Matt Sage Oral History Interview, November 11, 2014

TIAH EDMUNSON-MORTON: Ok, go head.

MATT SAGE: Ok, my name is Matt Sage. I was born here in Portland, Oregon, in June 22nd, 1954. And We're in the Indie Hops office in SE Portland.

TEM: So you were born in Portland. Where did you go to school? What part of Portland were you settling in?

MS: My family moved around a little bit when I was a small child, but we ended up in Maywood Park up by Parkrose area for mostly my grade school and high school years. And I went to Catholic schools. I went to St. Rita Grade School which is a few blocks from my house. And I graduated from Central Catholic High School.

TEM: So, same area? Same part of Portland?

MS: Yes.

TEM: What are some of the things that you're interested in when you were younger.

MS: Boy, I haven't thought of that question for a long time. I never thought 00:01:00that-originally, as I'll explain later, I started out in wine making and then moved to brewing from there, but I never really seriously thought that-that was I would do when I was growing up. Although, when I was 16 or so, I did make some wine with some thought-out Welches' grape juice and cans of yeasts that I hid in the backyard. Really not to be able to drinking cuz it was horrible, but just kind of with fascination with the process. So, I never would have thought of that as something I want to do-that not why I did it. It was just a science experiment, I guess.

TEM: Did you taste it?

MS: It did. It was pretty awful.

TEM: So, were you interested in science when you were in school? Was that always a track that you felt like you wanted to follow?

MS: Yes. I guess I wasn't extremely in that direction. I did well in school in that direction so people tend to touch you on the back and say that you're good at that. So maybe you tend to go there whether you want to or not. But I think what makes brewing and wine making such a cool thing is that it's such a great mix of art and science, and the long history of it. And at the same time, you have modern gadgets to work with if you're actually doing it, and machines. So I think that' why it's so appealing to other people, cuz what's not to like? And you end up with beer too, or wine.

TEM: Not Welches' grape juice. [Laughs]

MS: Not Welches' grape juice, yeah.

TEM: So what was it like to be in Portland during that time? What are some things you remember about the city that really stand out in your mind?

MS: It was a pleasant growing up as a kid-we were by Rocky Butte before they put 00:03:00through I205. And where that it is right along the back was basically a wild wooded area. So it was great to be in the city and have outdoor trails we could ride our Stingrays through or had our own little war games and that sort of thing there. So it was a very safe and pleasant neighborhood. Later on, I guess as I got older, I thought Portland was rather boring. And I think at that time, there wasn't nearly as many things for young people to do, especially before you reach the age of drinking as they are now. So I thought it was kind of boring as a teenager. But I was in a very comfortable situation, very safe. So it's a very pleasant place to grow up.

TEM: Did you have brothers and sisters?

MS: I have just one sister-was quite a bit younger that I was.

TEM: And what about your parents? Did you live with both of them?

MS: Yes. So I live with both of my parents. And they were both born in Oregon 00:04:00themselves. My mother was born in Portland and my father was born in-I think it was-Coquille. I think he was born in Coquille. I know he lived there in his early life. [Pause] No I'm sorry, he was born in Lake Oswego. Then his family moved to Coquille because his father, my grandfather, was a highway engineer, road construction engineer. And he had his own company with a partner that went buster in the Great Depression. And he got a job with the Coos County road departments. So that's why they ended up moving down there. The family story is, his partner ran off with little money they had left, and left him with nothing.

TEM: So did you visit the coast then? Was that a place where your dad liked to 00:05:00go back to?

MS: Well, Coquille was a little ways away. We went to the coast a lot, both my parents and all as my whole family enjoy going to the beach a lot. But usually they would be just closer to Portland. We did make one or two family trip back to Coquille. It's getting way off track but it really sounded like a very cool place to grow up as a child because my father would talk about that's where we'd just go out and camp during the summer, and by the river, Mayberry kind of place. So he obviously enjoyed that. But even more than what I was just saying about myself, it got really boring by the time you were a teenager and definitely wanted to move away to some place relatively more cosmopolitan.

TEM: So did he move to Portland then? Was that a straight shot from Coquille?

MS: No, he ended up going to high school in Coquille and went to the University of Oregon in Eugene. So that was when he left.

TEM: And then what about your mom?

MS: She grew up in Portland. And they met at the University of Oregon. And they got married when they were still down there. And eventually my dad became a contractor-he had a degree in engineering, general construction. So he got a job in Portland. They moved back here and that's why I was born here.

TEM: What about your mom? What was her interest of study?

MS: Before I was born, she was on track to be a schoolteacher. But she ended up being a housewife most of her life.

TEM: So, a teacher still. [Laughs]

MS: Yes, yeah.

TEM: The way that we think about that part of Portland now, it's definitely more 00:07:00connected as sort of sprawl. But did you feel a kind of affinity with downtown. Were there opportunities for you to explore not just the section of Portland you were in. Did you go to Forest Park? Did you go downtown?

MS: Not before I got into high school. But one thing which was kind of good about going to Central Catholic High School was that it drew kids from all over the city instead of just your neighborhood. So either you go visit kids at their home, or especially after we could drive, we'd go around and cover the town, picking our schoolmates up to go to high school football game or something like that. So I got to know a lot more of the city then. But that was before the urban revolution. At the time in the 60s, everybody was moving out of own, and 00:08:00places like NW Portland which was almost kind of a scary part of town to go to. It was old people and students, and hippies into the 70s before it became popular again and people moved back into the city and fixed up all great place. But there was, especially for teenagers, a lot to do in Portland.

TEM: Obviously now, you have a job that focuses on science. And you did brewing which has focuses on science. Was that kind of agricultural side of science interesting to you? Was is more on the chemistry side?

MS: I think more the biology part of it. So it includes growing material for beer or wine. Actually when I was in college, I kind of drifted into an 00:09:00agricultural program and, in fact, worked at a USDA agricultural research lab in Yakama one summer. It was a project on aphids and sugar beets that I was hired for as a student, to work on an internship as a student. But I guess it's more the biological part because so much of brewing is biology. The materials are, obviously, plants that are grown. Malting is a biological process as the grain is germinated. And beer is really made by yeasts primarily. I guess, that I find more fascinating. Chemistry is an important tool. But I guess it's the biology and the impreciseness of working with biology. It's more appealing to me than 00:10:00rows and columns kind of chemistry and engineering.

TEM: So, you graduated from high school in what year?

MS: 1972.

TEM: And then from there, did you go straight to college?

