Beer and music have long been drinking buddies. A concert is simply not complete without one fist heralding devil horns and the other one clutching a cold brewski — a balance of fire, fuel and refreshment. One of the coolest beer music venues on the West Coast has to be in the excellently named San Luis Obispo (a city located roughly midway between Los Angeles and San Francisco). San Luis Obispo (or SLO Town) is one of California’s oldest communities, and its historic downtown is home to SLO Brewing Co., the longest running brewpub in the area since prohibition and an amazing concert venue, feeding the edgy tastes of audiophiles from nearby Cal Poly.
After closing the doors of its beloved Garden Street brewpub last December, SLO Brew recently announced the highly anticipated opening of its new location on Higuera Street in the heart of downtown San Luis Obispo. Just steps away from its former location, SLO Brew is debuting a music partnership with The Knitting Factory Presents, a menu curated by Chef Thomas Fundaro and new craft beer flavors. That’s on top of its beautiful locale.
“This area, to me, is one of the biggest attractions, because it’s quintessential California,” said Steve Courier, SLO Brew’s recently named full-time brewmaster. “We’re right in the middle, so you can go 15 minutes north to Morro Bay, and it feels like Northern California, or you can go 15 minutes south to Pismo Beach, and it feels like Southern California. We’re basically an hour and a half away from Big Sur, which is amazing. There’s not a lot of people here, so it’s very open and the climate is very coastal. I always brag about our area when I talk about our brand.”
Before we forget, SLO Brew also opened up a production plant just on the outskirts of town called The Rock, replete with a new canning line. The brewery will start to package beyond kegs for the first time since opening in 1998. Rock and roll, right?
“It’s a rotary, six-head, automatic Criveller canning line,” said Courier. “It’s actually super pro, but it’s only six heads, so it’s just like any big, rotary canning line that you would find, but it’s small. It’s actually cool because it was a good entry level unit for us to just get our feet wet in canning but also still have a quality machinery. It’s the best of both worlds.”
With a Criveller rotary canning line and a 30-barrel capacity at The Rock, Courier will be expanding production of SLO Brew’s most popular and award-winning craft beers to 5,000 barrels in the first year and 10,000 in the second. He will also be introducing specialty and seasonal brews on a regular basis. With plans to open mid-January, The Rock will also feature a biergarten restaurant, catering kitchen, event space and another concert venue.
Right now, all of that cool food, beer and music is flowing through SLO Brew’s new downtown pub, which features the original 10-barrel brewing tanks. The company’s new gastropub concept features a full-sized restaurant with expansive indoor and outdoor dining options. In addition to the variety of signature pizzas, pub favorites and shareable plates, SLO Brew’s 14 taps will pour its four signature beers along with its own specialty and seasonal brews, as well as one or two guest taps.
SLO Brew’s partnership with the Knitting Factory is certainly a solid complement to that aforementioned food and beer selection; the Knitting Factory nightclub being one of New York City’s most eclectic and avant-garde music venues. Bands and artists that have graced SLO Brew stages in the past range from Toro y Moi and Public Enemy to Jeff Bridges, Snoop Dog and STRFKR (which stands for Starfucker, BTW). The pub is outfitted with a state-of-the-art sound system, a mezzanine level Whiskey Lounge with views of the stage and rustic and industrial décor festooning the entertainment space. The music has also invaded the beer and marketing.
“We have a long history with lots of good music,” said Courier. “Actually, one of our flagships is called Reggae Red. Back in the mid-‘90s, when bands like Sublime and that whole reggae movement was hot back then and that style was probably about 80 percent of all the bands that played here. It was so big at that time, we crafted a beer with hemp seeds in it and made it more malty and branded it after that style of music. We still have it, but then music has always been a big part of our culture here.”
In addition to SLO Brew’s grand opening of the pub, it also announced the opening of its brand new downtown lodging option, The Lofts. Perched directly above the downtown facility on the second floor, The Lofts offer guests convenient and comfortable one-, two- and three-bedroom accommodations that are perfect for any type of celebration or getaway. With its trio of venues, SLO Brew is guaranteed to become one of the signature experiences of the Central Coast. To get the full and complete lowdown, we phoned Courier to discuss some of these exciting expansions.
