Paddy Giffen
Moylan’s Brewpub
Novato, California

Paddy Giffen just loves brewing. So much so that he gave up his “regular” job to go pro. He has been the brewmaster at Moylan’s Brewpub in Novato, Calif., since it opened in 1995.

Giffen is one of those pioneering microbrewers whose ticket into to the industry was his prowess as a homebrewer. He got interested in beer beyond the megabrands in the early 1980s. “Back then, there weren’t many micros available. I started making my own beer to have something decent to drink,” he says. “I was buying extract kits from a supply shop in Berkeley.”

Things got a bit more serious when Giffen got involved in the Sonoma Beerocrats, one of America’s oldest and most accomplished homebrew clubs. “We were the AHA’s National Beer Club of the Year for 10 years running. I met a lot of great brewers and it was an awesome place to learn,” he says.

At the time, Giffen was finishing a graduate degree in computer science at Sonoma State. His brewing improved as he got more involved in the club and learned to handle all-grain brewing. He also met some influential people, including Byron Burch and Nancy Vineyard, who ran the Great Fermentations supply store in Santa Rosa (now called The Beverage People).

“I thought about how cool it would be to brew professionally, but I was already involved in computer studies. It was too late to switch to brewing school,” he says. But after school, the more he worked in computers the more he realized he simply didn’t like it. “It was no fun. I changed jobs a couple of times, but things never got any better.”

So he made a life decision: He quit the computer business and went to work full-time for Burch and Vineyard as a technical consultant. He was making a name for himself during the microbrewing industry’s early days of explosive growth. “Things were heating up in the Bay and Northern California. I watched all these micros popping up all over,” he says.

Then a few of his beer buddies went pro — Kevin Cox and Dale James among them — and Giffen’s turn came up, too. Grant Johnston was the brewer at Marin Brewing Co. He knew Giffen as a reputable homebrewer and offered him a part-time job.

Giffen apprenticed at Marin Brewing Co. and worked at the supply shop four years. Working at the brewery gave him the chance to learn the professional ropes, which set the stage for taking the reins at Moylan’s when it opened. Owner Brendan Moylan has a part-interest in Marin Brewing — which is where Giffen met him.

Giffen says his years as a homebrewer have stood him in good stead as a pro. “Home-brewing is a great way to learn. For example, I like ale, so I went through every ale recipe I could find and I was successful. That’s the beauty of homebrewing. It gives you lots of opportunity to experiment with recipe design. As I was experimenting, I was learning,” he says.

His experience and accomplishments were noticed. A wee heavy Scotch ale earned him the AHA’s Homebrewer of the Year award in 1993. He went on to be named Meadmaker of the Year in 1995. And the awards keep coming. Giffen’s pro beers have earned GABF medals, plus honors at the World Beer Cup, California State Fair, and World Beer Championship.

That spirit of determination has benefited Moylan’s regulars, who now line up to pay for Giffen’s beer. “We usually have 11 or 12 ales on line at a time. And quite a few are on nitro. We have our own nitrogen generator that was custom-built for us to keep them going.”

Moylan’s has a 20-barrel brewhouse, with five 40-barrel fermenters and a small bottling plant. “It’s a glorified homebrew system, just bigger. I totally love it. I’m doing my hobby. The only thing I miss is the ability to experiment. We’re very production-driven and there’s not a lot of opportunity for anything unusual, outside the occasional seasonal,” he says.

And of course he can’t resist practicing the art of zymurgy at home. “I have a mead going, and a few wines,” he says.


Bill Covaleski
Victory Brewing Co.
Downington, PA

Sometimes, Bill Covaleski has to pinch himself. “It’s usually when I’m driving one of the trucks, making a delivery. The other day, I drove through the tunnel to get to New York and I thought ‘Wow. There are people here who buy our beer!’ That makes me proud,” he says.

Covaleski is co-owner, co-brewer and co-everything at Victory Brewing, in an industrial suburb west of Philadelphia. He splits brewing and management duties with his partner and long-time pal, Ron Barchet.

Barchet and Covaleski grew up not far from their brewery, a micro and brewpub housed in an old Pepperidge Farm factory. They’ve been hanging out since grade school — though their love for beer developed a bit later.

“We discovered beer when Ron moved to California for college. I remember going out to visit him and drinking Henry Weinhard’s, Steinlager, Spaten beers — some interesting stuff,” he recalls.

Their early forays into the world of craft brewing were more about drinking than brewing. They toured Europe in search of beer in 1987. Barchet has relatives in Belgium, which gave the duo an excuse to visit some abbey breweries. “As soon as we got off the plane, we drove to Orval,” he says. They did the GABF in 1988.

As you can imagine, it wasn’t long before homebrewing entered the picture. “My dad had gotten a homebrew kit as a gift. We took turns with the equipment — and the beer was actually good,” he says.

