Strike CEO Jenny Lewis and Brewmaster Drew Ehrlich Talk About Their New Brewery

Drew Ehrlich and Jenny Lewis at a recent beer festival

It's been a busy year for the South Bay's Strike Brewing.   In addition to the busy day to day operations of growing their two year old business, they won gold at the U.S. Open Beer Championships with their Imperial Red and expanded their distribution into Southern California.  On the personal side, CEO Jenny Lewis had a baby and Brewmaster Drew Ehrlich got married.  And now just this past week, they've announced the opening of their own brewery in the first quarter of 2014. 

Over the past two years, Strike has been contract brewing at the Hermitage Brewing facility just south of downtown San Jose.  Strike has now leased approximately 5800 square feet at 2099 South 10th St., San Jose, where they will begin building their brewery located barely a 10 minute walk from the Hermitage facility. 

I caught up with Jenny and Drew last Friday as they emerged from a brewery planning meeting.   They took a few minutes out of their busy time to talk about the new brewery in the works.

Q: What was the process like?

Jenny: It was very long and we had to be very patient.  It had always been our goal to move into a brewery when we started and we’ve been looking at buildings for two years.

Q: What was the biggest hurdle?

Jenny:  Capital has always been the biggest hurdle and that’s true for most businesses.  Of course, we also needed to find a building with the right utilities and layout where we could build the brewery.

Q: What made the deal happen?

Jenny:  We found the building a long time ago.  What made it happen now was a combination of raising money from a group of angel investors and an SBA loan.  A big part of my role since we launched in December 2011 has been raising our Series A round.

Q: What will you be able to do with your own brewery you couldn’t do as a contract brewer?

Jenny:  This will really help us control our brewing schedule and manage our own inventory in ways we couldn’t before.  Hermitage has been a great launching point, but contract brewing put us under certain constraints.  Drew’s always wanted to brew more interesting beers which he can now do at our new brewery.

Drew: There are a lot of beers I’ve wanted to make, like sour beers and barrel-aging some of the current beers in our line-up.  I’ve wanted to try some lagers and Jenny’s been bugging me to do a fruit beer.

Q: With Hermitage’s Brewery only a short walk away, do you think the South San Jose industrial park you’re locating in can become a beer destination?

Drew:   We certainly hope so. One of the impetuses for creating Strike is that we didn’t see the San Jose area as a great destination for beer lovers, such as San Francisco, Portland or San Diego.    We thought we could help fill an unmet demand here.

Jenny: We wanted to be near the sporting arenas in the area, like the San Jose Giants Stadium, Sharks Ice, the Fairgrounds and (San Jose State’s) Spartan stadium where there are a lot of potential partnership opportunities.
 

Q: Any developments you can share when the brewery opens?  When will the tap room open?

Jenny:  We don’t want to put exact dates on things based on the uncertainty of the permit and build out process.  We hope to be brewing by the beginning of next year and open the tap room as soon as possible after that.  Being up and running by SF Beer Week is our goal.

Q: What sort of risk are you taking on by this move?

 Drew:  Luckily we’ve gotten our beer out there and won some awards, so there is not as much of a risk as when we first entered the market.  It gives us the opportunity to maintain our flavor profile, and brew really consistent high quality beers.  Right now, Lagunitas is building a new brewery in the Chicago area and they’re going to have to make sure the beer coming out of that brewery tastes the same as before.  We’ll be going through that same process and we have to do it quickly.

Jenny:  There’s always a financial risk in business and it can come from anywhere.  It is scary going out on our own and starting something from scratch, trying to pay salaries to support families and grow a business.  But it's also rewarding seeing this goal finally realized after five years of planning.  I’m excited to see what the next few years bring.
 

Q: Over those last five years, there have been a lot of new breweries.  I can go to my local Safeway or Costco and now find bottles of Strike, but I can also find bottles of other beers from breweries I never used to see there.  Do you have any concerns about the increasingly crowded craft beer marketplace moving forward?

Drew:  Not really.  There was a study done by the Brewer’s Association and they concluded the market was not yet saturated.  It also compared the beer market in the US to other the beer markets in other countries which indicated there’s room for more breweries here.

Jenny:  There are a lot of breweries coming online, including nano breweries, contract brewers and brewpubs.   Hopefully we’ve done a good job differentiating our niche so far, and I think moving into our own space will only help that.

Drew:  Plus we don’t mind other breweries in the area.  The nature of the craft beer enthusiast is to try a lot of things.  So even if they drink something from another brewery around here, they’ll get drawn into trying something else and eventually they’ll try something from Strike.  There’s a sort of symbiotic relationship between breweries in the same geographical area, to a point.



I found talking with to Jenny and Drew during the interview was like talking with a couple kids who couldn't wait to move out of their parents house.  It's just beer, but moments like this remind us lots of hopes and dreams revolve around it.  The South Bay brewing scene just got a lot more interesting.

