50,000 barrels of fun on the wall

Beer output at Stone Brewing Company expected to jump nearly 40 percent this year

By Victor A. Patton | victor@tlnews.net

Greg Koch, chairman and chief executive officer of Stone Brewing Company, has reason to smile as he stands inside the company's new 60,000-square-foot facility in western Escondido. Christian Calabria | chrisitan@tlnews.net

Sunday, April 23, 2006

ESCONDIDO - The gray gargoyle gracing the Stone Brewing Company's bottle is grinning - and for good reason.

The North County brewery is celebrating its 10th anniversary this year at a new 60,000-square-foot, $13 million facility at the Escondido Research and Technology Center in west Escondido - a building nearly three times as large as the company's previous headquarters in San Marcos.

The brewery also is constructing its 8,000-square-foot Stone Bistro and Garden, slated to open this summer, at the Escondido site, complete with a one-acre outdoor beer garden and a menu containing a variety of culinary specialties.

The move to Escondido is a definite sign of the times for Stone Brewing, which began as a small microbrewery in a 7,000-square-foot space in San Marcos.

Nowadays, the brewery's refrigerator alone is 8,000 square feet, and the products the brewery produces achieve top ratings from beer reviewers nationwide.

Ask Greg Koch, Stone Brewing's chief executive officer and co-founder, about his past 10 years in business and the recent move to Escondido, and he'll say that his mission remains to provide the best quality beer available to the public.

"A lot of beer that's consumed in the United States today is beer that is intended to be what (the makers) think people want and not what is necessarily great beer," Koch said.

"I think the world has enough flavorless beer. They don't need us to make more of it. So I felt, 'Hey, the world needs us to make beer with lots of great flavor and character to it. So that's what we set out to do," he said.

Koch, 42, began Stone Brewing with business partner Steve Wagner, the company's president and brew master, in 1996 after the pair met in a sensory evaluation of beer class at the University of California Davis.

At the time, Koch worked as a manager of Los Angeles rock bands and owned a rehearsal studio space.

"We started talking and realized that we had a common love of great beer," Koch said.

When Koch and Wagner opened Stone Brewing in 1996 they grossed less than $1 million in sales their first year.

Since then, Stone Brewing's profits have grown.

The company grossed nearly $12.5 million in sales in 2005 and reached customers in 20 states.

"We still have catching up to do," Koch said. "The 20 states still are not getting as much beer as they want, so we've already gone through an expansion and we've got a couple more of our 360-barrel fermenters."

The company went from producing 400 barrels of beer in 1996 to 36,000 in 2005 (each barrel represents about 30 gallons).

This year the company expects to produce about 50,000 barrels, according to Chris Cochran, Stone Brewing's marketing coordinator, an increase of nearly 40 percent.

Beer lovers have taken notice; the Web site RateBeer.com ranked the brewery's Stone Imperial Russian Stout as number seven on the list of best beers in the world this year.

That Web site also lists Stone Brewing as number six on the list of top 100 beer brewers in the world.

The Web site BeerAdvocate.com ranked the brewery's Stone Imperial Russian Stout as number two on its list of top 100 beers.

Stone Brewing's success is unique because the company has done little advertising, minus the banners that grace the sides of its distribution trucks.

"It's all been on the strength of our beer and word of mouth," Koch said. "We're driven by our passion and our love for great beer."

The new Stone Brewing facility, at 1999 Citracado Parkway, is open to the public for tours from 2 to 4 p.m. weekdays and 1 to 3 p.m. Saturdays.

Several visitors to the brewery said they are impressed with the new facility and the beer it produces.

"These guys are having way too much fun," said Danny Ostrowski, a Seattle resident who stopped by the brewery while visiting family. "Going to a brewery like this is what it's all about."

Leslie Stark, a San Marcos resident, said she's visited the brewery three times since it opened because of the quality of its beer. "It's fun and flavorful," she said.

For information about Stone Brewing call (760) 294-7899.

Reach reporter Victor A. Patton at 760.752.6757.