Interview with Poseidon Brewing Company's Co-Proprietor and Head Brewer, Brian Oliver

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Interview with Poseidon Brewing Company’s Co-Proprietor and Head Brewer, Brian Oliver

Paul Ward: Hey everyone, it’s Paul Ward here and welcome to another edition of Farm Talk. I’m so excited today because we have Brian Oliver with Poseidon Brewing in Ventura, California. Brian, welcome to the show. 

Brian Oliver: Thank you, Paul. Appreciate it. Glad to be here.

Paul Ward: Tell us about the Poseidon Brewing Company.

Brian Oliver: Poseidon Brewing Company is a small beer manufacturer here in Ventura, California. We’re a small brewery, a seven barrel system. We make a variety of beers, very eclectic, probably over 60-65 different beers to date; some seasonals, some regulars that we have on all the time. And we do have a taproom. Right now, we’re allowed to be 25% indoors. And if we’ve got food, 50% indoors and the rest of it’s like out here on a patio that we set up. We have a beer to go options. We have four packs, we have growlers and crawlers for people who want beer off premise. We also have a variety of merchandise here. So it’s kind of like a one-stop shop for everything “small brewery”.

Paul Ward: What is a seven barrel system? What does that mean?

Brian Oliver: Seven barrels. So barrels in the US are 31 gallons as pertaining to beer. So 7×31; where are we at? 217. Pretty good math, right?

Paul Ward: Pretty good!

Brian Oliver: Yeah. So a very small, I mean considering that some brew houses are like they can be really, really big, like 50, 50 barrel plus systems. That’s, that’s even a small one.

Paul Ward: One of the reasons why I’m excited today is because I understand that Poseidon Brewing works with a lot of local vendors for making your craft beers. Is that true?

Brian Oliver: We do. Some of our best sellers are as a fact. 

Paul Ward: And I understand that you’re also using some special products like chocolate and oranges and pepper.

Brian Oliver: If you name it, we’d probably put it in a beer here. We’re pretty eclectic.

Paul Ward: Yeah. So how would you use pepper in making beer? 

Brian Oliver: We’ve actually used pepper in a cask. One time we did a black Saison and a cracked peppercorn and it was just perfect. We don’t use it on like big batches is something like it’s you gotta it’s light handed. So we’ll just do a small, five gallon Firkin cask of it.

Paul Ward: I mean, obviously oranges is more popular or more well known to put in oranges in beer.

Brian Oliver: Especially here in the land of citrus. I mean, there’s some beautiful freaking citrus farms around here. And then back to the pepper thing, we’ve also made a beer that we used like pink peppercorns in a little bit. Light-Handed also, but like a bigger batch of beer. 

Paul Ward: Interesting. And then oranges and lemons. What beer would you make with oranges and lemons? 

Brian Oliver: So oranges is one of our number one sellers is a Bubblehead Blood Orange. Yeah. We get those oranges from King and King Ranch. We have gotten them from another ranch before- Casita’s Valley Ranch. But exclusively nowadays we get them from King and King Ranch. Then grapefruits another citrus, another popular beer we make is Grapefruit IPA, the beer, the only beer we have that doesn’t really have a, like a cool trendy, like nautical diving, deep sea name. It’s literally our number one, selling beer. And we get that fruit from Mud Creek Ranch. 

Paul Ward: Okay. And I understand. You’ve also got hops growing locally. 

Brian Oliver: Yes, man. We brewed our first wet hop beer last year and we got the hops from a Sow a Heart Farm out in Fillmore. And we actually talk about a hole in one, man. We, that was the first time ever brewing that type of beer. And the fact that we were able to get those hops local was amazing. And we entered that beer into the San Diego International Beer Competition last year and took silver!

Paul Ward: Really? 

Brian Oliver: Yeah. Amazing man. That’s definitely a rebrew, definitely a rebrew

Paul Ward: Very cool. And how did you, how did you get your start? I understand that you started the business and you and your wife started the business in 2014.