School was through and they settled down to work: Covaleski in advertising in Pennsylvania, Barchet in the financial industry in Northern Virginia. Barchet was first to consider abandoning his chosen career in favor of brewer’s boots. He came across a menu from the original Gordon-Biersch brewery. It profiled brewer Dan Gordon, one of the few Americans at that time who had graduated from the Weihenstephan in Munich. He called Gordon to ask him about his education. Gordon filled him in on the University and also told him about a new brewery that was being built in Baltimore.

Through Gordon, Barchet met Theo DeGroen and was able to secure an apprenticeship at his Baltimore Brewing Company, before the first batch was made. He also set his sights on the Weihenstephan.

“When Ron moved to Germany to get ready for school, that left an opening at Baltimore, which I filled,” Covaleski explains. Without looking back, he said good-bye to his regular job and became a brewer’s apprentice under DeGroen, the Dutch-born brewing engineer.

When Barchet left DeGroen, he was making only three beers: a pils, a dunkel, and an export lager. During Covaleski’s four-year tenure, the portfolio expanded to include lots of specials, including weizenbock, hellesbock, märzen, alt, and doppel. Covaleski’s brews earned two GABF silvers and a gold. DeGroen also sent him to Munich to do some studying at Doemann’s Institute.

After his year at Weihenstephan, Barchet joined the fledgling Old Dominion Brewery in Virginia. Within a few years, his beers were famous in and around Washington, D.C. The boyhood buddies were really getting good at continental beer styles. And they were getting closer to striking out on their own.

“We kept scheming and plotting during the early ’90s. It was New Year’s Eve 1993 that we decided to get going for real and start writing a business plan,” says Covaleski. In early 1995, the pair returned to Pennsylvania, moved into his parents’ house and hit the pavement looking to raise capital.

The Pepperidge Farm factory was perfect for them. It had lots of character and, since it was a former food factory, it could handle the water and sewage needs of a brewery. Pepperidge Farm had built it in 1949, the company’s first plant outside Connecticut, and had moved farther west to a new facility.

“It seemed like a bad location for a restaurant. There were no others around. But we had faith because the demographics of Downingtown were just right for craft beer. We saw the lack of restaurants in the neighborhood as an opportunity — a location with little competition,” he says.

The brewery opened in 1996, backed by Covaleski and Barchet’s mastery of financial management, marketing, and European brewing. They make big European styles, including IPA, doppel, tripel, imperial stout, barleywine, and others. Their beers are not for the faint of heart.

The brewhouse is a 25-barrel, full-decoction system. They even have a hopback, a large box filled with whole flower hops through which hot wort is pumped. It’s a traditional German method to filter trub and impart extra hop bouquet.

“Using a hopback is expensive, in terms of hops, and risky in terms of infection and aeration. But our goal here is to revive old-world styles and techniques,” he says.

Not to forget their homebrewing roots, the boys at Victory regularly partner up with the local homebrew club for competitions and other events. As Covaleski explains, by their nature Victory’s beers promote craft brewing. “Our beers are bigger and more gutsy than a lot of styles that are out there. We continue to brew what we like, not what we think will sell,” he says.

So far, that approach has been working for the boys at Victory Brewing. And it’s testament to the potential of the American beer drinker — considering that Philadelphia is one of the nation’s biggest Coors Lite markets.

Teri Fahrendorf
Steelhead Brewery
Eugene, Oregon

Teri Fahrendorf has always had a fascination with fermentation. “I made my first loaf of bread at age 10. The bread was really good, and Dad was thrilled,” she says. “He tried to make some himself, but couldn’t do it. He killed the yeast. I never had that problem. I’m lucky to have an affinity for yeast. I think my bubbly personality gets along well with bubbly yeast.” 

It was around that same age that she started thinking about making beer. “We knew about beer in my house, because my parents considered alcohol as food. On pizza days, the kids had their choice of milk, Coke, or beer. It was no big deal,” she says.

Fahrendorf remembers buying a pamphlet at a church rummage sale about how beer is made. “I was so enthusiastic; I was going to figure out how to make beer. Well, that pamphlet was not very encouraging. I learned that I needed big giant vats — huge cereal cookers and mash tuns. I was so discouraged that I threw it away. I wish I still had it,” she says.

What she had purchased was a beer-industry PR brochure, which described the beer-making process in the large-scale industrial setting. Though she temporarily abandoned the idea, a seed was planted that would finally take root in college, when she learned how to make wine.

“I started out making Gewurtztraminer from Australian extract. I made apple wine and other things. Then I moved to California where good wine was cheap and plentiful, so there was no need to make my own,” she recalls.

Her job as systems analysist for Unisys had taken her to San Francisco, where she jumped from making wine to beer. She joined the San Andreas Malts brew club. “San Andreas has produced 10 or 15 professional brewers, more than any other brew club. They were real pioneers and had a huge impact on the micro industry,” she says. She was in good company for an accelerated education in beer.

She was interested enough in her hobby to spend money on it and travelled to Denver to attend the 1988 Homebrewers Conference. There, she met many people who were established in the industry, including Charlie Papazian, Don Outterson, and Dan Carey. Carey and Outterson told her about the Siebel Institute in Chicago. “I started thinking and thinking,” she recalls.