MS: I did. I went to the Evergreen State College in Olympia. And I went there for about 4 or 5 years. But I didn't go straight through and in fact, I didn't graduate. I left about a year in. Moved from Olympia to Seattle and worked at-it was a first winery job-a winery called Assoc. Vintners which eventually evolved into Columbia Winery which exists now. And Assoc. Vintners was founded of University of Washington professors as a hobby/cooperative business among them. 00:11:00But they're one of the first new wineries in the period, in the 60s. There hadn't been many new wineries since back in the day before Prohibition. Or, very early years, there were few wineries in western Washington-it actually made 4 or 5 wine that sort of thing. But it was one of the first fine wineries using European grapes. And they have vineyard in the Yakama Valley and bought from a few other growers. But it started out very small. It's just actually a hobby among university professors that evolved into a business. I never would have thought of doing that.

But, as I said, that time in my early 20s, I really was unclear about what I wanted to do. I was visiting a friend in the bay area. I must have been making some wine at home again just as hobby because they had a wine shop that I've 00:12:00heard about in the bay area that I stopped at, on my way out to drive back to Seattle, to pick up some supplies and just to see what they had because there weren't a lot of them in the northwest. And they had a sign on the wall, because they an operating winery, actually, out of their place. And they had a sign "Help Wanted". So that's what put the idea in my head that you could actually make a living doing something like that. And I applied and drove back. I didn't get it. But that put the idea in my head, for the first time, to consider it as something you would actually do for a living instead of just a hobby. So, I didn't get that job but I started look up wineries in Washington, which were just starting, and ended up working at least for one harvest time at Assoc. Vintners. By then, this was the late 70s.

TEM: So the growth of the wine industry in Washington predates Oregon, is that right?

MS: I think they were about roughly the same time. There was an early wave with David Lett and, I think, Charles Coury-he went on to do Cartwright beer. There was a first wave of them in the late 70s. And then there was a bigger wave of them. It started around the same time Bridgeport did in the early 80s. But roughly the same time.

TEM: Ok. So it must have been an exciting time because we were growing grapes in a place where people were not necessary thinking that we could have a robust industry.

MS: Right, especially in Oregon. I worked a number of years for Cameron Winery. And John Paul, the owner and winemaker who had been a marine biologist and 00:14:00worked at the Scripps Institute in San Diego, left that to become a winemaker. As part of his education, he took an internship in a number of places including Burgundy and France, and went to New Zealand, and worked at the Napa Valley. And there, he decided that he really like Pinot Noir. A lot of people thought that it'd do better in a cooler climate like we have up here than in California. So he decided to move up here and start a winery. And everybody in Napa told him "You'll get frosted out every spring and rained out every harvest. It'll be a complete failure." But a number of people proved them wrong, at least most of the time.

TEM: So you were up in Seattle. And you worked full time for a season. What were 00:15:00you doing in the off season?

MS: Well, I don't remember the exact chronology. I did work there for at least a year. And then they had a big shakeup at Assoc. Vintners. I think that was about the time that they were doing very well as a company and then they ended up being bought out by a larger group of investors. And that's when they involved into the Columbia Winery. And pretty much everybody left during that transition period. I did rehire back for a harvest but it was really between that.

And then I started working in restaurants else where as a restaurant cook. So that's really what I was doing at the time before my brewing career started. The idea of brewing was pretty much unheard of then. There was Anchor Steam existing which was an old brewery. It's the only small brewery that had survived. And there was one small one in Sonoma, California, New Albion Brewery. I think it 00:16:00was existing but it was really just a glorified home brew operation, really. But at the time, that's just the time when imported beers were starting to become more popular. And people started thinking about beer besides American Light Lager, A-B or Miller. And the interest came. At then there weren't any craft beers but there started to be bar where you could have a huge selection of imported beers.

The other young guys that were working in the winery with me thought "Wouldn't it to be cool to start a brewery?" But it was just an idea. And we didn't really have the wherewithal to start one at that time. It was really an outlandish idea. Most people were very patronizing if you told them what you're thinking about. Mainly because breweries didn't exist, they didn't take up 5 city blocks. There's gotta be reason for that. How could you get around the incredible 00:17:00efficiency of scale that could make a barrel of beer for a tenth, or far less than what you could. So how could a small brewery possibly happen.

And I guess in a way, small wineries were a little of a pioneer of the idea of craft fermentation. Most of the breweries that started at that time started on very small budgets. And it was really uncertain whether they could survive for a year or so. And it was really only because, personally, I was into my late 20s then. But I wasn't marry, I didn't have any children, I didn't have a mortgage. So I could take a chance on doing something that didn't pay very well that might end up that I might be out of a job in a year just because it was an interesting idea, and I was able to do that in my life.

TEM: Were you in Seattle when Redhook started?

MS: Yes, I was still in Seattle. That's right. So Redhook had started and Cartwright Brewing had started down here. And Dick Ponzi, who was a winemaker, I had worked for briefly down here in Oregon. I came down here for a short time. My parents still lived in Portland so I was really visiting them and worked for Dick Ponzi for a couple of months, and then went back to Seattle. But when I heard that he was starting Bridgeport Brewery, I came down and interviewed with Karl Ockert who was the first brew master. He knew Dick because he had been hired out of the University of California, Davis, as an assistant winemaker for Dick Ponzi and Ponzi Vineyard. And he was pushing Dick to start a brewery too. Dick know Charles Coury who's formed Cartwright Brewing because they were both 00:19:00pioneer winemakers in Oregon. So he knew that. That's where Ponzi got the idea of doing that, with Karl pushing him, sweeping the ice in front of him as best as possible to go in that direction. So somehow I heard about it and came down Seattle, and interviewed with Karl in the old Bridgeport building where they still are, which was just an abandoned brick shell at that time. And I was hired. So that was my first brewing job.

TEM: Did you know Karl before interviewing with him?

MS: No, I didn't. That was when I met him.

TEM: So you moved back here. You were basically the second employee at Bridgeport?

MS: Yes.

TEM: So what was it like working there? What was the environment, what was the equipment like?

MS: Well, it was rustic. Because there wasn't a lot of money going to be 00:20:00invested in it. Reasonably because it was so uncertain. We mostly used old dairy equipment, because with stainless steel, the advantage of stainless steel is that you can take heat and you can clean it with powerful cleaners which you need, to have a sanitary situation for brewing beer so you'll hopefully produce good beer. The building was very rustic. People would probably be horrified to make beer in that these days.

And the product was pretty rough too. But it was the learning curve. There really wasn't much brewing education outside of the big breweries, I think, at that time. You went to college and learned the basics, and learned some chemistry and maybe mechanical engineering. But then the big brewers would just 00:21:00hire people from that, and then train them themselves in the A-B way, or the Miller ways, or whatever. So there was a very small fermentation science, brewing-orient program. I'm not sure how separate it really was from winemaking. It was sort of an adjunct to the winemaking program at UC Davis. And there was a Siebel Institute in Chicago which was a private educational research company that worked for the brewing industry. And they had a little bit of an education program. But there was really, very little back then because, as I said , the big breweries would just hire people and then train them in their way. And that's all they were looking for. So, Karl had gone through the brewing program. But compared to starting out today, we started with very little knowledge and learned a lot as we went.

