughtful and and um, now that I can drink beers that are almost five years old, I know that most of them hold up pretty well. Um, but yeah, I, I, I want them. You know, I don't want them hoarding my bottles. I don't think that. You know, I, everybody's like, so like, should I like lay this down for a little bit before I drink it? And I'm like, no, it's, I blended it. Like it tastes good right now, I believe that this is the pinnacle of where it's at now.
Speaker 2:Whether it gets better or worse, that's subjective, largely subjective upon the person that's aging that product and their personal seller. But, um, yeah, sure, I mean, some things can like round out some edges and whatnot, um, but ultimately, I, I hope that they um, like, connect with it and enjoy it and like, um, are able to drink a good portion of it, not two ounces, three ounces, you know, and then be like that was amazing, but that's about all I can have. I, you know, my beers are not thick, my beers are not overly sweet, my beers are barrel forward, they're palatable and, uh, if you want to drink a whole 500 over the course of an hour, two, three hours, you, you can, um, and if you get to the bottom of the bottle and you can't finish it, chances are you've gotten the bang for the buck. You've had the experience and, um, you know, nobody likes to pour good beer down the drain, but sometimes you have to be responsible and, um, it's easier said than done. Yes, um, but uh, but yeah, yeah, yeah, I. I just want them to know that, like, that beer was cared for and somebody, like, really put some time into it awesome, awesome.
Speaker 1:Well, that that makes perfect sense, and that goes along with the beers that I've had from you, um, on this next note, though, I do like to add um, I do like to have end each interview with a six pack of questions, kind of a little bit rapid fire, uh questions. So okay, first, every beer. Geek's favorite question what is your current favorite beer?
Speaker 2:That I don't make, or that you make.
Speaker 1:No, not limited.
Speaker 2:That sounds. That's lame. I love 10P, or 10 degree, from Urban Roots. It's a textile lager. It's 3.8%. It's been at the top of my favorite list ever since they put it out I think in 2021, it's just. It's just a beautiful beer and it's a it's a super nice group of people. So what I call 10P, which I think is actually 10 degree Play-Doh that's always at the top. I mean, if those are around, man, I can just drain them. I love them.
Speaker 1:Okay, if you could only brew one style of beer, what would it be? Barley wine Okay, I thought that would brew one style of beer. What would it be? Barley wine Okay, I thought that would be a pretty easy one.
Speaker 2:Munich wine. Just kidding, that's a different discussion Going down the rabbit hole.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah, what's the last beer you had? That changed your mind?
Speaker 2:I had a beer-wine hybrid from wildflower out of uh, australia at Firestone Walker. Um the uh, the people at wildflower, wonderful people, super kind, and every year at Firestone they always have the beer that sticks in my head the longest. But they had this amazing uh beer wine hybrid that was re-fermented on uh cherry juice and uh it, it, yeah, I, you know I drank a lot of things that day but, um, that one is embedded in there so I can't even remember the name of it. But if you haven't heard about Wildflower, check them out. They've got the coolest brew house in the whole world. It's eclectic, it's thoughtful.
Speaker 1:It's just beautiful stuff, awesome, awesome. After that, when it comes to beer, what do you? Wish you really understood.
Speaker 2:Water. Okay, that, when it comes to beer, what do you wish you really understood water? Okay, I have a really hard time reading about water. Uh, it's, it's a, it's, it's, it's an extremely dry subject I got, yeah, yeah, I mean that I.
Speaker 1:I read the the malt water hops yeast beers books from the BA.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and the water one fights insomnia pretty, pretty well oh my god, I've tried to read that thing so many times not nearly as sexy as the hops no, no, but brewing like a monk. Uh, that book that's my favorite.
Speaker 1:And Designing Great Beers by Ray Daniels what is one thing you wish everyone knew about your brewery?
Speaker 2:that. Oh man, that's a tough one, wow, I don't think anybody's ever asked me that, um, what I wish they knew about it. Uh, that it's. Oh man, I want to say that it's different, but that sounds that doesn't really encapsulate it. Um, but there's nothing else like it. I don't know, I guess that's it. There's nothing else like it okay, what's the last question?
Speaker 1:what is the greatest lesson you've learned in beer? There's nothing else like it. Okay, what's the last question? What is the greatest?
Speaker 2:lesson you've learned in beer. Hmm, man, let's see here. What is that the last of the six pack is is these are starting to hit hard yeah, yeah, I don't know last beers in the pack uh, just to stay humble.
Speaker 2:it's like, yeah, you just never know what's going to kind of come your way, how people are going to perceive your product. This is an art form. I firmly believe that we are craftsmen, craftswomen, craftspeople. We are making something with our hands.
Speaker 2:It's really easy to get caught up in it because you can see people enjoying your craft every day, whether it's on Untappd, whether it's in a tasting room, whether it's at a, at uh, you know what local watering hole or beer bar or whatever, um, so you can get like instant gratification and, um, and that can be, uh and uh, a funny thing to kind of get used to or get comfortable with. Um, but you know, I mean, we, yeah, we all make bad beer and it just happens and, and so what you do after that bad beer speaks much louder than that bad beer, you know. And time moves on and uh, you know, but the fact that I can still craft something with my heart, with with my mind, with my hands, um, and that it resonates with people, that's like that just means, means the world. But it's not always gonna, it hasn't always been that way and it won't always be that way, but right now I'm, I feel pretty good about things awesome, awesome.
Speaker 1:Thank you very much again for your time, brad, always great sitting with you and talking beer and uh I I hope we can have another conversation in a couple years about how far you've come and what new flavors you found.
Speaker 2:Yeah, let's make sure it's not over a decade.
Speaker 1:Yes, we'll definitely put a timer on that.
Speaker 2:And thank you for having me. It's been really nice to. I always love talking about my project with people that understand it or have some understanding around what it is, or like, have some understanding around what it is, um, and also to whoever listens to this uh that like has a better understanding around what actually goes into starting a brewery, running a brewery making beer. Um, there's, there's so many levels to it, but, um, to do something that's kind of different and kind of scary, um at times, uh, uh, but also like, very like freeing at times as well. Um, it's not, it's not always that I get to, you know, share the journey or the little you know, nuggets, uh that have, um, you know, sifted through uh, over the years. So thank you for giving me the opportunity.
Speaker 1:Oh, my pleasure, man. Always, always a blast. That was my conversation with Brad Clark of Private Press Brewing. My thanks to Brad for taking the time to speak with me about his brewing career and his passion for barrel aged beers.
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