Enjoy that lengthy Q&A on the next page.
CBB: Steve, we really appreciate you taking the time to talk to us today. I know you and SLO Brew are super busy right now. For starters, you guys and gals are working on a bunch of new facilities this year.
Courier: Yep, we just moved into our new pub, which had been operating in the same spot since ‘88. Then we also opened up a production plant, in the same town but just on the outskirts of town. It’s been in the planning stage for several years, but we actual broke ground in January.
On top of that, you’ve also revamped your marketing.
We’ve got all new logos. We are working with a local but nationally known company called Rosetta. They do a lot of work with a lot of bigger businesses. We can actually see their building from our building, so we teamed up with them, and they came out with a whole new look. It’s cool. I like it a lot better than the old look. It’s basically a pick badge, because we’ve always had music as part of our theme, and so they came up with the pick badge look, and I like it a lot.
It looks very cool. I love that your pub has a great lineup of artists coming through there.
Yeah, we have a long history of lots of good music.
Very cool. And the new place has a loft or lofts above it as well? Is that right?
Yeah. Our downtown area is a nice area, but there’s no place to stay. There are no hotels. They’re all on the outskirts of town, so there’s been a push by the city to get more lodging downtown. There was actually an original plan to make it a big concert hall, on the second story, and it was met with some resistance from the city, so we had to change gears and downscale the concert venue. As part of that, to make it make sense on paper, they decided to do a boutique hotel.
That’s cool.
It’s cool too because then the bands that do play, they can go up there. There’s a big meeting space that they can enjoy. That’s their backstage area now, up there.
Very nice. It also gives it a destination kind of feel to it.
Yeah. The people that are really into craft beer can post up there, and there’s quite a few breweries right around us, too. There’s Libertine, which is all wild ales, Barrel House, which is a brewery up in Paso; it has a tasting room. There was a little brew pub right around the corner called Creekside. They’re actually in transition right now to new ownership, and then Figueroa Mountain, which is another regional brewery in our area, is looking to open a tap room downtown. Then right across the street, there’s an iPourIt place, so a bunch of craft beer on tap where you can go and pour your own and explore a lot of craft beer there. There’s a lot in our immediate downtown area happening for beer lovers.
Things have changed in the last couple years, huh?
Yeah. Our beer scene is definitely starting to grow.
You guys have been around for so long. I think I heard the other day a stat about California having maybe topped 700 breweries. Does it feel different out there? There are so many now.
It does. I like it better. I’m a brewer, so I like being able to interface on a regular basis with other brewers. I think you get a little more creative energy going with everyone. You don’t get as stagnant. The brewing industry’s always been known for being very friendly with other brewers, so it’s nice to have a community of brewers.
You yourself have committed full-time to SLO Brew recently. Is that right?
Yeah.
What encouraged that commitment? This expansion?
Yeah. There was a lot going on, and I was at Firestone Walker for 15 years, and it was going the opposite direction there. It was getting bigger and more corporate, and they got bought out, and it became more like a factory. It’s still a great company. I’m not pooh-poohing them at all. They’re great, but I was commuting. I’ve always lived in San Luis, so I was always commuting a half-hour to Paso. It gave me an opportunity to actually expand my knowledge base because I was always in production at Firestone. Now, I’ve gotten into packaging a lot lately and every facet of brewing now. Also, I literally live three minutes away, so it took the commute out.
Nice.
SLO Brew’s always been a great brand. It wasn’t really even a decision. It kind of was a no-brainer.
What have you learned doing all these new things? Anything that stands out, like, “Oh, I guess I wouldn’t have thought of that?”
Definitely packaging. I was always pretty anti-packaging. Brewers like to just be production. I definitely got thrown into it, but I’m super glad that I did because it expanded my knowledge base. I’ve learned a ton from packaging, but actually, it’s more of the process. I always had my baseline of what I wanted from packaging, as far as CPOs [change package orders] and such. It’s been good to be able to plug that in while we’re developing this packaging and make sure that those criteria are being met.
It’s so important these days. Tell me about the new production facility. You have a new canning line there.