TEM: At that point, were you home-brewing beer?

MS: No, not really.

TEM: Ok. I was at Steinbart's earlier today-I stopped by-and they were having an Oregon Brew Crew meeting tonight. So I'm curious, did you guys go to home brewing meetings? Was it really more using more Karl knew and then experimenting on your own? How did you grow and learn in those early months?

MS: Actually, I take that back. I had done some home brewing with John Alban who was another winemaker, a few years younger than Karl, who graduated out the UC Davis program and had gone up to work at Assoc. Vintners. So that's how I met him. And he was one of the guys there that I talked about-we thought, "wouldn't 00:23:00it be cool to start a brewery?" In fact, we did do some home brewing at his house. I'm really trying to remember why. But we had talked to the founders of Redhook Brewing whose names just escaped me-I haven't crossed my mind there for a long time. But we ended up not joining with them. One of them was the one of the founders of Starbucks Coffee. And he was kind of a entrepreneurial type. Another guy ended up becoming the president of Redhook for quite a while and I'm sorry his name just doesn't pop in my head right now, maybe it will later. I can amend it. So I think they had the idea of starting Redhook but we never combined. I really don't remember the reason why. Maybe by that time, I had come down to start working at Bridgeport, cuz Redhook started at about the same time roughly as Bridgeport did.

TEM: It's life. [Laughs]

MS: But anyway, we started studying it and looking into it. Karl had done brewing with the program. When he and Dick decided to start Bridgeport, he started, more or less, home brewing to try out recipes to continue what he'd done, started at UC Davis to come up with ideas for how we would get started at Bridgeport-what the first kind of beer would be and that sort of thing.

TEM: It seems like then there were very many brewing books. Even homebrewing-wise, it was pretty limited in publications.

MS: Yeah in fact Fred Eckhardt, he published one of the first homebrewing books in this country. And there were some I remember reading that were written in the UK cuz there is homebrewing. The early beers were lucky because, this wave of 00:25:00popularity, even the ports had. So people started thinking about beer and having more variety in beer. And that's what we early brewers were trying to imitate-would be to make that kind of beer here inspired by existing European brewer. Home brewers today are still looking at that, except they're also trying to imitate modern American craft beers.

TEM: It's interesting. So culturally in Portland when you came back-taking a step out of brewing for just a second-what was it like to come back? Did you feel like Portland was different when you returned in the early 80s? Was it more exciting?

MS: It was more exciting but not compared to Seattle in the early 80s. And I've sort of missed that. Seattle in the early 80s was a very fun place for young people, as Portland is today. And Portland I think became that, in my humble 00:26:00opinion, ten year later. And it as still very affordable to live in Seattle. There just was a lot going on. That's when the cultural shift were-urban became popular again. I lived in an apartment in NW Portland. It was very inexpensive. And still, most of the houses run down a lot of the early employees at Bridgeport, both in the bar and the Bridgeport. There were students from Louis and Clark college that lived in houses all together in NW Portland. And the neighborhood was just staring to turn into the much more trendy and expensive neighborhood it is today. So that was starting to transition in the 80s. So Portland was definitely starting to accelerate but it was a little blah compared 00:27:00to Seattle for somebody in their 20s at that time, from my point of view.

TEM: So at that point, Henry Weinhard's was still an operational brewery?

MS: Yes.

TEM: And that was the only brewery that was operational-cuz I don't think there was anything similar at that point-was that kind of it for other breweries in the state?

MS: There was General Brewery in Vancouver Washington. I'm trying to remember when they closed down. I think they were still operating in the 80s. That eventually closed down and all the equipment got sent off to China. They had a brewery there. I remember driving to Great Western Malting in Vancouver cuz we picked up our own malting in pickup trucks back then from Great Western Malting. And we'd driver by the General Brewery. I remember it being taken apart. The 00:28:00whole building was taken down, and tanks were hauled out of that and put on a ship for China at that time.

But Henry Wienhard's was still going on. And the brew master, again whose name I don't remember, was very kind to us. They did so lab work on some of our early brews and even loaned us some kegs to fill, and even washed them for us in their facility. So that was very generous. I remember he and a bunch of the employees of Blitz Weinhard came to the opening party for Bridgeport Brewing. His joke, which he loved telling over and over, "I bought enough people so that in a few hours, we'll put you out of business by drinking all your beer cuz that's all you're able to make." That's partly true but that was the running joke of his at that party. But he was very kind. He was very nice to us as a startup.

TEM: So you were within five blocks, is that right? Bridgeport is pretty close

MS: Yeah it was just down the street on 13th, which was unpaved rail road line, the Portland terminal railway. And trains were still going by at that time, hauling dumping off boxcars to businesses along the street. Because the whole Pearl rail yards District redevelopment hadn't happened then. To east of 12th street it was just rail yards. And going as far south as, I think, Hoyt Street, was all just rail yards and old warehouses. Freight trains would be stored there but it really wasn't very active, which is why they eventually decommissioned and turned it into the condos seen as it is now. They filmed the Drugstore Cowboy movie by Gus Van Sant who had an office on the top of Bridgeport building 00:30:00at that time after fairly recently-filmed some of the opening scenes and the credit runs just a block from Bridgeport down under the old Lovejoy. You can see what it looked like then from that movie.

TEM: What are some of the stories that stick out before you open? So you were figuring out what your signature beer is? Is that what you guys were thinking about? What were you doing to prepare for opening?

MS: Karl, since he had a big head start, he already pretty much settled on-he tried a number of different-yeasts, which are what give each brewery a house signature flavor. Really, it's the strain of yeast that's used, especially with ales. So he had decided on one. The difficulty back then was that all the ingredients were made and perfected for making Budweiser, basically. There was a 00:31:00variety of hops to use but hops in beer, the way they're used now wasn't imagined then. We use more hops than were used for American Lager. But it was more to try and to get into the zone of European beers which are not nearly as hop-forward as modern American craft beer. So that wasn't there. The basic pale malt was malt that was, as I said, developed and perfected for making Budweiser. So it was very pale. It had a log of enzymes for converting rice and corn, and other adjuncts. It really didn't have the flavors we were looking for. So, to compensate, we had use a lot of what are called crystal or caramel malts which is malt that's been partially germinated and roasted while still damp so you can crystallization of sugar. So you'll have those kind of flavors which, in 00:32:00European beers, are only used a small percentages to give a little bit of an accent because they have a flavorful base malt. But those malt ended up being a large percentage of the beers, 20% or 30% of craft beers cuz we were trying to find some way to make the base malt more interesting or have more flavor, or distinctive. So that sort of was the beer-not that hoppy, and they were a little bit on the sweet side because of the use of caramel malt and modern alcohol. That was sort of the craft beer of the time.

