Spotlight On: Jack’s Brewing Company

I have lived in the Bay Area for all the important years of my life and I hadn’t heard about Jack’s Brewing up until, maybe, last year. I found them through The Beer Mapping Project website about a year ago when researching what breweries and/or brewpubs I could visit that were in the East Bay. You’d think that I would’ve heard about them through advertising or by word of mouth but it never happened. I promised myself that I would eventually visit the place and do a review.

Interview with Will Ericson, Jack’s Brewing Company brewmaster

When Sammy and I pulled into a parking spot near the entrance of Jacks, I noticed a solitary figure sitting out in their patio space. For whatever reason, I had a feeling that person was Will Ericson, brewmaster at Jacks Brewing. Not sure what it was that gave him away: the laid back demeanor, the copy of Celebrator magazine in his hand, the Jack’s Brewing t-shirt or perhaps the hostess pointing towards him when I asked, “Is Will around?”. I suppose I will never know.

Background

Will comes to Jack’s Brewing with a wealth of brewing experience. Upon receiving his formal brewing education from the Brewers Guild, he cut his teeth working at Butterfield Brewing Company (now Sequoia Brewing Company), Golden Pacific Brewing, Mammoth Brewing Company, Great Divide Brewing and, most recently, Moylan’s Brewing Company. Will even did a stint at Ironstone Vineyards. Not unlike Vinnie Cilurzo, Will took the position at Ironstone because they had expressed interest in opening up their own brewery. Things didn’t work out the way Will had intended because Ironstone ended up purchasing another winery.

Will started working at Jacks on May 1st of this year. Prior to Jack’s, Will worked at Moylan’s Brewing Company. While he had nothing but good things to say about his experience at Moylan’s, Will jumped at the chance to be the head brewer at Jack’s because there’s nothing like the challenge of being the head brewer. Moylan’s, he says, is pretty much set on their beers. Everything is dialed in and there’s not much creatively a brewer can do. Will’s marching orders were pretty simple: brew great beer and brew enough for two locations. Wait… what? Two? I’ll get to this in a minute.

Brewing Philosophy

Will’s brewing philosophy can be summed up with the phrase complexity through simplicity. It’s not too difficult to add $20,000 worth of hops to a beer and call it complex. The true challenge, Will believes, is to take a few, high-quality ingredients and brew up something deceptively sophisticated and nuanced. The complexity lies in the brewer’s skill to coax out as much from the few ingredients he is using. In fact, this is something he kept coming back to, the idea of simplicity. It struck me as going against the grain. Many brewers I’ve had the chance to speak with are all about adding things to their beers, which isn’t a bad thing. Who doesn’t want more hops in a beer? Who isn’t interested in a barrel-aged Russian Imperial Stout? Will is the first guy to have said he wants to keep things simple and use just a few, choice ingredients.

Challenge was another things Will kept bringing up when talking about his brewing philosophy. He seemed like the kind of man who relishes a challenge; whether it be becoming the head brewer of a small brewpub or coaxing the most out of his recipes. He spoke a lot about wanting to brew lighter colored beers because of their inherent difficulties. As any brewer can attest to, brewing a good light colored ale or lager is difficult because there’s no place to hide. If the brewer has messed up, you’ll know right away the brewer messed up.

Personally, I am excited to hear about this. His minimilist brewing style piques my interest and I am looking forward to tasting his latest brews to see if they stand up to his vision.

Future Plans

The owners of Jacks are expanding. In addition to their current Fremont location, they will be opening up a brew pub in San Ramon. The brew pub will have the facilities to brew beer on-site but the majority of the brewing will still be done in the Fremont location. The San Ramon location will have their pilot brewery, where their special and seasonal beers will be brewed.

Regulars (and non-regulars) of Jack’s Brewing should be excited to know that Will has been hard at work tweaking Jack’s current recipes. It will be a gradual change so as not to shock long-time fans but change is coming. In addition, Will is already planning an Anniversary beer for Jack’s that will be either a barleywine or doppelbock. The two beers couldn’t be more different but it both cases it sounds like it will be a big beer. Fans of barrel aged beers should take note as well. Will has purchased a couple of bourbon barrels from Heaven Hill Distillery for a future barrel aged beer. He didn’t give me a timeframe on when this would be brewed, let alone ready, but he has them. At this point, getting the San Ramon location up, running and self-sufficient is the priority. Finding a place for the barrels is second. I did offer my garage as a storage space but I don’t think that’s going to happen.

Currently Jacks has a 10 BBL brewhouse built by Bohemian Brothers. Wrapped in beautiful copper, the Bohemian Brothers brew system was designed to be compact and work in smaller spaces. Will is limited in his production by the 4 fermentation and serving tanks. He would like to make more and different types of beer but having 4 taps is limiting his production.

Speaking of beers, here is a list of the beers Jack’s currently has on tap: IPA, Boys of Summer Wheat*, Apricot Mango, Hardwood Pale Ale, Grid Iron Amber Ale, Extra Special Bitter (ESB), Penalty Shot Porter and Hefeweizen*. The IPA was surprisingly easy to drink, showed balance and had an adequate amount of hop character, flavor and bitterness. The Pale Ale was also easy to drink and balanced. The Apricot Mango beer had a great aroma but could’ve been a little more complex in it’s flavor, while the Penalty Porter has a deep, roasted malt flavor and aroma that was reminiscent of coffee and dark chocolate. Overall, their beers are good but now that I have a base, I am looking forward to seeing the changes Will has in mind for some of these beers.

Lastly, I would like to congratulate Travis from www.sudsorduds.com for his new gig. I may be spoiling things a bit but Travis will be working at Jacks Brewing in Fremont as an assitant brewer. It’s a career change for him but he has a passion for beer and that will only help him in his new career. Second, I’d like to thank Travis for hooking me up with this opportunity. Because of his newfound Jacks Brewing connection, I was able to visit Jacks Brewing and get an interview with their new brewmaster Will Ericson. Lastly, a good number of the photos in this post were taken by Travis.

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