Brian Oliver: Yeah, the problem is I’ve always been accused of having a drinking problem. I only have like two hands and one mouth. And so it’s like, “how can I make more beer” is like the running joke, but no, she’s been my home brew partner ever since we started about 2004 ish started getting real serious into like home “Brewin” and kinda got a good knack for it, you know, as a intern in local competitions and stuff and getting awards and accolades and whatnot. And the military career was coming to an end and it was kind of like what is the next thing? And we’re like, do it and, you know, screw it, brew it, man. Let’s let’s give it a shot. Cause I would rather always look back in 10 to 15 years. If it, if it was a colossal failure, then look back and like 10 to 15 years and go, what if and what could have happened. You know, so we just took a leap of faith and went with it.

Paul Ward: That’s a great, that’s a great philosophy. Yeah. So you were in Iraq and you were making beer for your buddies and like 2007 ish.  

Brian Oliver: Not in Iraq! There’s no drinking. Ah, leave it in. I don’t care.

Brian Oliver: No. Iraq was just one of the places I was deployed to. But, the saying Navy divers, like we’ve dived the world over. Oh yeah. I’ve been to multiple countries: Philippines, Masera, Oman, Japan, Philippines like all through the Philippines, actually just, just to name a few places, but yeah. But yeah, no brewing beer in Iraq, but I wish, I wish there was, it was the only non-alcoholic beer over there.

Paul Ward: Interesting. Yeah. Very cool. When I was 16. Well, I should say 21. There were only a few choices. 

Brian Oliver: The Statute Of limitations on that

Paul Ward: Only a few choices you know, Budweiser, Coors, Miller. Now it just seems like there’s an endless number of beer makers and types of beer, and it’s just kind of exploded. And what, what do you attribute to that? Just an interest in the….

Brian Oliver: There are a lot, I think I think to date there’s like 8,000 craft breweries. And the tribute to it is, I think people just want variety and they want flavor and they won’t like they won’t they wanna experience more than just a, like a regular lager. I mean, if you, if you look at the world of beers and what, where, where it was at and where it’s at now, it’s just like, it’s a stark difference in the availability of the different flavors and types. I mean, even in IPA alone, you have like a different, several different styles, like Hazy IPA session, IPA’s double IPA, triple IPA’s for, you know, and then they got the Milkshake IPA is coming on and there’s still like style developments going on, which is amazing. You know, I think that’s fueled by the customer who wants a variety of things.

Paul Ward: Yeah. What is the milkshake IPA? I must ask.

Brian Oliver: Apparently, (and) this is where I’m probably just going to get shot at, by all the, the beer people out there. Cause I don’t know, I haven’t researched the style that much, but in a broad brush stroke, I believe it’s something like a Hazy IPA and you’re putting a fair dose of lactose in it to give it like that Milky creaminess to it. 

Paul Ward: Okay. Yep. And I understand you’re actually making a beer with nitrogen. And how do you do that? What’s that all about?

Brian Oliver: We’re not actually making it with nitrogen. I guess CO2 could be considered like a CO2 and nitrogen could be another ingredient of it. So we’ll take what we’d like to do is instead of just the regular, everybody’s seeing the Guinness on stout or Guinness on nitro and you get that beautiful cascading effect from the nitrogen. What we do is we’ll actually take some of the beer from almost every batch. There’s not a batch that we haven’t really tried to, to nitrogenate. And we’ll put that on tap with the regular beer also. It it actually brings a whole different character to the beer. It takes the (carbon) out of it. It creams it a little bit, and sometimes it accentuates some of the hops like an IPA. And sometimes it’ll accentuate like the citrus components in the fruit beers too. 

Paul Ward: What do you think it takes to make really good beer?

Brian Oliver: Love. Care. And being one hell of a janitor! Brewers are glorified janitors, man; keep it clean and lean. It takes a lot actually. It’s not just something that you just go mix a bunch of ingredients with and like haphazardly expect something nice to come out on the other side.There’s calculations. There’s getting in those acceptable parameters. And there’s a lot of “cuss and discuss.” Like sketching things out and doing your math and your homework before you actually even start grinding the grain. Yep. 

Paul Ward: I love that, “Cuss and discuss.”

Brian Oliver: Yeah. So an old Navy saying we had. like in the Chief’s Mess; you know, there’s like some major issues we all get in the room, we cuss and discuss and beat each other up pretty good. And then we walk out and as one voice with a plan.