TEM: What were your options for yeast? Could you import from Europe?

MS: Davis and the Siebel Institute, and a few other places in North America, had yeast libraries where they actually keep cultures of all these different yeasts. 00:33:00So that was accessible, especially if you're a graduate of UC Davis. You could send back to your friends in the lab and have them send you. They're called on a slant, which is on a test tube. It's a little streak of yeast on a media that's kept cold so they don't grow. And then they have to be brought out and repropagated so that they're alive for a short period then they go back into being kept cold. So that's how they maintained a strain. So that was actually available. That was another way you could distinguish your beer. And then, most breweries were making ales then. I think the idea was really that it was as different from American Lager as possible. It's getting to be distinctive as one of the reasons. And coincidentally, you didn't need as many tanks for storage because it matured faster. Really, that was a practical reason for it. But what 00:34:00I remember is that we were trying to be as distinct from mainstream American beer as possible. So making ale was a way to do it. And a lot of brewers just liked English ales-had been to England and liked the beers there. So they were back trying to imitate that.

TEM: So, Widmer was right across the street? Is that right?

MS: Practically. They are a block and a half away.

TEM: Was there kind of free exchange between the two as you were setting up, not totally concurrently but within months of each other?

MS: Yeah, within months, and Portland Brewing as well. So the three of us are all very close. I think the brew masters felt a little more competitive with each other, even though everybody was making tiny amounts of beer. It was more difficult to get number-of-visiting accounts, where people would say "Well no, we have Bud, Bud Light, Coors, Coors Light, Miler, Miler Light. And Henry's, 00:35:00we're set. What more could we want?" So it was more difficult getting ahead. But we were still such a drop in the bucket at the market that there really wasn't that much. And we knew it was growing and started growing really fast. So it wasn't like we are intense competition. It was more like rival high schools, I guess. But especially among the brewery workers on the floor, it was more a brotherhood at these new craft brewers. It's much stronger than competition.

And we shared a lot of ideas and equipment, especially with not exact recipes that was a little more proprietary, but techniques and equipment, and who's a good refrigeration guy, and that sort of thing. All the daily details of business that was offered freely. And we all drank beer together too. So it was 00:36:00really a nice comradery in one, cuz we were doing something new.

TEM: What about just even the scale if you bonded together. Could you get discounts on orders? Did you go together on malt orders? Did you share kegs or anything at that level?

MS: We might have shared kegs. I think malt and hops, you pretty much have to buy. I guess we all had our own ideas of what we wanted. And Great Western, again, was another company that A-B was one of their principal customers. And that's where their malt was. And they were extreme kind in dealing with us. We were really, practically sampling their lots. They were operation on such a scale with rail carts of malts going to breweries including Blitz Wienhard. We were able to buy bags. And eventually, they have these things called super sacks 00:37:00which are about 2000 lbs of malt in a sack that sits on a palette that you can fork with into the back of a truck. But they were very kind to tolerate us and help us because we were such a tiny scale compared to what they were operating on.

TEM: What about other places where you were getting tap space? McMenamins Produce Row? Is that right? Is that what it was called out in Hillsboro?

MS: Actually, Produce Row is down here on the waterfront.

TEM: Oh ok. So was there tap space?

MS: There was, yeah. McMenamins was one the earliest supporters at the craft business. And it was slightly later that they started making their own beer. The Hillsdale one may be one of the earliest breweries-I don't remember the time in 00:38:00exact. But anyway, they were great supporters of all of us early on. Eventually, as they put more and more their own breweries in, they started selling a higher percentage of their own beer. But they were great supporters in the early days.

TEM: What about other non-brewery places that you could count on getting tap space?

MS: There were a few other around. Let's see, what were some of the early ones. Jake's Crawfish downtown. Some of the old institutional ones were actually quite friendly. Portland bars, Higgins which kind of new at the time. I forget when they started up. They were just early. Even some neighborhood pubs where most people came in and had Budweiser, we were able to get on enough of them to support. It was all kegs back then because it was much easier to start that way. Bottling equipment can cost as much as the whole rest of the brewery put 00:39:00together. And it's less forgiving than just selling beer in kegs because the bottles aren't necessarily refrigerated. And it might be a while before they are sold. You need to have a good lab, and good bottle and equipment to keep the oxygen levels down in the beer so that the beer won't stain. So that was more of a challenge. But really, it's partly just cost. Most of these places started up on the shoestring and it's much cheaper just to fill kegs and deliver them around town then bottles

TEM: Did you guys deliver them yourselves?

MS: We didn't. At the time the laws were if you were a producer, you could choose to either have a retail outlet or distribute. You couldn't do all three. So Bridgeport chose to have their pub. And Portland Brewing chose to have their pub. And Widmer's chose to do distribution.

TEM: Oh. So they weren't selling on site.

MS: No, they weren't selling on site. They weren't allowed to do that. I think they had tours with tastings. And a lot of the laws were rather strict back then. But gradually over the last 30 years, they've loosened up quite a bit. And at some point, they got rid of the restriction on being able all three aspects if you are under a certain size. The beer distributors were very leery of that because they wanted to be able to have any keg that was served in a retail place to have to go through them, originally. But gradually, all those laws were loosen up. But start out, that was the choice-if you're a producer, you could either distribute or have a retail outlet. And then it became you could have one or two other retail outlets. So the McMenamins used that to produce in one place and then distribute to one or two of the other ones that didn't have a brewery, 00:41:00because by then, they had a dozen or so. So they were kind of working at that way. That was the rules back then.

TEM: So how long were you at Bridgeport?

MS: Six years, in the first stint I was at Bridgeport.

TEM: And then you left in 1980? Is that right?

MS: No, 1990.

TEM: Oh 1990. That was some math. You were going back in time. [Laughs] So 1990, you left to go back to the winemaking side, right?

MS: Yes. Actually, I left and Karl actually left at about the same time. I actually worked for Widmer for a short time. And then I can't remember the detail cuz I did do quite a bit of switching back and forth. I think that may have been the first time I work for Cameron Winery. I think it was just for a 00:42:00harvest time. But then, one of the guys that had worked at Bridgeport in the early days, Mark Youngquist who is from Colorado, went back home to Colorado and convinced Frank Day to start a brew pub in Boulder, Colorado. And that was successful. And eventually he opened one in Denver called Rock Bottom because it was at the plaza level of a skyscraper in Denver. It was the prudential plaza. So the prudential rocks of Rock Bottom is where that name came from. And Mark, since I was sort of at loose ends, he recruited me to come out to Colorado and try Colorado out and work when the first Rock Bottom in Denver started up. So I did for a little bit less than a year.

TEM: What was your motivation for leaving Bridgeport? Like, you wanted something 00:43:00different? What was the kind of input is for leaving?

