Tom Jackson:
Well, hello, I'm Tom Jackson, president of Cal Poly Humboldt, and I'm here today with my dear friend and colleague, Dr. Keith Flamer, president of the College of the Redwoods. Good to see you, Keith.
Keith Flamer:
Good to see you, too, Tom.
Tom Jackson:
You know, one of the best things about being a president is when you can do interviews in a bar.
Keith Flamer:
Oh, my favorite interview today, in a bar.
Tom Jackson:
That's right. A really historic bar in many respects. We're here with Meredith Maier, the co-owner of California's second woman owned Brewery, Six Rivers Brewery in Mckinleyville, California. Good to see you, Meredith.
Meredith Maier:
Hi. Thanks for coming to visit me.
Keith Flamer:
Absolutely.
Tom Jackson:
How did you get into the brewing business?
Meredith Maier:
I got into the brewing business in a nutshell because I wanted to sell beer and I loved the idea of the community of a local brewpub. And so I wrote a business plan and quit my day job and found some business partners. And we started on this journey just about 20 years ago.
Tom Jackson:
And the anniversary is coming up.
Meredith Maier:
Yeah, we opened on Saint Patrick's Day at 420 in the afternoon, and the most true is Humboldt style in 2004.
Keith Flamer:
At 4:20 in the afternoon was your opening time?
Meredith Maier:
Yeah, we opened for a half day. We had closed escrow like on the 4th of March and like, did get a little mini facelift. And so then we reopened 13 days later on Saint Patrick's Day, which was perfect.
Keith Flamer:
And so you say we opened it?
Meredith Maier:
Yeah.
Keith Flamer:
So who’s the other part of the we?
Meredith Maier:
Yeah. Originally there was three of us, Kurt, Talia and I, who actually were both HSU alumni, and then Talia and I bought Kurt out in 2008, which made us the second women owned brewery in the state of California, the first being Barbara Groom at Lost Coast in Eureka. So we're in good company here. And Talia Nachshon and I are the current owners here today.
Keith Flamer:
You know, I'm really curious about your journey because you said that you opened up almost 20 years ago, right? Because you always wanted to be a brewmaster, is that correct?
Meredith Maier:
No, I was
Keith Flamer:
You wanted to own a brewery?
Meredith Maier:
Yeah, I was kind of just I was working in sales and just wanted to sell something and do something that was a little more like my own. And I loved just that kind of community of a local pub. And I knew brewing beer at the time from doing research that they had a better chance of succeeding rather than just a restaurant or bar, that those two components together were kind of a better recipe for success, and this building had been up for sale off and on. And so yeah, I just had seen it there and thought that could be really something fun. And so I actually had some other friends from growing up that wanted to do this with me. And so we had kind of like made a plan and then they backed out and I just felt like, no this is really what I want to do. So I hunted down some partners and was introduced to Kurt and Kurt introduced me to Talia, and we became partners from there.
Tom Jackson:
I wonder is brew making, making beer hard? And that seems like an awfully simple question. And for those who make beer at home, there's there's such a science to it. Can you talk a little bit about that and I acknowledge you didn't want to be the brewmaster.
Meredith Maier:
Yeah.
Tom Jackson:
But you're a specialist at providing beer to a lot of people.
Meredith Maier:
Yeah. And I've been doing it a long time. So yeah, I have some knowledge of my own now that I've gained along the way. But yeah, I mean, is it hard? It's a science. It's a lot of custodial and cleaning work. It's always like the joke that it's 80% cleaning and 20% brewing. And it is, you know, because you have to keep equipment sterile and clean and you're constantly cleaning stuff and but yeah, it's a simple process in the way that you're just breaking down malts and adding yeast, ferment out the sugars in the product, and then that produces alcohol and hops, we add hops. And so the fun thing is there's like ingredients you can add which are referred to as adjuncts. So you can add fruit or herbs, people add chocolate, you can add all kinds of things to beer
Keith Flamer:
Chocolate beer, is that good?
Meredith Maier:
Yeah. We're doing a collaboration with some Dick Taylor chocolate for our winter seasonal yet to come out, so we'll add some of their chocolate to a small batch, porter.
Keith Flamer:
I'll be there.
Meredith Maier:
Yeah.
Keith Flamer:
I'll be there.
Meredith Maier:
Yeah. So, yeah,how hard is that? You know, yeah, I had to take some science. Carlos went to a school in Chicago called Siebel and is a graduated brewmaster. It does take some science, and we have kind of an older system. So it's a lot of math and a lot of more hands work than a lot of the newer system, which are more automated and touch button where he's like hand milling, he's hand mashing and we're transferring beer by hand.So yeah, it's laborious.