She wasn’t satisfied with her job. Coding was not too exciting for her. She wanted to move into project management, but that was not materializing. The idea of learning to brew professionally kept gnawing at her. She was calculating how she could afford the training and decided that if she ever made the jump, Siebel would be the place. Since it was a shorter program than the University of California at Davis, it would cost less and require less time without an income. Plus, she liked Siebel’s multi-disciplinary approach, which brings together
experts in malting, engineering, and other specialties as instructors during the course.

Then, fate gave her a shove. “Unisys sent me to Chicago for training. How convenient. I called Siebel and arranged a visit. They said I could (handle the course information) because of my science background,” she says. Fahrendorf had started her college career in science, aiming for a career in forestry and wildlife management. Those science courses paid off as her admission ticket to Siebel. She made a decision. She would give brewing a shot.

She asked her employer for a three-month leave of absence. They refused, so she quit her job, much to their surprise.

“Keep in mind: At this point I had 15 extract homebrew batches under my belt. I’ve met homebrewers who have made 200 all-grain batches and they don’t think they’re ready to go pro. It’s all in your mindset,” she says.

Her enthusiasm made her a shoo-in for class president — the first woman class president in Siebel history. She arranged a style seminar and brewpub field trips for her classmates. “They had never heard of styles. The only thing they knew was yellow beer,” she says. She also made some European styles on Siebel’s five-gallon pilot brewery: first a doppelbock that nobody liked, then a Munich, which they liked a lot better. “I was lucky that the instructor was from England and knew about styles, so he was supportive,” she says.

The contacts she made at Siebel got her foot in the industry’s door, too. A few Siebel instructors had opened a brewpub in Chicago, Sieben’s River. She took an unpaid apprenticeship, which was her first professional experience.

She started looking for her first real job in the micro industry. “It was tough. There were few micros, and most of them didn’t think a woman could do the job,” she says.

“I thought I wanted to work in a micro, until I went on an interview at the original Pyramid Brewery in Washington. It was cold and drafty. There was no social interaction, no customer feedback. I decided to concentrate on brewpubs after that.”

Portland was a big brewpub town, so she drove there from San Francisco to look for work. On the way, she stopped at every homebrew supply store and left her resume with the owner, wisely thinking that when entrepreneurs start breweries, they look to the homebrew community for help.

Her cleverness paid off. She got a call from the Golden Gate Brewing Co. in Berkeley, Calif. The owners had received three copies of her resume as a result of her networking. She had her first job, but it would prove to be disastrous.

After two months at Golden Gate she was seriously injured, soaked by a flood of boiling water that severely burned her legs and feet. “The previous brewer had left on bad terms and refused to train me. The equipment manufacturer assured me it was 10-barrel system. It was seven. I was left to figure it out on my own and got hurt,” she says.

Things went from bad to worse. While she was in the hospital having skin grafts to repair the second- and third-degree burns, the place went under, the owners canceled the workman’s compensation insurance, and the paychecks started bouncing.

In spite of that horrific experience, she persevered, and never gave up being a brewer. She got on the phone from her hospital bed to call around, looking for work. She landed a new position at Triple Rock in Berkeley. She was happy to be back on her feet — literally — and stayed more than a year.

She wasn’t planning to leave Triple Rock, but she went to a brewers’ festival in Portland, where she saw a guy wearing a T-shirt that said “Brewer Wanted, Eugene, Oregon.” So she introduced herself.

When she returned to California, she got a phone call from Steelhead, which was in the planning stages. “I interviewed him. I wanted to know everything, the investors, the blueprint, the lab. They were going to build a brewery with no mill. I convinced them that it was a bad idea, and showed them how they could finance the mill and silo through the malt company,” she says. She made other design suggestions and they were impressed with her experience, smarts, and spunk. They hired her as brewmaster.

She trained her successor at Triple Rock and joined Steelhead in 1990. She brewed in Eugene four years, then coordinated the company expansion to its second location in Burlingame. She designed another brewery in Irvine, then San Francisco. Then Fresno. She became an expert in startups, dealing with the equipment manufacturers, contractors, and architects. Today, she oversees production and a staff of five head brewers and four assistants. She handles training, technical support, production research, recipe design, hiring, and a million other duties, keeping the properties functioning smoothly.

Fahrendorf has become a brewer’s brewer. She gets dozens of resumes every month from people who want to work for her. “One of my brewers left and now he wants to come back. That tells me I’m doing something right,” she says.

She has won five Great American Beer Festival medals herself, and the brewers she hired and trained have gone on to win seven more GABF medals for Steelhead. “I’m very proud of that,” she says.

“I’m where I want to be. I have a successful career; my peers and employees respect me. I’ve been in the trenches and paid my dues. I enjoyed my years hands-on, but this job is right for me,” she says.

And she says the injury made her a better brewer. “I would not be as strong today without the injury. I have no regrets,” she says.

Sal Emma is a New Jersey freelance writer and long-time homebrewer. His last article for BYO was on the Reinheitsgebot, the German beer purity law (December 1999).