Yeah. It’s a rotary, six-head, automatic Criveller canning line. It’s actually super pro, but it’s only six heads, so it’s just like any big, rotary canning line that you would find, but it’s small.
What do you like about the brand?
Criveller? Our whole brewery is basically Criveller. The brewhouse, they pretty much have outfitted everything. We went with the full package with Criveller.
Why do you like them?
They’re great. I like them a lot. The equipment has been great, but one of the main reasons we signed on with them is the tech support. They have a technician in our area. As it is with most machines, things happen, and he’s been a Johnny-On-The-Spot. Whenever we have something go wrong, he’s right there to help us, so that’s been one of the best things that I can say about them.
What’s important when you’re planning that canning line? Is there anything you need to keep in mind for other brewers thinking about expanding into cans?
Well, canning, for them, is a new endeavor. They’re just rolling it out. The idea is that we become kind of a showroom for Criveller for other prospective buyers for them. They can refer those people through here, and they can see everything that they offer, basically. That was the incentive for them to push all that for us.
Interesting. Can you give us any sort of maintenance or operational advice when it comes to a line? What things people working the line need to consider and be aware of or any sort of maintenance issues that need to be kept up on weekly or monthly?
We’ve had some issues, actually, with our canning line, but some of it has to do with operator error. There was a guide, a can guide, on the line that, when you CIP the line, when you clean the line, you have to take this guide out. One of the operators didn’t take this guide out. A canning line is such a fine-tuned piece of machinery that the rotary hit this guide, and it has essentially thrown everything out of whack.
Oh, man. Training’s important.
Yeah, training’s important, and this is one of those things where we’ve advised Criveller, on their future models, that they do some kind of proximity switch for this guide, because it’s super easy to forget. I wouldn’t even put it down to training because this guy knew about it. He was told about it, but he still forgot it. For their future models, we suggested that they put a proximity switch, so if that guide’s still in there, you’re not able to do the CIP mode. There’s a lot of little things like that.
Click Next below to learn when you can get your hands on those precious cans above. You can’t miss that.
You’re just set on cans right now?
We’re just doing cans now. I’m sure, in the future, and I’m not even sure how long, we’ll start doing maybe specialty beers in 22s.We’re pretty committed to 12-ounce cans, but the canning line also has capacity to do 16-ounce and 18-ounce cans.
Any trouble finding cans?
No. The only issue with that is that you have to buy a minimum amount, and so storing cans can be more the issue than finding them. Basically, you can’t order small amounts.
Who do you get them from?
We’ve only ordered once, and it was through Rexam, which just got bought by Ball.
Yep.
It’s just the storage has been the main problem.
Do you guys do sleeves, or you do printing on the cans?
Printing straight on the cans.
Do you like that look, that feel?
I do. I much prefer it. I’ve seen some pretty good sleeves out there, but I prefer the printed on.
What’s new with the beer these days? You guys and gals doing anything unique or different or something that excites you?
We’re just starting to ramp up our creative process, because with the pub, it was a 10-barrel system. We’re in a college town. The pub was always really busy, so we, a lot of times, found ourselves in a rut, trying to keep up with our labor offerings. Since we’ve gotten the production going out here at The Rock, which we’re not even quite up to steam yet, we’re just barely getting started, but it’s loosened up the pub production schedule enough to where, now, we’re finally starting to do fun beers, creative beers.
We got a barrel-aged beer that we just did, a Winter Braun. Braun is what we call it. It’s a brown. We also do distilling, so we partnered with a local distiller. We’ll make them wash down our brew house, and then they’ll distill it and age it. Then we’ll get those barrels back, and so now we have a barrel program going, which is cool.
That’s very cool.
It’s fun to be able to tell some of our brewers, “Hey, why don’t you come up with a recipe, and we’ll brew it.” We’ve been able to do that a couple times. We had an Australian that was working here for a while. We were able to say, “Hey, create a recipe. We’ll brew it,” and he made an Australian-style pale ale.
Nice.
To me, that’s been the most fun, to be able to let the brewers get creative.
How big is your operation? How many employees do you guys have?
