About Us

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Dan and Erik met in grade school in Berkeley and have been friends since.  Erik went to Santa Cruz for college while Dan stayed in his home 

town.  Erik stayed in Santa Cruz to call it home where he perfected the craft of making beer, got married and started a family.

Dan, who has been in the food business his whole life suggested to Erik it was time to share his expertise with the world and make his beer available to all willing to try some.

Dan with his background in culinary was determined to understand exactly how beer was made and told his friend he wanted to brew a batch from scratch.  The brewer Erik told Dan to find two beers on the market that he enjoyed drinking and that he would make a recipe for Dan to collect the ingredients for a small batch.  Dan found the beers he liked, shared them with Erik who promptly drafted a recipe.

Dan went down to his local craft brewery supply store, walked to the counter and admitted he did not have any experience in the field and put the recipe on the counter.  "Well, maybe you don't know what you are doing, but the guy who wrote the recipe is definitely on his game."

They directed Dan to the grain section, then on to the hops and much to Dan's surprise had a mill on site where they allowed him to run his blend of barley.  Satisfied at being able to mill his grain, Dan grabbed the ingredients and headed to Santa Cruz where Erik was waiting with pots of water on the fire in the open air "brewery" off the garage.

Dan might as well have had a lab coat on with his clipboard and stopwatch while Erik instructed him to dump the grain into the pot on the fire.  Down to the minute, Dan reminded Erik when it was time to add the first round of hops, then more and so on until finally, it was time to take the pot off the fire, cool down the the hot mess and finally add the yeast.  Now what?  Put the carboys into a dark place and check back in a few weeks while Erik supervised the fermentation.

Two weeks later, Dan is back in Santa Cruz and it is time to check the beer.  All joking aside, Dan had talked to Erik before about how he thought beers with high alcohol up to ten percent seemed to be a little much and was not sure why someone would want to make a beer with such great ABV.  Erik pulled out his refractometer, dabbed some of the brew to the lens and held it to the light.  He didn't say a word.

He passed the device to Dan who took a look and remembers it to this day.  Spot on 10%!  Are you kidding.  No way.  What was most amazing is that unbeknownst to Dan, Erik had been trying to better his attenuation (conversion of sugars from the barley into alcohol) for the longest time to be able to get above 8.5%.  What happened?  It was certainly not Dan's expert brewing skills that brought up the alcohol.

Dan figured it out.  Erik had the ability and the receipt all along but was not concerned with putting on the lab coat like Dan.  All Dan did, was to ensure Erik enforced his own recipe and didn't walk away, let the pot boil over, take the dog for a walk, help the kids with their homework, etc.  Erik was thrilled with the beer and much to his surprise, so was Dan.  The alcohol was high but the beer was bone dry and rich with an elegant flavor.  The beer was born