I got the opportunity during Arizona Beer Week to have lunch with Dave Walker, who teamed up with his brother-in-law Adam Firestone to launch Firestone Walker Brewing Company in 1996.
A native of Cornwall, England, Walker is a big fan of Cornish Pasty Company. We met at the Mesa location to talk about his award-winning Paso Robles, Calif., brewery and the craft beer scene in general:
What’s the state of the craft beer industry in California? Has it reached a critical mass yet?
“There are 700 breweries in development this year in America. I don’t know how many are in development in California, but at the beginning of last year there was about 220 in California. There’s probably close to 260 now.”
With so many new breweries, do rivalries naturally develop between craft brewers?
“That’s not the competition. The competition is the freakin’ Heineken drinker. Anyone who’s got the balls to start a craft brewery – as far as I’m concerned they’re in the game and they get a pass from me. I don’t care whether the beer is good, bad, whatever. I take my hat of to you.
“One could argue (craft brewers) are saving the national beer community, in as much as we’re bringing some life to it. The beer business that was predicated on adverts on the Super Bowl and less taste and less alcohol – that’s the wrong road to go.
“The guys who are sitting in the board room of Anheiser-Busch, as much as they hate us, they say, ‘Look, this is good for us. They’re making beer cool again.'”
What are your thoughts about all the “big” or extreme beers you hear about nowadays?
“I absolutely see it having its place. It’s about 5 percent of our production, but it gets all of the attention.
“Take our Double Barrel Ale. Twenty percent of this beer goes through primary fermentation in oak barrels. We take 60-gallon oak barrels, hand fill these, hand empty them, hand clean ’em – there’s a lot of energy that goes into the product. We’ve got about 2,400 man-hours, lab hours built into just managing those unions.
“Can you get anyone’s attention on that? No. But you age a beer in bourbon barrels and you’ve got people lined up around the block.”
Who’s brewing great beer right now but maybe not getting recognition for it yet?
“You know, I’m a bit of a slut. I like a lot of beers. I think Dan Carey at New Glarus is a very talented guy. I like John Mallett‘s beers from Bell’s.
“I haven’t really been bitten by the sour bug yet, but I enjoyed Patrick Rue‘s beers at The Bruery.
“Patrick doesn’t make a lot of beer – only about 5,000 barrels a year. You don’t have to make a lot of beer to make a lot of noise.”
What’s coming in the next few months from Firestone Walker?
“We’ve an unfiltered black IPA. We’re bringing out a couple more components of the Anniversary beers.
“We’re probably going to move our barrel-aging program to a new brewery we built. It’s getting out of hand. It’s about a thousand barrels now.
“And then we are bringing out a nicely hopped Czech pils in June. We want to drink a beer that doesn’t leave us fucked up all the time.”