MS: I guess Karl can speak for himself. I think we both became a little bit frustrated with the vision of the brewery not really going beyond what it was at that time. And clearly, it was possible to go to another level in the type of equipment we had and just the upgrading and taking it to another level. Either that wasn't gonna happen, or that wasn't gonna happen quick enough for us. We had been there 6 years. And we kind of felt like we were a little bit at the end of what was going to happen for us there. And we were looking for someone else beyond that.

TEM: So then you moved to Rock Bottom which is new, and weren't there for a long 00:44:00time. But what was it like to be back at square one again? Did it feel like the excitement of starting something new?

MS: When I came back to Bridgeport, you mean?

TEM: No, when you were in Denver.

MS: Oh, in Denver. So I as only there for less than a year. I helped Mark start that and that was the first one. Obviously that company, which is still around today, has-I'm not sure how many-thirty or so Rock Bottom restaurant and breweries around the country. Started that. And I really moved back because my girlfriend at the time, who's now my wife, didn't want to move to Colorado. So that's really the reason I didn't stay there longer than I did, and I moved back to Portland. So we had a long-distance relationship for 10 month, then I came back.

TEM: So then when you came back, did you go back to Bridgeport? What was the 00:45:00next stop?

MS: No. I think when I came back, that's when I started working for Cameron. And I worked there for quite a few years until Rock Bottom came to Portland. And I, once again, was recruited. So I worked for Cameron Winery for several years. And then when the Rock Bottom Portland opened up, I helped start that, and ended up working there for six years. So that was, at least, approximately 1994 to 2000.

TEM: What was the wine scene like then? Stepping back to working in wineries, had it changed? Did you feel like it was remarkably different than it was when you left to come to Bridgeport?

MS: Oh yes. That was really developing, both in the number of wineries, size, 00:46:00the sophistication of how things were done. It was obviously gonna be a successful thing. So it was easy to attract more money to do a more expensive job. So it was really developing in every direction a lot faster cuz it started to become a hit and people were doing it. But again, that early generation of wineries were still people that had to make a go of it and put their kids through college on it. And back then, wine land was still affordable enough that you could do that. Now it's so expansive to start wineries that I'm really not sure how it pencils out for people. I think it's mostly started by people who already have money, instead of people who're gonna make money by doing this. Many wineries, like Cameron did a very good job-and it was legal for them to do 00:47:00it-could just sell directly to restaurants around town. And that was a very important part of their economy to be successful in a small size-be able to direct sell to restaurants. And of course, it was part of their success because restaurants love having the winemaker come in the back door, bringing their wine to them. And they could ask you how the harvest is, what's going on now at the winery. You know, you don't do that to the distributer, truck driver. So those were big parts of their success. And I think southern Oregon is a great place to grow wine and it's really developing fast now. But I think the Portland area, within an easy drive of Portland, is why the wine industry came up. "Here's a good place to grow grapes for wine, but it's proximity to Portland"-made those small wineries possible by having been able to sell close to a metro area to 00:48:00support them. Not that they didn't also sell out of state and elsewhere, but Portland was a major market for them.

TEM: What was your role in those years? What did you do?

MS: Well, Cameron Winery, again, was very small. It was John Paul, the owner and winemaker. And there was one or two other people that work there. Everything was great about it. Most of the grapes, we bought from vineyards that the winery didn't own. But we did have a small six-acre winery [vineyard] that we took care of ourselves. So it was from planting sticks in the ground to putting label on the bottles-a lot of it was very hand done, semi-automated-and of course, fermenting wine and moving up from barrel to barrel, and the whole steps. So that's what made it really fun. And John Paul was quite a character, very fun to 00:49:00work for, extremely pleasant person to work for. And really made it fun and very educational. He had a Ph.D. in, I believe, biochemistry. As I said, he used to be a marine biologist and worked at the Scripps. So he was a great mix of art and science. And his experience working in Burgundy for a while when he was teaching himself about it-it was a great experience working for him.

TEM: So you have the big breweries that operate on a five-square block. And then were these micro-breweries. Was the same thing happening in the wine industry? Were there big production facilities for wine, I guess, maybe in California? Was everything much more micro here?

MS: Yes there were no large wineries in the northwest at that time. I think 00:50:00Chateau St. Michell was the first one big that comes to mind, up in Washington, that grew into a larger one. But especially in Oregon, it was all really built around an individual's personality. And there wasn't any kind of real corporate winery at all. And mostly in Washington too, they all started out smaller. And a few of them grew into larger ones. And still, there are not that many large ones in Oregon.

TEM: So I'm curious, we hear about the acquisition of smaller breweries by larger breweries. Is that something that was ever happening or does happen in the wine world, where larger corporate wineries want to by the smaller wineries?

MS: I don't know. I think larger corporates wineries or wine holders will buy a 00:51:00famous name in Napa or something like that, and have that part of their group. But I think that does happen. I don't know. I've been a little bit out of the loop in the wine business so I'm not really like on latest things.

TEM: You're commuting, though, during that time, right? You were living in Portland?

MS: Yes.

TEM: So, you did that for 6 years.

MS: Yeah. I didn't work for Cameron quite that long. But the winemaker also lived in Portland too. So we would just get together and carpool out there. But that was part of the reason. Why I eventually is my child was born. It would be a very long day to go out there cuz it's a long drive even then. Traffic wasn't as bad as it is now going out to Dundee. But I'd get home very late at night. So 00:52:00it became less practical. And then I guess the same thing that made working at Cameron as great, which was John Paul's personality, also was a reason for leaving in that is was so much his winery, and his personality, and him making every decision which is why it is what it is, and why they make fantastic wine-it's a great place. That's also limiting for anybody else that works there, like what you're gonna do. I just didn't wanna spend the rest of my life just doing that. I guess that's why I ended up eventually coming back to Bridgeport in 2004.

TEM: And Karl was obviously back then?

MS: And Karl had gone back there too. He came back in, I think, '96.

TEM: When did Dick Ponzi sell Bridgeport? Was that while you were there the first time?

MS: No, they kept it for about 5 years after Karl and I left, and then sold it 00:53:00in 1996. And then that's when Karl came back for the new owners, the Gambrinus Company.

TEM: What was it like to come back to Bridgeport?

MS: It was like coming back to an entirely different place. The new owner put a lot of money into it. It was-I don't how many times the size-much bigger, run entirely different. It was really different. There're probably, really, three Bridgeports in its history. They could be regarded almost as completely separate businesses.

TEM: Yeah.

MS: The whole vibe of the place was entirely different.

TEM: So I'm assuming then, at the point that you come back, obviously there are considerably more breweries in Portland. Coming back from the business, obviously you had been in Portland. But coming back in the brewery space, I'm curious about how it was differently professionally to come back to not only a 00:54:00different company but really, a different culture. I guess you were here for Rock Bottom so it wasn't entirely different.