Catching Up with Strike Brewing for a Brief Interview

It’s no wonder Bay Area brewery newcomer Strike Brewing was formed by three athletes. They would need to be in good shape to survive their exhausting schedule they’ve undertaken in the past nine months to introduce their beer to the Bay Area. I first took notice of Strike back last February when I first tried their Brown Ale, and promptly made it Beer of the Month.   Brown Ales are not usually the beers that grab my attention, but Strike’s was full of roasty flavors with hints of chocolate that raised it above the ordinary.  It’s part of Strike’s Session Series Beers, with a focus on drinkable, flavorful, and lower alcohol beers.

So what's happened with Stike since then?  I caught up with Strike CEO Jenny Lewis who took time out of her busy schedule to answer a few questions via e-mail.  Brewmast Drew Erhlich chimed in with some thoughts, too.



Strike Brewmaster Drew Ehrlick and CEO Jenny at the Martinez Bay Area Craft Beer Festival last May

Q: How have the first nine months gone starting out as a new brewery in the Bay Area?





Jenny:  It has been incredibly busy in a good way.  We’re at festivals, events, tastings, athletic functions and other events every weekend and a lot of week nights.  There is no free moment - literally.  And it’s pretty cool now that organizations, companies, and festivals are approaching us and we don’t have to go seek them out like we did the first few months.  Word gets out quickly about something new coming to town, and we have a lot of enthusiastic supporters.  The beer has also been well received. We’re always trying to decide what new beer to do next, what will become year-round and what we’ll do as a seasonal. Once we’re in our own facility, this will get easier too.  There’s not as much room for experimentation with contract brewing, because if it hits the tanks, it is going to be for sale.

We very quickly hit about 60 accounts. Now we’re working on getting more chain distribution to increase sales volume.  I’ve been doing a great deal of driving trying to get word out and hit the best craft beer pubs in each city from Berkeley to Monterrey.  So again, it’s just a lot of time getting the brand name out there, but it’s been rewarding seeing the growth in just 8 months.

Q:  When do you plan on moving into your own brewery?

Jenny:  As for moving into our own brewery, I am working as fast as I can to close on the capital right now and purchase equipment.  Most likely we will end up in San Jose and aim to be open and functioning by the spring.  It will be a production brewery with a tasting room attached, so that we can hold tours and events and tastings, but we will not serve any food.   Once we are in our own space the sky is the limit on the types of beers that Drew will brew.  I know he has an affinity towards sours right now and wants to try barrel aging a few things.  We’re also going to do some more beers that will appeal to the growing demographic of women drinking craft beer.  So we have a few things in the works to launch by next summer.  We’re also planning on canning at least one or two beers, probably the Blonde to start with.  Plus, we will always have an array of session beers available, since the Strike Session Series is an extremely important differentiator for us.

Q:  You mention plans to appeal to women beer drinkers.  What beers do you think will appeal to women?"

Jenny:  Usually when I think making more beers that appeal to women, I think adding more session beers, possibly with some interesting fruit combinations, and more spices.  I have a lot of fun right now mixing the beers we already have, sort of like Leinenkugels does in Wisconsin.  In particular the Imperial Red and Wit go pretty well together oddly enough.  I like being able to pick out all the different smells, spices and flavors so I assume other women would too.  We’ve been toying with the idea of adding some local fruit beers, sourcing them in the Bay Area and making something crazy with it.  They would be one-time releases and probably part of the session series. 

Drew:  It's hard to say what specific flavors would appeal to women rather than men.   I could only say that beers with more complex flavors might appeal more to women. I have read in a few places that women are much more receptive to flavors and able to pick them out better than men. I haven't heard a reason for this, and I don't know why, but it doesn't surprise me. So, as a result I think women have the ability to better savor beers and identify more of their flavor components.  However, it all comes down to what that one customer likes or doesn't like. No matter how receptive a woman may be to flavors, if she doesn't like hops, an IPA won't be "her" kind of beer.

I personally think it is rather presumptuous of larger companies who come out and say, "This is a new beer for woman!"  when in reality, there is no way they can say that all, or a vast majority of women, will like this beer.  Some women may be put off by the fact that they are trying to make a beer specifically for them, insinuating that they can't handle their other beers, which only appeal to men. So rather than say "we are designing a beer for women," I think it should more be a change in perception. Something like, "We aren't creating a new beer just for women because no two women are the same.” Women love flavor and want beers to satisfy that. That is why the world of craft beer is perfect for women. There are countless numbers of amazing beers that are bursting with flavor, and with the vast number of styles to choose from, every woman can enjoy the adventure of finding one that she truly loves."

Just like running, brewing for a living is both a lot of hard work and a lot of fun.  And the best thing is we all can enjoy the rewards of Jenny and Drew’s hard work.