Jon Abernathy

Talking with Greg Koch of Stone Brewing

Regular readers of my other beer blog know that I spent the week after Christmas in San Diego visiting family, and while I was there I slipped in the odd beer-related visit where I could. This included visiting San Diego Brewing, Pizza Port Carlsbad, and Stone Brewing—where I was able to score a visit and interview with Stone Brewing CEO/Founder (and internet beer celebrity) Greg Koch.

Koch and his Stone Brewing partner Steve Wagner announced online recently (via a video blog) that Stone was interested in possibly establishing a brewery in Europe: nothing more than saying they were interested in exploring the possibility and opening up the process so everyone could participate (figuratively speaking). Yet the news of this announcement exploded like wildfire across the online beer news and blog community. For days following the late-December video post, most beer sites were abuzz with the news proclaiming “Stone Opening New Brewery in Europe.”

Generating interest of this level is quite a feat, considering the announcement was the equivalent of, “We think this would be cool, let’s talk about it.”

When I was in San Diego the week after Christmas, I contacted Koch to see if he would be available to meet and sit down for a chat-slash-interview. He very generously agreed to sit down with me, and I made my way up to Stone Brewing’s World Bistro & Gardens, enjoyed a Stone Levitation Ale, and then met with Koch.

On Europe, social media, and advertising

Naturally one of the first things we talked about was the Europe Announcement, and how Stone is pushing hard on the grassroots nature of social media and word of mouth to promote their beer— “marketing without marketing” is a term I come back to. Stone’s Europe Announcement is a great example of this: leveraging huge amounts of interest and attention online with minimal effort.

Yet, “there was only one mention in traditional media, the [San Diego] Union Tribune,” Koch told me.

Will there in fact be a European Stone Brewery in the future? “We were just contacted by the French embassy this week [week of the 28th], out of the blue—something I didn’t see coming,” said Koch. “But definitely something we would explore.”

Koch has famously stated that Stone has never advertised (as part of their overall philosophy)—at least, they haven’t advertised in traditional media. Stone is very active within the community, and participates in a lot of charity events—and there is certain advertising that will go along with such events.

“Instead of wasting ad time on people” who need to be convinced to drink their beer, they opted instead to go the word of mouth route: the people who want the beer will find it. “It was always intentional.” They practice what they preach—so much so that they even have a full-time Social Media Coordinator. (I don’t know of any other breweries who can claim this.)

And it’s working for them; I saw a statistic recently that Arrogant Bastard is the number one selling beer in 22-ounce bottles in the country.

On “Beer Celebrities” and collaboration brews

There is no doubt that in the beer world, Greg Koch is one of the premier celebrities—so naturally I had to ask the “elephant in the room” question and find out his take on the issue.

“I think it’s a reflection that craft beer is coming into its own and getting the recognition it deserves,” Koch said.

Does he recognize his own stardom? Of course; he even uses it “to a certain degree; if I’m making an appearance at an event we’ll announce that to help promote it.” Beyond that, he finds the celebrity consideration “flattering” and positive for all involved, not just himself.

The notion of celebrity brewers seems to go hand-in-hand with collaboration beers: big names getting together to brew something unique and fun. And Stone has been at the forefront of brewing collaboratively lately, producing five so far with two more imminent this year. With the exception of Bashah, the beer Stone brewed with Scottish brewer BrewDog, these collaboration beers have all been the efforts of three brewers.

Koch approaches brewing collaborations from a music metaphor (not surprising, as he came from the music business before founding Stone): you take each of these brewers who are like musicians, each producing something great individually, with their own harmony and style. You never know how three of them together could work, you want the right fit, but when they start working together, it’s like a three-part harmony that meshes and combines into a result that’s greater than the sum of its parts.

Incidentally, there are two planned collaboration brews coming up this year so far: one at the end of this month with 21st Amendment and Firestone Walker, and another coming up in March, with Dogfish Head and a third brewer (unfortunately, I can’t make sense of my notes on the name of this third party—such is the perils of being a blogger stuck in the limbo between being an amateur journalist and raving fan. I’ll email Koch for clarification on this and update accordingly) Bill Covaleski of Victory Brewing.

On Arrogant Bastard

I was curious if, when they launched what is now their flagship beer, Stone had any troubles getting the name and/or label approved? “None,” said Koch. “We had no trouble with it at all… No, it was originally banned in Ohio and Indiana for being ‘obscene.’” Koch laughs about that now. “I fought it; there’s nothing obscene about ‘bastard’ and it was completely ridiculous.”

In fact, early on, Arrogant Bastard was enthusiastically endorsed by Bastard Nation, a civil rights organization for adoptee rights. They loved the beer, and Stone even donated some to one of their events. Koch was proud of the association, though nothing has come of it in recent years.

We talked about a few more things, and all in all Koch was kind enough to give me about 45 minutes of his time. It’s not often the CEO of a company is willing to do that when a blogger emails him out of the blue, so this is another big (and public) “thank you” to Greg Koch. Greg, if and when you make it up to Oregon, let me know and I’ll buy the first round.

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