Paul Ward: Yeah. So is it, I mean, trial and error, I mean, you make a big batch or you start with a small batch and then kind of say, “this has got something here and let’s make a big batch or…?”

Brian Oliver: No we’re comfortable. We’re comfortable with just scaling up, doing it. You know, after so long, you kind of know what you’re going to get from your ingredients. You know, what you’re going to get from your system. You know what you’re going to get from your water profiles; all that stuff. So it’s like we could get pretty damn close on the first try. And then from there we will tweak the beer for whatever it needs. Yeah. It’s just when you look at the economy, emotion and scale on it, it’s just easier to just do your homework. And then just scale it up. And as I like to say,”screw it, brew it!” you know? 

Paul Ward: Right. When you’re distributing beer or selling beer to the customers, do you kind of know immediately if you’ve got it? If you’ve got a winner? Maybe ones kind of just like people are ordering one beer over another?

Brian Oliver:  Yeah. There’s things in favor. Yeah.I’m pretty sure it’s frustrating to our customers because we are very eclectic. We do make a lot of different styles of beers. I think to date we’re probably up to like about 65 different beers. 

Paul Ward: Really? 

Brian Oliver: Yeah. Our goal was to have variety within variety. So we have the light. Let’s just take that. So we got Battleship Blonde (Ale), we got Liberty Card Lager. We have a Kolsch that we make. So we wanted at least three to four different beers for each style of beer.

Paul Ward: Interesting. Yeah. Now you’re not making all 65 at once. I mean, how many would you have on tap?

Brian Oliver: We are rotating tanks like crazy! So it’s like on tap at any given time. Probably about 12 beers. Then back to the customers. You know, right away, they like it. It’s one of those things they’re like, they’re already asking for the beer before we get ready to send out the beer blast (distro) text and stuff. And then we’re like, Oh, beers gone, but this one’s on. And they’re like, “Oh, I’ll take that too.” It’s like, they can’t get that exact beer all the time, every time. But they know that they could order with a high degree of confidence, whatever they’re going to get is going to be a phenomenal beer and it’s going to sell well for him.

Paul Ward: Gotcha. So do you kind of do like an annual rotation too? They kind of know that, you know, December like November is kind of like pumpkin or pumpkin month.

Brian Oliver: It’s not a beer. No, I’m just kidding. That’s the running joke about pumpkin beers; what to do with them? Put them right down the trash!  No, I’m just kidding. Sorry. All the pumpkin people out there don’t get mad at me! But yeah. There are seasonals. And there’s some seasonals that were so damn popular that we’ve come up with ways to make them year round; just so we can have them on tap. Like the citrus, I’m pointing out a bucket full of fruit right here. So yeah, those are the grapefruits that we get from Mud Creek. And then these beautiful oranges that we get from King and King Ranch cut. 

Paul Ward: Is it a blood orange? This is a blood orange,

Brian Oliver: A Bubblehead Pale. We had to figure out a way to like, try to keep those beers on all year round, you know, so we only have very few seasonals now and like Liberty Card Lagers, like one of our summer seasonals, that’s going to be coming on tap pretty soon, you know, light sessionable drinking beer; beautiful for a California summer. Just to name one. And then we have another one: Imperial Chocolate Oatmeal Stout that we release in like January, February.

Paul Ward: Tell us about Davy Jones’ Locker. What’s Davy Jones’ Locker?

Brian Oliver: Davy Jones’ Locker. It’s a term for… it’s where the sailors go to die. You know,

That’s their eternal resting place. Davy Jones’ Locker. And when we opened up Poseidon Brewing Company, we had a nice little taproom. You guys, this is by the way, this is going to be our new taproom this year. We’ll talk about it a little bit, but we had a little taproom, two units down that we called Davy Jones’ Locker. So everybody can just come in, dive in and have some beers and a good time. 

Paul Ward: Yeah. Very cool. Obviously it’s growing, getting a lot bigger and more popular, more people coming in. 

Brian Oliver: Yes, sir. Super, super, super excited about that, man. We have some of the best damn customers in the world, man. I’m going to call it “the best GUESTS” in the world. 

Paul Ward: Yeah. That’s awesome. And you’re distributing locally too.