MS: Just much more professionally done. It was more sophisticated and professionally. Beer had to meet a higher standard. And brewing beer on that scale just require more equipment and knowledge. It was more division of labor, certainly. Back in the old days, everybody did everything, or at lest rotated around jobs to keep it in the stream. But this was big. It was more like-it's a small factor but it was a little factory where he had different categories of people doing different things. And we had much better equipment to work with and ways to control the process, which you needed if you're gonna make beer on that scale, and especially ship it farther away and that sort of thing. So it was a 00:55:00much more professional scene to come back to. The whole industry had grown up a lot during that time, Bridgeport along with them. So that's one of the ways it was very different in.

TEM: What was that like for you? Was it kind of exciting to see that-you know, you had helped to start the seed of this industry. Was it exciting, then to come back to the same place and see how much it had grown?

MS: It had, though we weren't really in control. It was control by the owner of the Gambrinus Company. So that was kind of the tradeoff-it's that it was kind of fun to come back and brew beer with all these great tools, but it wasn't quite as craft. It more factory and less craft than we did. And I actually did enjoy brewing on a smaller scale, on a brewpub-size scale at Rock Bottom where you could think of new beers and have them at least for a special or something. If 00:56:00they stuck, they became a regular brand. But this is more making the same product over, which is an important part of brewing-not making good beer once but be able to make the same beer.

It's kind of the difference between home brewing and professionally brewing. Consistency is a very important part of brewing. And a lot the breweries now, it's kind of led by the demand by consumers. Those second most popular category beer are seasonals or specials. So it's great now you can be in a larger brewery and be making new beers all the time. And so there's that creative side as well as the more engineering side of doing a good job of making the same beer of your main brands. I think that seems relatively new. Ten years ago, it was more the case of larger craft breweries had their flagship brands and stuck to it, and 00:57:00there was a little bit of experimenting. But I think that's a cool trend, and partly made possible by what consumers want now but also craft brewers taking more control of the raw materials, and being able to get hops and malt that were spec'd for them, not spec'd for the big breweries.

TEM: One thing that I didn't ask about-we don't have to dwell too long-we talked about malt, we talked about yeast. Was there any relationship, when Bridgeport started, on the hop side? Did you guys go visit hop yards? Was there a kind of direct relationship at any level with the farmers just down the road?

MS: No. In fact, Bridgeport was one of the first breweries that bought direct from a farm, from Goeschie Hop Farm. But that was pretty much unheard of at the time. You just bought through the brokers. I was certainly aware of it after 00:58:00working at the winery cuz John Paul, the winemaker asked me, "Well, as a brewery certainly, you must go down and talk to the hop grower, visit the farms and see how things are doing." Certainly, that's such a big part of winemaking. And the answer is no. At that time, brokers were really trying to keep customers and hop growers at arm's length with them in the middle. So Bridgeport, at Karl's initiatives, is one of the first people that actually took advantage of us being right here. And people started-I'm not sure when fresh hop beer started-at least buying a little bit of their hops direct from growers. In retrospect, that was a strange thing. And again, the craft brewing industry started out having to buy materials just off the shelf that were designed and perfected for making-and 00:59:00they worked very well for us. It's not that they were bad. They just were intended for a different purpose than the beers we were trying to make.

TEM: What about when you came back to Bridgeport? What was your job title when you were there?

MS: I guess I had several different things on my business card cuz it was a little bit unclear. I was the purchaser of the brewing materials. And I also would research new equipment and methods. At that time, Bridgeport had gone through a growth spurt and look like they might be moving off the original side into a new brewery, to have a big expansion of equipment. And I was brought on the help with the planning for that. That ended up never happening. So I ended up doing really a lot of office work and inventory, almost quartermaster you 01:00:00could call. But I would also help out in the brewery because I could. When they're shorthanded or something like that, I'd help in various parts. But mostly, it's more administrative kind of things.

TEM: At that point since part of your job is the ingredient side, were you working with growers then? Was there an increased link with the raw materials as they were grown?

MS: Yes, but still more as far as going to the broker and selecting hops. We were starting to meet some growers. That was when we had first direct contacts with growers a little bit. But still, not really that much. The Oregon Hop Commission had, and still has, at least one annual get together with brewers and 01:01:00hop growers. So we'd go down to visit Al, I remember meeting Al the first time down at the experimental yards outside of Corvallis, I think on one of those bus tours where we'd visit hop yards. But it still was not that direct. But it started getting a little more. And certainly I learned a lot more about hops and the hop business by that role. In retrospect, it naturally let into the job I'm doing now, but only in retrospect probably more than at the time. [Laughs]

TEM: That's life. [Laughs] In retrospect, it makes sense. So how long were you at Bridgeport the second time?

MS: Six years also.

TEM: Six years.

MS: From 2004 to 2010.

TEM: So then what happened to lead you away from Bridgeport the second time?

MS: I first met Jim and Roger, who are the founders of Indie Hop. Just before 01:02:00they stared setting up their facility in Huber, they came to visit us at Bridgeport as potential future costumers and told us about their idea of starting this new company. And the context of that-too for Indie Hop's founding-is there's upheaval in the hop industry in 2007 and 2008. Really, the price of hops had been near, if not below, the cost of production for a very long time, like 8 years. And fewer hops were being grown, because both areas in Yakima and in Oregon are very mixed. They're not areas for hops only. There're a lot of other crops being grown. So if farmers weren't making money growing hops, they'd grow something else on the land and shift that out of it.

But the big stabilizer in the industry was the old A-B which was very security 01:03:00conscious about their raw materials, and would maintain a very carry over raw materials from year to year, and would not quibble about price too much, especially in their dealings. They're probably one of the fairest purchasers of hops at that time. And if there's access, they would just buy it up. Cuz they were really looking for stability and security. When they were bought by InBev, the company immediately saw this huge inventory of materials as a chance to save money. So they basically pulled the rug out of a lot of growers, especially in Oregon which was very dependent on selling hops to A-B. And then at that time, there was also the craft brewing which is accelerating and accelerating. I can't remember if they had a bad harvest. They had a fire in the warehouse that burned up a million pounds of hops, which is not huge in the whirl of things.

But all these factors came together, the declining supply and increasing demand. At some point, they crossed and created a huge shortage, which the existing supplier which were then very few took advantage in their dealings with brewers. So this created an opportunity for more competitors to come into in the scene. And that's why Indie Hops and Crosby Farms and a lot of the new players came into business at about that time. And also just to link up with craft, it was becoming big enough to have a voice of their own. So there's more of a demand-just as they're now-small beer lister bitters that exclusively distribute craft, now small hop suppliers like us that just exclusively service the craft industry. I can't remember if I got off on your original questions or not.

TEM: No, you were answering it. It's the "how did you end up here in the office as where we are." So in 2010, did you directly come from Bridgeport?

MS: Yes I did.

