Brian Connery, Dogfish Head Craft Brewery

Brian Connery is a Senior Brewer at the Dogfish Head Craft Brewery in Milton, DE. He sat down with Know Your Brewer after a busy brew day.

Know Your Brewer: How long have you been with Dogfish Head?

Brian Connery: I’ve been with Dogfish Head for three and a half years now. I started in the brewing industry in 1997.

I’m a Philadelphia native who got bit with the homebrewing bug. I had gone to Widener University, got my degree in Hotel/Restaurant Management and was working as a chef in Philadelphia. A sous chef to be exact, so I was working with soups and sauces. A buddy of mine said, “Hey, do you wanna start trying to make beer?” And I said, sure, y’know? I discovered how similar it was to making soups and sauces and the next thing, you know, I was pretty engulfed in it.

I had taken a trip to Colorado in ’95 and thought that it looked like the land of opportunity if you want to try to get your foot in the door because of all of the brewpubs that were opening. So I packed up my car and took off in ’96 and moved to Colorado. I lived in Colorado Springs, and within the first year of living there I made 55 batches of homebrew, worked at a homebrew store, got my foot in the door at a restaurant/brewery, and within the first 4 months or so the assistant brewer left for his own personal reasons and I took his place. So that’s how I got started.

I’ve worked for five brewing companies in four states in three time zones on two coasts. [laughs]

KYB: Who have you worked for?

BC: I started with Il Vicino Brewing Company which is based out of Albuquerque, NM. I worked for Barley’s out in Las Vegas. I was a food and beverage manager – I wasn’t a brewer – but I was still part of the industry because I was still meeting people, and still keeping my ear to the ground to find out what was going on. Then I moved back to Colorado and luckily got there right at the right time. That seems to be my life – I’m definitely the luckiest brewer that I know in the United States. I lucked out and got right back into the job that I had originally had and was there for a couple more years. I moved to Las Vegas again, I got into a place there working for Chicago Brewing Company. I just got this other crap job because I needed a job, and I was hanging out one night. I was talking to the brewer and asked him a couple of questions and he starts giving me a dirty look. I explained that I used to make beer in Colorado and he said, “Well are you looking for a job?  Because I need an assistant.” And the next thing you know I was working for Chicago Brewing Company, and I was there for about two years.

I accepted a position at San Francisco Brewing Company as the head brewer and moved to San Francisco for just under a year, but I was starting to get a little homesick. It was right around ten years that I had been gone from home. I had come back to Philadelphia for the Craft Brewers Conference in 2005 and I realized how much the East Coast had really been starting to develop into a better beer community and I said, “Okay – well maybe it’s time for me to go home and see what I can do.” Y’know – find out what kind of contribution I can make to the East Coast now since I had already been to a couple of other states. So I went home in April, actually arrived home on my birthday in 2006, and spent about 2 weeks just helping my parents do things around their house and said – okay, let’s start looking for a job.

Within a week, maybe a week and a half or two weeks I had an interview at Flying Dog and an interview here. The interview here on a Wednesday and the interview at Flying Dog on a Thursday. I knew the guys that I was interviewing with at Flying Dog because they were friends in the industry, but after I left here all I could think about was working here. So, they called me on Friday from Flying Dog and said, “We really want you to work for us!” and I kinda had to play hard-to-get and say, “I’m waiting to hear from other people; I’ve got another interview…” maybe had to BS a little bit. I ended up hearing from my boss, Bryan Selders, on Monday and accepted the job. I started on May 16 of 2006 and I’ve been here ever since.

I started as just a shift brewer. We work in both cellars and brewing, and as our facility has expanded I’ve taken on other additional responsibilities. I’m currently Senior Brewer for Brewhouse Operations. I love my job.

I’ve been a member of the Master Brewers Association since 2006 when I first started here, and last year, in 2008, I received the Hipp Scholarship in order to attend the two-week malting and brewing science class that they have in Madison, WI every year, so that just adds to my luck. I have a ton of on-the-job training and some practical book training plus the various symposiums I went to while I was part of the Rocky Mountain Brewers Guild.

KYB: What do you like the most about your job?

BC: The diversity of our portfolio. I talk to a lot of people and I know a lot of people around the country who work for various sized companies, and they’re not as much jealous of us because of it, but it’s more that I don’t have to make the same stuff all the time. I do make a lot of 60 [Minute IPA], I do make a lot of 90 [Minute IPA]. But then, depending on what time of year it is, you throw in some Chicory [Stout], or we’ve got Aprihop coming up pretty soon, or the Red & White or Black & Blue. We always have a 120 [Minute IPA] or a World Wide [Stout] waiting in the wings. There’s always something special for every time of year that’s coming up. And it challenges me in the brewhouse because I have to remember  – how did I make this last year? And if don’t remember then I have to throw all my knowledge back into it and say – okay – you’re working with these kinds of materials, this is how you need to approach it, and depending on our brewing schedule, do we need to go quickly, or can I take my time with it? The diversity of the portfolio is definitely the best part of working here.

KYB: What’s your favorite part of every day?