Brian Oliver:  Yeah. Very small distribution footprint because we are a small brewery. It’s a seven barrel system. It’s not that big of a system. So we decided to keep the footprint ultra local; downtown Ventura is most of the accounts. So we got a couple out in Ojai  and then a couple in Camarillo. Not a lot, just a handful. So, it’s difficult when you don’t have huge large vats of beer that you can supply. It’s kind of a,”go big or  go home game.” So we kind of have to have the right mix to make sure we have the right amount on tap, on draft, at the brewery and to be able to supply our customers without ever letting either one of those two down.,

Paul Ward: Interesting. 

Brian Oliver: So don’t overextend.

Paul Ward: And I understand you’re a pet friendly pub. 

Brian Oliver: Oh man. We love dogs. 

Paul Ward: Very cool.

Brian Oliver: Yeah. It’s amazing. People love to come out to visit breweries and bring their furbabies with them. You know, like on any given day, this, the patio we set up out here, you’ll see like maybe like 10 dogs or so, you know.

Paul Ward: Very cool. Yeah. And what is “Pints with a Purpose?”

Brian Oliver: “Pints with a Purpose” is; sadly we had to pump the brakes on that one a little bit during the COVID you know, Batten down the hatches a little bit, but like, we really believe in giving back. It’s not that I got a little say in this. “We’re not IN the community. We ARE the community” and you have to be a good steward of that community. And what we do with “Pints with a Purposes”, that’s like a fundraiser for us. We select a certain charitable organization that proceeds from” Pints with a Purpose”. We’ll go to that organization. Hopefully we can bring that back online here pretty soon as things start to ramp up and we dig out of this COVID hole.

Paul Ward: Gotcha. So if you’d have an event and then you might have a charitable group that would get a portion of those proceeds for that particular event. 

Brian Oliver: Yep. It’s interesting that you say it that way. It’s good for them also. They can contribute to it also. So they will run it for like several weeks and that’ll give that organization time for their people to come in and check out the brewery and know that they’re like supporting us and supporting their own organization at the same time. It’s like a win-win. 

Paul Ward: Very cool. And actually very cool. 

Brian Oliver: Yep. And speaking of fruit. I mentioned Casita’s Valley Ranch. Well, Anthony. Anthony used to live there under a tree in a hammock. So the running joke and he was a pig farmer turned brewer. That guy loves pigs, man. He’s got like his big tattoo pig right here. And he’s like a pig whisper man. Like he goes up to that farm and those animals like come running to him like, “Dad!”

Paul Ward: This is Anthony. One of your chief brewers.

Brian Oliver: Yeah. He was the guy that was here to help set up here earlier. And the running joke is that we rescued him from that farm. I guess that farm it ain’t around anymore. It has been sold. And I think they put some houses on and stuff, but like there was’ by knowing Anthony we were able to like, get those oranges from that one tree; that whole farm had one blood orange tree on it. And it was the most phenomenal oranges until we got these from like King and King Ranch. I mean, those are freaking phenomenal oranges, but that was a total Anthony connection. 

Paul Ward: Very cool. 

Brian Oliver: Yeah. He is a pig farmer turned brewer, man. Yeah. He’s a good guy. 

Paul Ward: Blood orange is seasonal, right? You’re making a blood orange batch kind of seasonally, knowing that it’s going to be right in a certain time of year?

Brian Oliver: It is. This is some of the freshest batches you could probably get right now. I mean, the oranges are perfect. Ripe. I mean, they’re like ready to go. We actually got these delivered Friday. Last Friday. I mean, these came right off the tree and then they’re going to go into the beer tomorrow.

Paul Ward: Yeah. So will you juice that orange and then how will that go into the vats? 

Brian Oliver: It’s classified. That’s a little something we call “PFM. Pure Fricking Magic.” A little bit of the orange all the way through the process. Same with a grapefruit. Yeah. We joke about it. We have fun with it, but yeah, that’s the story with Anthony also is about how he came to work for us and how we like “rescued” him off the farm. I used to have a head brewer, Reno. Reno actually owns “Draughtsmen Aleworks” in Goleta now. So if you guys, well, whoever’s out there listening to this, go check them out, man. It’s phenomenal. So Anthony was always in the back, like he was just showing up there and brew days, I’m like, who the hell is this guy? It’s just random. Yeah. And then the lawyers at the time, you know, you’re always on edge. Lawyers are like, there’s no such thing as a volunteer in the brewery. And then we’re like, “ah,” you’re just like the safest thing is to remove the threat. So it’s was like Reno, you need to run your friend off.

