(Page FOOD-1)
BREWERY ROWE
Stone's rudely named brew causing quite a brouhaha
Peter Rowe
STAFF WRITER
01-Sep-1999 Wednesday
SAN MARCOS -- No matter how popular it becomes, Stone Brewing's top-selling
bottled beer will never become a household name. Trust me.
You insist on proof? OK. Imagine a dining room table. Your dining room
table, say. The family is having dinner. Must be a special occasion,
because the guests include your mother-in-law and your second cousin, the
fundamentalist minister.
Nice. Everyone is having a great,
G-rated time when, suddenly, the table talk is punctuated by an R-rated
request: "Please pass the Arrogant Bastard."
No, this beer isn't for every occasion. Or for everyone.
"We were trying to make a beer that was big and bold," said
Greg Koch, 35,
Stone's president. "We truly didn't think that many people would like
it."
He was mistaken. Two years later, Arrogant Bastard Ale is the San Marcos
brewery's top-selling beer in bottles. But another member of the brewery's
lineup -- the inoffensively-dubbed Stone Pale Ale -- has been gaining on
the A.B. since April, when six-packs of the pale were introduced in local
supermarkets.
While Stone's aggressively hopped beers are not likely to convert fans
of
the so-called King of Beers, the 3-year-old brewery is challenging the king
of San Diego County suds, Karl Strauss Breweries. A decade after waltzing
onto the scene, Strauss is running four brewpubs and selling beer in 85
percent of the county's retail outlets.
Stone operates no brewpubs and is just starting to make regular appearances
on supermarket shelves. But it is experiencing phenomenal growth. In 1997,
the first full year of production, the start-up brewery made 2,000 barrels.
In 1998, it made 4,000 barrels.
"We expect to hit 7,000 to 8,000 by the end of 1999," Koch said.
If you can't find Stone everywhere, you can find it in some notable
locations. One of the San Marcos beers is on tap at San Francisco's hip
beer pub Toronado. Several are found in bottles on Amtrak's San Diegan,
where Stone's availability is advertised with a poster that reads, "Upgrade
to First Class."
The A.B. has been embraced by Bastard Nation, a group of adoption-rights
activists, which peddles the beer's T-shirt from its Web site. It's also
a
favorite of Brett Haglin, lead tenor sax with The Groove Merchants, an
Arizona-based big band. Koch recently fielded a call from a distributor
who
wanted to sell the rudely titled beer in his territory -- Tennessee. Stone
sells in Las Vegas and Sacramento, and many points in between.
"Used to be, if I threw a really good-sized party, we could go through
all
the beer we brewed that week," Koch said. "Now, San Marcos couldn't
throw a
party that big."
Chance meeting
Not bad for a venture that began when a landlord joined forces with a
rocker.
In the 1980s and early '90s, Koch operated musicians' practice studios
in
Los Angeles and the Bay Area. One of his occasional tenants was an IRS
Records group, Balancing Act, whose bass player was a quiet guy named Steve
Wagner.
The studio rental business was good, if not especially fulfilling. In
his
spare time, Koch discovered brewpubs, small restaurants that make their
own
beer. Then he began to seek out and tour breweries.
In 1993, he enrolled in a University of California Davis extension class,
"A Sensory Evaluation of Beer." To his surprise, he was approached
by one
of his classmates.
"Aren't you Greg from Downtown Rehearsal?" the stranger asked.
It was the bass player, Wagner, who had added home-brewing to his list
of
passions. After completing the Davis class, he took a job with Pyramid Ales
in Portland, Ore. But he stayed in touch with Koch, and the two men started
planning their own brewery.
Both wanted to live in Southern California. But Wagner, who has family
in
North County, was adamantly opposed to Los Angeles. In September 1995, he
moved to Solana Beach and began scouting locations. On Feb. 1, 1996, Wagner
spent his first day in his new job as vice president and head brewer of
Stone Brewing Co.
That August, the first keg of pale ale was rolled out of the brewery's
warehouse in a San Marcos industrial park alongside Highway 78.
Many good beers are masterpieces of balance, the bitterness and snap
of the
hops playing off the body and sweetness of the malt.
In the same way, Stone's founders complement each other. Wagner, 41,
is
modest and soft-spoken. Koch has never been accused of modesty, and
colleagues note that he named Stone's overbearing ale.
"He's that kind of aggressive, entrepreneurial person," Wagner
said of his
partner. "I'm the more conservative, cautious kind of person. You really
need both. I make him persuade me. He pushes me along."
Stone holds an annual party to mark its anniversary. This year, the
celebration will be Sept. 25 at the brewery, 155 Mata Way, No. 104, San
Marcos, from noon to 4 p.m. For admission, donate $5 at the door to the
Surfrider Foundation.
Brewery Rowe appears monthly in the Food section. Peter Rowe, the
proprietor, welcomes calls, (619) 293-1227; letters, c/o The San Diego
Union-Tribune, P.O. Box 120191, San Diego, CA 92112-0191; and
e-mail, peter.rowe@uniontrib.com
Copyright Union-Tribune Publishing Co.