BC: I’m living the dream! I moved away to become a brewer, and now I’m doing it. I get up every day and come to work and make a lot of great beer. I work with a great staff. The brewing staff and cellaring staff are great. I work for a great boss – Bryan Selders. I work for a great ownership team – Mariah and Sam. I get to work for a company that’s in demand, that people are excited about. It has an excellent portfolio that keeps me excited about doing what I do and affords me the opportunity to grow with it – because I have grown with the company, not only personally but professionally.

KYB:  Do you still homebrew?

BC: I don’t make any beer at home. I make upwards to 9,000 gallons of it a day so I have kind of lost my interest in making beer at home, but I make wine and mead at home, and I guess I’m a little off-center with what I’m doing there, too. Right now I’ve got a chocolate mead going, where I’ve used the ingredients for our Theobroma – the Aztec spices and the cocoa powder. I took a little bit home and made a chocolate mead, sort of in celebration of the birth my son.

And, y’know, I’ll grab some pinot juice if we’re making different things here, or I’ll go to the homebrew store and get a wine kit, but . . . my fianceé has three girls, and now we have the baby, so there’s not a whole lot of time to throw too much together. Sometimes, I have to take a shortcut here or there, but sure – I still do stuff at home because it’s my opportunity to have my own product and everything going.

KYB: Do you have to do a lot of research to find out how all of the crazy, weird, awesome ingredients you guys are using are going to work in a beer?

BC: Well, we have a small pilot system as well as the system we have down at the brewpub. Recipes will start on either of them. If they start on the pilot, then sometimes they’ll make the recipe two or three times, just to tweak it and see where it’s going. So it’s just a matter of – mainly Sam and my boss, Bryan Selders, he’s our lead brewer – they come up with a lot of the creations themselves. We have Pat McGovern, who works for the University of Pennsylvania, who does a lot of the carbon dating for the Ancient Ale recipes, and then we have some people that just either work in the industry or who are just really big fans that throw us ideas that we’ll say – okay, that sounds like a really fun idea.

Like, the idea for Palo Santo came from a guy who is a wood floor salesman. He came back from Paraguay with a sample of Palo Santo wood because he had heard about it and heard that wineries were using it. He brought it to Sam and Sam went crazy over it, and now we have a 300 barrel Palo Santo tank and we make Palo Santo Marron every year.

KYB: After making all of the extreme beer, do ever want to just make a porter or something?

BC: I spent so much time in brewpubs and homebrewing that I’ve pretty much been through that. When we get our opportunities to make stuff down at the brewpub – we all get chances to go make stuff down at the brewpub in Rehoboth – I’ll usually try something a little off-the-cuff. I tend to steer it a little bit closer to the mainstream, but depending on whether or not we have a parameter set . . . y’know, sometimes they say, “It’s this time of year, make this much and you should probably keep it within this kind of alcohol range.” Or, “We don’t want you going too crazy with hops, or crazy with yeast or something. Just try to make us something simple.” Last year, that’s what I had to do. I was told – okay, you can only make X amount, keep it pretty quiet, so I made a Scottish-style ale that was seasoned with traditional gruit spices. So, it was something kind of ordinary but it still had that Dogfish twist to it.

KYB: How often are you just sitting around and think ‘I’ve got this brilliant idea for a new Dogfish Head beer’ and try to convince somebody to make it? How often do you engage in the creative process?

BC: Well – I have ideas. I keep some of them to myself because we do have the opportunities to brew at the pub. So, I try to keep a few lined up so that when they ask what we want to do, I can have a couple of options to pitch to them. I mean – I want to keep some things to myself; I don’t want to necessarily let the cat out of the bag for everything.

KYB:  So here at Dogfish Head, you’re on a pretty big system. A lot of brewing is going to be pushing buttons; what’s it like going back to the brewpub and getting back on that old recycled dairy farm equipment?

BC: It’s a good reminder! I’ve worked on a 7bbl system which was similar to the one in Rehoboth, and I’ve worked on a 15bbl system which was really nice in Las Vegas at Chicago Brewing Company. I’ve worked on a 50bbl and a 100bbl, here. The 50bbl was a lot more hands-on, where you had to flip a lot of valves, whereas the 100bbl, I stare at computer screens all day. Most of my action might just be clicking my mouse, but I’m still moving product all day – I’m still crafting it. I just don’t have to move as much as I used to. I worked on a real unique gravity-fed 7bbl system at San Francisco Brewing Company which started up on a tier system and worked its way all the way down into the basement. So, since  I’ve worked on all these different types of systems, the brewpub is a good reminder for me. It’s kind of like homebrewing, it’s kind of like pub brewing, but y’know. . . it’s still brewing. I’m fortunate that I get to work on the 100bbl system, and it’s a good reminder that there are a lot of people out there that aren’t as fortunate and still have to do a lot of this stuff by hand. So, I try to be thankful for what I’ve got here and just try to make great beer on whatever system I’m working on. You’re only as good as the last batch of beer you made.

Come back for more from Brian on Thursday, when we’ll find out what his favorite beer to brew (and drink!) is, and pick up a few suggestions for the kitchen.