And he runs him off and, but we still see him a lot in the taproom. And, and I was retiring from the Navy and I was and I took over all the brewing operations and everything, and had to get shoulder surgery, the torn rotator cuff, and a little hard to lift 50 pound bags, slinging 50 pound bags and mix and mash and all that stuff with a shoulder and a sling. So we decided like, ‘Hey, Anthony fricking loves beer. He’s here all the time. He was hanging out with Ren. Ask him if he just wants to help out and lift some bags and stuff.’And we were like, and then he’s like, he didn’t even hesitate, man. He’s like, “yeah, absolutely!” And Anthony worked himself up from that all the way up to like a head brewer position, man. He has just been phenomenal!

Paul Ward: So he was sleeping in a hammock, under a tree on a pig farm. And he was randomly coming here to hang out. And now he’s the head brew, man. That’s crazy!

Brian Oliver: Right. 

Paul Ward: That’s incredible. 

Brian Oliver: He’s a great dude, man. That’s one of the funniest, like sea stories we like to tell about. Like, when we’re talking about farms and stuff. Cause we had that connection. He lived on the farm, he loved the farm. He was huge, like loves animals and pigs and stuff. And we were actually even at one point delivering all this spent grain up to Casita’s Valley to feed the pigs.

Paul Ward: Oh, very cool. 

Brian Oliver: Yeah. We have a local farmer. Joel always thinks he’s got a farm out in Somis. He picks up the spent grain and he actually feeds goats and I think he got some sheep. You know, we started brewing more and more and more. So he started taking more. So then he’s like, ‘Oh, I’ll get a cow or two.’ So he’s now he’s got like a couple of cows and it’s like, wow. It’s like the whole circle of things, you know,  it’s good to see it used in a environmentally safe, sustainable way, you know?

Paul Ward: Absolutely not just going down the drain to the landfill.

Brian Oliver: Total waste, you know, and it’s like, you know, they love it. The animals love it. It’s a perfect reusable byproduct, and it’s just a perfect fit, you know.

Paul Ward: Cool. How did you think of the name “Poseidon Brewing”

Brian Oliver: My job in the Navy. My Naval career. I was an underwater construction diver, a Seabee diver. It’s a deep sea diver basically. The company was going to be named “Deep Sea Brewing Company.” But we had to wave off of that cause somebody had the name, which is on a sidebar. That’s kind of a tough one with all the breweries and stuff with like names and beer names and what not is something you have to wrestle with. It was devastating, you know, like to like, cause I had like logos drawn up. I had pint glasses; it was going to be “Deep Sea Brewing Company,” you know, it’s like and we told her we couldn’t use this. So we went back to the drawing board and we were all over the place, names like “Deep Sea, Deep Ocean Brewing Company.” You know, something just to pay homage to that.

And then, and then it popped up as: “Poseidon Brewing Company.” Like what about the God of the deep blue sea instead of the deep blue sea? And I was like, dude, as soon as I heard, I was like, ah, that’s, you know, sometimes the biggest stroke of luck is not getting what you want. I freaking love that name. And it’s just like, it’s just got some horsepower to it, you know? And that’s kind of where the name came from. It stemmed off of my career gone by, you know, and I just wanted I, you know, I love the ocean. I love mermaids. I love dolphins. I love whales. I love, you know, and I love tridents. It’s like everything about it. It was just a good fit.

Paul Ward: Very cool. So Brian Oliver, thank you for being our guest on this edition of Farm Talk. We greatly appreciate it. 

Brian Oliver: Thank you, man. Thanks for having me appreciate it.

Paul Ward:  Absolutely. So when you’re in Ventura, California, be sure to stop by Poseidon Brewing for a pint of beer, 65 choices. Not all at once. 

Brian Oliver: Yeah. 

Paul Ward: Our sponsors are Escrow Hub and The Money Store. And you can find Farm Talk on Amazon, Apple, YouTube, wherever podcasts are found and be sure to check in next month when we have another edition of Farm Talk.