As far as brewing goes, there’s one full-time pub brewer. We’re actually really lean right now, and by design. We’re trying to keep our costs low. We haven’t even sent out our first cans yet, so we’re trying to get some cash flow going before we start hiring people.
Totally.
Out here, at production, there’s probably five of us. Really only six people making beer.
That’s pretty impressive.
Yeah. It gets crazy, for sure, sometimes, but like I said, it’s short-term. We’re just trying to get going here.
Cool, and your capacity, you probably have enough to ramp up further?
Our building is quite big, as far as the production. The pub is 10 barrels. That’s not going to change. Out here, we occupy the center part of this big building, about 10,000 square feet, but then there’s two other lease spaces on either side of us that are short-term leases that, if we need to, we can grow into. As far as our current footprint, we can grow to 60,000 barrels in that footprint before we would need to go to our lease spaces. We have quite a bit of elbow room.
What are you doing now? How many barrels?
We are selling 2,000 barrels alone, just through our downtown pub. But when the Rock’s tasting room opens and distribution is in full swing, we expect to do 10,000 easily.
You guys distributing?
Yeah, we wanted to dip our toe in the water and at least win some tap accounts, and we capped it at 30. We’ve had so many disruptions in production, with the moving of the pub, and there was a lot going on downtown. A lot of that has fallen off. I would have to ask our sales guys what we’re at right now, but I think it’s even below that. Our tap strategy has been very liquid. I think now that we’re starting to get into a more regular groove, obviously, we’re going to let him go and see what he can do, but yeah, it’s pretty anemic right now.
Hopefully, that’ll change with the new line.
Yeah.
When do you think you’ll be shooting those out for sale?
Tentatively, our first PO pickup here at the brewery is December 1.
Okay. Just in time for the holidays, huh?
Yeah, and I keep telling people, Look for us in the New Year, basically.
Who have you gone with for distribution?
It’s Pacific Beverage. It’s actually a Bud house here, local Bud house.
Big beer versus craft, is that a discussion that you have at the brewery at all, or is it just something like: “It happens out there. What are you going to do? You can’t control it. You can’t change it, so don’t worry about it,” kind of situation?
Yeah. I don’t think about it much as a brewer. I’m sure the sales team thinks a little more about it, and there’s definitely some strategy that has played into that, so one of the beers that we’re rolling out is a blonde ale, and that’s strategic. That’s not coming from a brewer. That’s trying to capture some of the mass beer business out there. It does play into our strategy, but as a brewer, I never think about it.
Is there a technique or a style or an ingredient that’s got you interested or excited you could share with us?
Nothing proprietary or anything like that. I put off the whole session IPA thing as not that good, because being on the West Coast, we’ve had pale ales, hoppy pale ales around forever, and to me, they’re almost redundant. Then I started differentiating with just the new hop varieties. Once I started thinking about it that way, it made more sense to me, and so we rolled out a session IPA with Citra and Amarillo. Obviously, everyone’s doing those beers now, but it finally captured my imagination enough to sign onto it, and it’s actually one of our more popular beers now, too. It’s funny. We’ve been doing a Nitro IPA for probably 15 years, and it’s interesting to see that now starting to take off. We were doing that for a long time, and now it’s a thing.
You guys did it. You launched it.
Yeah. I’m doing a lot of projects that I’ve never been able to do, just because of time restraints, like I’ve spent some time in London. I like cask ales. I want to do a cask ale night at the pub. We have a Randall, a robust one. It’s a big, stainless one that you can pack full of stuff. I want to do a Randall night once a month, where we maybe go to the farmer’s market the night before, find an interesting ingredient and pair it up with a beer and do something different every time, just to keep people, their interest piqued. As far as cutting edge on the horizon, I don’t know. I can’t say that we’re pursuing anything at the moment.
What trends do you see out in California?
East Coast IPAs are starting to get traction now on the West Coast. We want to do an East Coast IPA but via Australia, because we have a strong Australian connection. Some of the partners are from Australia. We want to do an East Coast-style IPA using all Australian hops.
Nice. Feel like I just asked you one zillion questions, Steve. I really appreciate you taking the time to answer them.
No problem. Thanks for contacting us.
Thank you, and don’t work too hard.
Thank you, and take it easy.
