INTERVIEW CONTINUED FROM PREVIOUS PAGE

JL: Does it make your job easier or harder to have so many other new breweries popping up in the area?

JS: It makes it neither easier nor harder. I’m doing my own thing, and I focus on my own beers, and it’s great to have a lot of these other breweries popping up. It just kind of advances the sense of camaraderie, and fosters that within the brewing community. It’s nice to go out and try a lot of new, different beers. There’s definitely a lot of inspiration to be had, drawing from a lot of new brewers that are coming on. I always do my own thing, kind of irrespective of what else is going on.

Tovarish is a potent, well balanced Russian Imperial Stout from Beachwood Brewing.

JL: How do you feel about collaborating with other breweries, and do you have any collaborations in the works?

JS: We don’t have any other collaborations that are planned out, but I think it’s a fantastic idea. Sometimes you can bring two great brewers together that have different schools of thought, and you can get a really pretty magical combination out of that. I think that when brewers do collaborations, it should be for the right reasons. It should be because they’re trying to create something new, they’re trying to push the limits of what each of them can do creatively and technically. It shouldn’t be for marketing reasons. I think that’s probably the wrong reason to do a collaborative effort.

JL: Who’s a brewer that you’ve never brewed with before, who you would most like to brew with?

JS: That’s a tough question. I would love to do a collaborative beer, probably even with somebody like Brian Hunt from Moonlight, because I don’t feel that he does a lot of collaborative beers, and he’s an out of the box thinker and kind of a contrarian. He’s one of my favorite brewers. I love Moonlight beers. They’re fantastic.

JL: Would you say that you’ve had any mentors over the years?

JS: Absolutely. I can’t take credit for a lot of this stuff. I owe a lot to all the people from Pizza Port who I brewed with over the years, and gave me a lot of great knowledge. Vinnie Cilurzo from Russian River Brewing has always been really good to us, and really good to me, very open with his brewing techniques, always shared. I owe a lot to my parents for buying me my first homebrew kit when I was still in college. That’s what got me going. And of course Long Beach Homebrewers, great group of people, a lot of great brewers, and a good, healthy competitive spirit, from when people push each other.

JL: What are your favorite aspects about craft beer culture?

JS: That would probably be – I would have to say – the endless creativity. There are a lot of things that have already been done, so a lot of people are looking for new things, new ingredients to brew with, new combinations of ingredients, where they can still make a product that’s distinctively beer, and have flavors with it that are new.

JL:What will it take to make the Orange County/L.A. beer scene great, if it isn’t already?

JS: I think it is great, but I think there’s a lot of room for growth, for sure. I think a lot of the new L.A. breweries that are opening up have a lot of talent, so just them making a good product, and making a unique product, and getting it out on the market, will definitely help.

JL: If you could travel anywhere in the world, one city, primarily to drink beer, what would it be and how come?

JS: Right now, it would probably be Brussels, because I’m a huge fan of Belgian beer, and I don’t get to experience it in its freshest state very often. It’s pretty rare. The first time I went to Belgium a few years ago and had a lot of my favorite Belgian beers, it was a transformative experience, because the beers were so much fresher, they were so much brighter, I almost didn’t recognize them, and they were fantastic, all of them. A lot of people don’t think of Westmalle Tripel as being a really dry, hoppy beer. They think of it as somewhat dry, but also sweet and fruity, but when you get it fresh, and it hasn’t sat on a boat for months on-end, or on a shelf at a liquor store, it’s just an amazing beer. A lot of my beer experiences were like that in Belgium, and the food is fantastic too, so it’s a great experience overall.

JL: When you’re not at Beachwood, where and what do you like to drink?

JS: Even when I’m at Beachwood, I love to drink other people’s beers. I’ve been a huge fan of Pizza Port, loved Pizza Port for many, many years. Russian River is a go-to. I think Firestone Walker – we’re kind of sticking to California breweries – has amazingly clean, flavorful beers. And then Moonlight Brewing has really unique, distinctively flavored beers that I wish I could drink more often, but in some ways, that’s what always makes having Moonlight beer a treat for me, is that I can’t get it very often. I can really only get it when I go up to visit my family in the San Francisco Bay area.

JL: If you could only drink one more beer, and it wasn’t from your brewery, what would it be and how come? What would be in the glass?

JS: If I could only drink one more beer tonight, it would probably be a Moonlight Twist of Fate or Moonlight Bombay By Boat.

JL: How come?

JS: The flavors in there are really strong, complex and unique. It’s definitely a signature flavor that carries through all the Moonlight beers. There’s just a lot of complexity and a lot of nuance, and I’ve had a glass of their beer in a bar before, and just sat by myself for an hour, intellectually dissecting and absorbing the flavors of one beer. There are not many beers you can do that, just kind of sit alone and get to know the beer.

JL: Would you have any food with it?

JS: Nope. Would I? Sure. Sure I’d have food with it. I don’t know what that would be, but I don’t think that would ruin the experience for me. I usually don’t. I usually just drink beer on its own.

JL: When you drink beer, it’s normally on its own?

JS: Typically. I pair beer with meals often, but when I go home and have a beer at the end of the evening, it’s just the beer by itself because I like to focus on the beer.