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Is there anybody who’s been a mentor?

No, but I’m inspired by a lot of different people, a lot of different brewers. Nick from 3 Floyds is a good friend and a very big inspiration. I think what he does is some of the best stuff around.

Have you collaborated with him yet?

Yeah, we actually just did the fifth collaboration. We do a series of Goops, barleywine-style, with different materials, oats, rye, wheat…

How do you decide who to collaborate with?

I brew with brewers who I admire and respect, so if I go somewhere, where these brewers are. For example I’m in California, I admire Matt [Brynildson] from Firestone a lot, so I’m really happy to brew with him. I want to brew with people I can learn from, and we can learn from each other.

Does it make your job more difficult to keep brewing in different places?

It’s a lot of logistics. Obviously it’s hard when you go to a new brewery with new equipment. You have to get to know the equipment. For example when I brew at a new brewery, I taste the beers from a new brewery and try to figure out how the equipment works because it’s all different. So obviously every time, brewing at a new brewery, it’s like building a new brewery and starting all over again. It’s also a good challenge, to come here and see if we can do something good on this equipment in California, and next week it’s Belgium.

Is there a brewer you’ve never brewed with before that you would like to?

Yeah, a few. Dirk Naudts of Proef Brouwerij in Belgium is a brewer I like a lot. They have their own house yeast, which is really, really special. They do beer like Alt Bier. In my opinion, they’re one of the best breweries in the world, but Belgium is extremely conservative and traditional with the beer, and it’s kind of a standing joke that every time I meet the brewery, I’m trying to convince him to brew together. He says, “We’ll never do that,” but I’ll keep working on him, and one day I hope it will happen.

Is there any music that you enjoy listening to while brewing?

A lot of different music. It’s quite funny. Since we came to California, I kind of got flashbacks. I used to live in the States in the ’90s, for a year and a half. I got flashbacks to that because everywhere they were playing Nirvana and Pearl Jam and stuff like that. It’s kind of cool, actually, to listen to that stuff again.

When you’re in Europe, you don’t normally listen to music when you brew?

Yeah, a lot of different kinds of music.

You travel a lot, obviously, in your job. If you could only travel to one city in the world to drink beer, what would it be and why?

That’s a good question. Probably Chicago. I think Chicago has a very good beer scene. They have 3 Floyds. That’s enough for me. If I could drink 3 Floyds for the rest of my life and nothing else, I would be happy.

Which beer, if you could only drink one?

Probably Alpha King, their pale ale. It’s the perfect pale ale. It’s the perfect session beer that you can only drink and it has so much flavor.

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