TEM: What was the selling point for you to shift over to this end of the brewing ingredients?

MS: Again, Bridgeport was controlled by a man in Texas who made a lot of money importing Corona into the United States. But I feel I was really disconnected with the craft scene. And we were really missing out on a lot of opportunities, just really going down our path and missing the ball. It was not very inspiring. And also in my position at Bridgeport, even if I stayed there for another decade, I'd probably be doing exactly the same thing. So again, I had a chance 01:06:00to get into the ground floor of a really interesting new business. And what's appealing about this is, for the first time, really connecting with growers, the agricultural part of it which I enjoyed in the winemaking. With winemaking, it's connected with grape growing and the production of the raw materials. The research of aspect at OSU and the breeding work going down there is whole another asset that's very interesting. And working with all these breweries-it's such an interesting and diverse group of customers, all these different sizes of brewers and personalities of people. So it's a very interesting and diverse business to be in.

TEM: Do you have a synopsis of what Indie Hops is and what your role is?

MS: Indie Hops is a company that-I guess we haven't settled on exactly where to call ourselves-is just a hop seller. We don't really like the term "broker" because that implies somebody, like a commodities broker, who's just looking to find whatever they can and then resell it for as much as possible, because most of our hops that we sell are on acres that were established for us by a few growers in Oregon. There are acres which we paid establishment fees to help defray some of the cost of installing new acres and putting up trailers and all that. And in turn, we have at least first right of refusal off of all the hops that come off of that land that was planted for us on our contract, at least for quite a number of years. That helps secure our supply and stabilize the prices 01:08:00of hops that we're buying, because we have long-term agreements with all these growers. And it also frees us up with playing casino games at the end of each season with what the demand and supply is that year. So we can plan ahead, which allows our customers to plan ahead. We could look at prices on a long term.

Again as I said, we were founded out of the instability of that period when supply went down. And then the very next year after prices went up, 7000 acres were planted up in Yakima. And then there was too much hops for a short time, and now it's back down. So it's really been a roller-coaster. So we're trying to do our part. Another aspect of it is Oregon was once one of the largest hop producers-at one time is was the largest hop producer in the world by itself. But it played a much large role in US hop growing than it is now. I think now 01:09:00it's about 18%. And all the people involved in Indie Hops now are native Oregonians that grew up in the Willamette Valley. And especially ABI pulled the rug out of a lot of hop growers down here, we really wanted to try and invigorate the industry. Our breeding work with OSU is trying to come up with new varieties that work really well here, cuz our climate is very different from Yakima and most of the new breeding of prior varieties has been done up there. And obviously, they're gonna select what does well up there. So we're really trying to support Oregon. I think it's the smaller sizes of farm and operations in general makes it an ideal fit for the craft brewing industry. So I guess that's another aspect of being Oregon centric.

TEM: So the breeding program is established to find new varieties that grow best in Oregon, right?

MS: Yes.

TEM: So then what's your job here?

MS: My job, I guess, is customer service, brewery, liaison-Jim often calls it. It's very common for supplier of breweries-I think a lot of the industries, for the suppliers-to hire people that were former customers because they know what it looks like from the other side. So, really that's my role-is to talk to brewers every day. But also business development, decide in what direction we grow, how big we grow, and to help decide with breeding, and help bring in brewers to help select which varieties coming out of the breeding program are 01:11:00most promising to carry on for further trials. Again, it's a small company so I do a little bit of everything.

TEM: Well, we were talking earlier about the difference now in wrapping brewers into the science and the development of new varieties. Can you talk a little bit about how that works and why that's exciting, and why that matters on the brewing end and the grower end?

MS: I think because there are so many new brewers, it is getting competitive out there for people. The industry is still growing very quickly, especially nationwide. But it is getting more competitive. So brewers are looking for points of distinction for their beer. They're also asking for what do you have that's new. The problem from the supplier sample end is that there're also a lot 01:12:00of new varieties coming out. So it takes a lot of time, and expands and risk to come up with new varieties. And is it gonna be the exciting new thing? For how long? And then many something else supplant it.

So it's important, from our point of view from the developmental varieties, to have brewers involved early on to find things that they like, in a way, adopt it, because they will be the first users. And we're hoping they'll like it enough, or be excited about it enough, to contract for three years. So we can take the risk of planting a number of acres of it, and then having it developed like that. So in a way, they're co-sponsoring new varieties for us. That's why it's good.

Another practical reason is, between Shaun Townsend at Oregon State and Jim and 01:13:00I, we have pretty good noises for hops. But it really is a matter of taste. And we want as many noses as possible on these new varieties for feedback to decide where the interest is. And I suppose there're two ways of selecting, or starring hops. One is the hops that are most popular with a broad range of people. But we also put a star by hops that even a few people become very passionate about-that a few people are very excited about that has something special for them. But again, not just to create new aromas-to circle back to what I think I said earlier, is that-new varieties are needed just to keep ahead of the evolution of diseases. And to keep hops affordable to produce for everybody along that are 01:14:00easy enough to grow that the growers don't have to charge too much for them, to keep them as reasonably priced as possible.

TEM: We were talking, too, about how something that can be a strong producer for 10 years and that's long enough that people see it as a stable fundamental hop. It can start to peter out. So I guess that kind of replacing's not just for disease evolution, but plant evolution too, that they are plants. [Laughs]

MS: That's true. Since everybody is in a hurry to come out with new varieties these days, because they're such a demand for it. Brewers will find a hop they like that's just in the early development stage, what I want to buy all this next year, which isn't possible that process has from the Al Haunold days where they used to take 14 years to come out with a new variety which by then you 01:15:00could start to see how they were. And really to his credit, a lot of varieties that Al, Dr. Haunold, produced out of the USDA program are very stable, both in their tendency to peter out. But they're yield from year to year. And taking that time to look at the long term thing like that is a fantastic advantage now that there's a lot of pressure to come out, to cut that time in half or so. That's a question mark for a lot of new varieties that are coming out.

TEM: So you guys have test plots.

MS: Yes.

TEM: And where are you test plots, can you say?

MS: The test plots that are grown, which are really just one plant grown from one seed, are at the Oregon State USDA research field just outside of Corvallis, 01:16:00just east across the river from Corvallis. Maybe we should take a break for the train.

TEM: Yeah

TEM: So test plots at the experimental yard. And then, do you go straight from the experimental yard to the plots that are-

MS: Well, the next step is-the most promising ones we find there do test plots. Right now, we have two farms that are working with us. They have an acre or so set aside where we will have a dozen of so hills of each variety that looks promising, actually maybe more like twenty of so hills, so that we can have enough material for people that brew with this. Right now, it's really just a handful of hops to work with. And you can't really use it. Even with the next step, some breweries, it's great to have a very small pilot brewers-they're 01:17:00practically like home brewery size-that can use a few pounds of hops and have some kind of meaningful results. But that's sort of the next step-is some of these interested customers do actual test brews with these hops, which are now coming from a number of hills. So we have a little bit of a trail. And then the winners out of that will get planted on probably 5 acres. That would be the next step.

