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What’s the most recent beer that you brewed, and what was your approach with it?

This is one of the most recent ones that’s actual out and finished, the triple IPA, The Don. That one, just huge hops, lot’s of really citric stuff, lots of Amarillo, Centennial, Cascade, CTZs for bitterness to balance all that stuff out and to give it some other characteristics.

We just finished brewing an Imperial stout that we did last year, Scarface Stout. That one, we just want to do a strong stout that doesn’t come off too sweet and wanted to really differentiate it from our Porter, which has chocolate Carafa malts. So we used black barley, black malt, smoked malt, just a lot of heavy caramels to really build up the character in that one and get it as roasty and smoky as we can.

Yesterday we brewed part of what’s going to be the collaboration for San Francisco Brewers Guild for Beer Week in February. I don’t know if I’m supposed to talk about what it is, because I’m not the guy releasing it. We brewed that up. A bunch of other brewers came over from other breweries. We had a lot of fun, drank some beers and got a little silly. We’re going put the first batch into whiskey barrels and blend it with the second batch for Beer Week…We got Thirsty Bear, Beach Chalet, all the other breweries in the city, 21A, Magnolia. Everybody except for Anchor Steam. They’re a little big, I guess, to be part of the Guild.

Would you say that you have any brewing mentors?

I’ve had the odd circumstances to work under three different head brewers here at Speakeasy. I sort of have a weird title right now. I’m the lead brewer, so I run the brew side. At the moment, our head brewer, the guy with more experience operationally, has his hands in packaging and numbers and employees and what not. He has his own style. He came from Karl Strauss. Matt Walsh. I sort of learned some things from him. Before that we had John Gillooly, and he came from Dogfish Head. I learned a lot about writing recipes and improving the recipes that we had and getting more consistent flavor profiles from him. That was a huge part of my learning process. Then I learned how to brew on a production system from Kevin Robinson, who is going to start brewing for Russian River soon. He went into the wine industry for awhile. He taught me work ethic, attention to detail and all that.

Growing up in beer, what I got into first was Stone, Rogue and Sam Adams, sort of the big craft beers. Those were definitely idols to me.

Where do you like to drink beer when you’re not here?

Toronado’s a big one. Great beer selection. I recently stopped into Trappist a couple of times. For buying bottles I love going to City Beer. They have a huge selection and the guys there are great. We used to come by with samples of our specialty beers until we realized that if we have a specialty beer, they will just put it on. They love it and support all the local breweries. They actually distribute some specialty beers locally, which is very cool. Beyond that I go to small bars, dive bars.

What’s one bar that people might not know about?

3300 Club on 29th & Mission. That’s great. You see a lot of bartenders hanging out. Just a great vibe and people, and they keep Speakeasy on. One of our brewers, Miles, lives across the street, and he’s gotten them into our beers quite a bit. I go to Friends bar a lot, off Monterey near City College. It’s sort of my neighborhood bar, and they’re pretty great. We got them to put Big Daddy on. Pool tables and foosball and whatnot. Hang out there.

Who are some other brewers that you really respect in the industry and how come?

Sam [Calagione] over at Dogfish Head. I had a chance to meet him and he seemed like a real nice guy. The stuff that he puts out there is really different, sort of out of style boundaries, drawing outside the box, making really interesting stuff, really enjoyable stuff, a lot of stuff that I think would appeal to non beer drinkers.

And then Vinnie [Cilurzo] over at Russian River, by far the best sour and wild American beers being made right now, over in his brewery. He’s really doing his own thing with that. Consecration is definitely in my Top 10 beers. I don’t think I’ve had anything from him that I didn’t like.

If you could only fill your glass with one more beer, what would be in it and how come?

That’s one of those unanswerable questions. I’m not in the situation. I don’t know. It would depend on the day. People always ask me what my favorite Speakeasy beer is, and it changes day to day. My favorite beer to have at any moment sort of depends on the mood I’m in. That’s the nice thing about beer. There’s such a wide variety of flavor. You can pick something that fits your mood that fits the way the day feels and what you’ve got ahead of you. At the moment, I’m really loving the triple IPA. It’s what I’m in the mood for. A little later in the night, I’ll go for something darker.