TEM: So this is the third or fourth season that just happened, for the research program?

MS: The very first crosses were actually done in 2009. Shaun started crossing 2009. So we have 5 years now.

TEM: That's 5 years...

MS: Yeah.

TEM: ...getting to the point where you've got a good years of data. What is the 01:18:00thing is the most exciting to you. You don't have to pick one. What is the most exciting to you right now about the work you're doing and the industry that you're in?

MS: Well, I guess participating in this hop breeding selection is very exciting. It's really quite interesting. It's also interesting being an active spectator in the growth of the industry, cuz it's growing and changing so fast. And it still seems to be going. Whether there will be 2000 breweries or 10000 breweries, it seems like the percentage of craft beer is gonna grow up. It's just a question of who's gonna be making it. If you see in Oregon, I think it's 01:19:0025% -or at least that's maybe the Portland area-whereas nationally, it's only 7% or 8%. And if you could imagine the whole country going up to 25%, that's a huge growth. So that's very interesting.

I enjoy meeting all the characters that're in the hop growing industry, like winemaking attracts a lot of characters. And I enjoy working in a smaller business rather than a large business with a lot of hierarchy and corporate structures. So that's appealing to me. And I enjoy working with the farms, going out during the growing season. So again going back to brewing, it's a really mix of art and science involved in all the steps of the brewing process.

And circling back, again, this is the first time the craft brewing industry has 01:20:00been able to add its voice to sourcing raw material, and Indie hops being just a very small part of the overall business. And always will be. We're really in the thick of that. So that's very enjoyable. I do miss brewing though. I did in Bridgeport when I came back the second time because it's one of the things that originally attracted me to brewing. It's purely a personality thing, but it's really satisfying to make something that didn't exist before with your own hands. And even if it's not the best of it's kind-certainly it needs to be good, even if it's not the best ever-it's still just the satisfaction of making something that didn't exist before. So maybe I should have mentioned that 01:21:00originally as part of my original attraction to brewing. And something I miss a little bit here.

TEM: When you think back now, what are those core piece? I guess that part of the creativity, the art and science. But we were talking about in retrospect, there's a thread that connects these things together. Do you see a link to the kind of the entrepreneurial work that that you're doing now with that early entrepreneurial spirit of craft brewing? Does it feel like there's a link? Or, is that me making it like?

MS: Less so now than when I joined 4 years ago, because there were many small hop companies, like small breweries back in 1984. We talked to one brewer-actually it was someone at Bridgeport-when Jim and Roger, who founded 01:22:00Indie Hops, came and talk to us first. I was on the brewing side of it, listening to their pitch, I guess you could say. One of them was just shaking his head cuz really a few companies have dominated the hop business for a very long time. And he was quite skeptical. He said it's like a couple of kittens dropped in the Sahara Desert-is what he thought Indie Hops' prospects. But you could have said that about Bridgeport brewing in 1984 too. So again, that was kind of familiar. And it just seemed like it would work. There will be a demand for this kind of thing.

TEM: This is a summative question. What are you most proud of? When you think about your career and the impact that you've had, what's the thing that brings you that feeling of pride in the work that you've done?

MS: I don't know, maybe I'll arrive at something as I talk. As we said, I've moved around quite a bit in my life, which is both good and bad. At the time, it never seemed like it was planned out in advance cuz certainly it wasn't. In retrospect, I guess you can find some threads. But It's nice I've been mostly in a position to be able to choose what I do for reason other than just money, and have been willing to so. It's always a value, but it's not the only value. It's 01:24:00been to not be the only value. And I've been able to do things because they're interesting. It's not really what I'm most proud of. It's just my personality that I'm not that interested in being the best in the field or success like that. I'm mostly interested in doing things that are interesting, and hopefully do pretty well. But because I'm not a driven personality-that has to be at the top of the hill kind of thing-that's also given me the flexibility to move to things I think I'm interested in. I don't know if that's something to be proud of or not. That's just my personality type, I think.

TEM: It doesn't have to be grandiose. [Laughs]

MS: Yeah.

TEM: So when you were thinking about me coming today, what are some things you 01:25:00thought about that the questions I asked maybe didn't bring up, or things that you wanted to say? Is there anything that you would want to add?

MS: Not really. I think we talked about at length that the main thing I was thinking of is just that people don't realize that-younger brewers here I talked to today-there's literally a new brewery opening every day. Just the idea of how weird and off the idea of starting a small brewery was 30 years ago when people just thought you're a very strange personal to think you could possibly do this, because it hadn't been done. I guess that's it. I guess if I want to say anything, it's just to tell people that are younger than I am and came into the 01:26:00industry after it was already accepted, about how strange it started out. Things like this can happen.

TEM: Do you have anything that-I would image-you would like to say to them. Like, "this was weird 30 years ago." Do you find yourself in that position of the wise-age person conveying that history to them? Or do you just sort of smile and nod? [Laughs]

MS: Maybe I'll get a word in stuff. But I don give the "when I was the blah" lecture. [Laughs]

TEM: "In my day, we were weird." [Laughs]

MS: It's successful too cuz it coincide with a broader change in consumer taste, an interest of a growing part of consumers, to get what's customized for them, 01:27:00or local, or mass produced all that. And that's really what made it possibly. If people weren't interested in that, "why should I pay more for a glass of beer". It's the whole uncommoditizing of consumer goods that is going into a lot of different things. But I think craft brew is really a signature example of that.

TEM: I'm not gonna ask the oversaturation tipping point question. But is there a point where that customization has become too much. Now, people are doing weirder and weirder things. Is there too much? Will there be the sort of 01:28:00wrapping back to something more plain and more bland? Do you see that happening?

MS: Well, I see a lot more beers that're not as extreme as they were 8 to 10 years ago. So perhaps that's just more of everything, principle and becoming more balanced. From my point of view that's what you see in more mature beer drinking culture, like you do in Europe. They have a lot of flavor but it's more balanced. Well, what does balance been? Everybody gets to set that for themselves. But I see a lot beers, less or higher alcohol, that have a lot of hops-maybe not quite so many hops. So I think we're coming around to more so. But I don't really know whether people who have been drinking huge beers are now 01:29:00moderating their tastes, or they're just going on and drinking huge beers. And there's more people coming along that didn't like the huge beers but the ones that're a bit milder are available. That's why the population of craft beer drinkers is growing. But I really don't know where it's going to evolve. But it is changed. I think every five years, you could say there's a little bit different accent in what beers are.

TEM: Which makes it exciting.

MS: Yeah

TEM: Alright, thank you.

MS: Okay.