Keith Flamer:
Is that what you're going to keep to? You know, that hand brewing?
Meredith Maier:
Yeah. I think for now and there's nothing wrong with the brewing equipment that we're using now. It's clean and sanitary and in good working order. It actually originally came from Humbloldt Brewery, and so it's had quite a history of being passed around and we use which are open fermenters, which are a little bit more rare, they're more used in European and German style beers. So that makes us a little more unique in what we're doing and we're able to process beer faster by simply because we have to, because those tanks are open and you risk infection and bacteria growth if you're not moving those beers a little more quickly. So yeahwe have a unique process here. You guys will have to come back and take a tour some day.
Tom Jackson:
Can you talk a little bit about the different types of beer Pilsner, Porter, Ben White.
Meredith Maier:
So I mean, yeah, visually, right? You can tell them apart. Porter is just really dark and color and a pilsner is light in color and those colors are generally dictated by the types of malt that you use. So a dark malt or, you know, a red malt is going to produce a red beer, a lighter colored malt, in this case, a pale male or a crystal malt is going to produce a light colored beer and then they can be affected by things you add, such as fruit.So like in our raspberry lambic, that beer becomes really red from the color of the fruit. And then you're going to look for things like taste and mouthfeel. You'll know that some beers are thicker in your mouth than others, and some are more effervescent and some have a creamier texture. And then you'll look for a flavor. So you'll get a malt, which generally is a little bit sweeter. They can add smoky flavors or chocolate flavors, and then you're going to add hops, which are actually in the sativa family. See? So it's very parallel to our history here in Humboldt. And those are going to add flavors like fruit and pine, and they'll also add bitterness. And so those flavors can be dictated not only by the style of hop, but how they're added to the beer cycle. If they're put in at a higher temperature, if they're boiled for longer. And then also you can add beer during the filtering process, which is called dry hopping, and you add dry hops there. So it kind of like presses through. So you'll get all the really cool creative flavors from the hops and then you just try to balance them out with a flavor of a malt that makes sense.
Tom Jackson:
So we're here with Meredith Maier, co-owner of Six Rivers Brewery. When I was in college, I had a really fun job. It was tasting ice cream. So I'm looking at Keith wondering, how can we get a weekend gig to taste beer.
Keith Flamer:
In three years from now I want a part time job beer tasting for you.
Meredith Maier:
Yeah. Come on by. I'll do beer tasting with you guys anytime.
Keith Flamer:
Oh, well, I'm going to enjoy that life.
Meredith Maier:
Oh, it's an open invitation.
Keith Flamer:
There you go. Yeah. You know. Well, one thing you said earlier is that that brewing; brewing beer is not as easy as I thought, because you have. What did you say? That 80% is what?
Meredith Maier:
Is cleaning.
Keith Flamer:
Cleaning?
Meredith Maier:
Yeah.
Keith Flamer
Well, why is that?
Meredith Maier:
You know, because you don't want transfer of flavors. You don't want bacteria growth outside of what you're trying to produce. You don't want any kind of infectious things getting in there, even that are going to in fact, we are not in a way that's going to make you sick or that's poisonous, but that are just going to ultimately affect the flavor of the beer. And there's what's called off flavors. And those are super evident by first sip, things like buttery is a flavor butterscotch. There are flavor profiles that are very that are like make a beer almost unpalatable. So it's really easy to tell. But yeah, certainly you don't want that. So cleaning, you want to make sure things are sanitized and clean and ready to to ferment out properly.
Keith Flamer
So like, do you have a certain flavor that you do on a weekly basis? So because I'm trying to understand how you do business.
Meredith Maier:
Our brewing is dictated by orders and volume sold at the bar. So we have a couple of distributors and we're not we're one of the smallest production breweries in the county, so we're distributing in the sacrament Greater Sacramento area, kind of up through Redding and then just here on the north coast. And so we brew basically to order for them. And then on the volume is what we want on the bar. So we have 12 tops, so we try to keep rotation of 12 beers and we brew a seven barrel system, which is a smaller system like in comparison to our counterpart Barbra. She brews on a 60 barrel in one barrel systems. So those are stark differences. So yeah, it's just a difference in volume. So for us, it's a little easier to keep track and try to, you know, follow kind of the trends of the seasons and yeah, keep it creative and fresh. We had a fresh pumpkin beer on and then we also did a fresh hop beer. And so those are some seasonals that we have on now.
Keith Flamer:
Fresh hot beer?
Meredith Maier:
Hop. Yeah, yeah, yeah. So hops like literally cut off the vine and brewed within 24 hours of being harvested. And so those are really unique beers that adds them. The fresh hop doesn't come quite through in like a bitterness of an IPA, but it's got this really fresh, incredible aroma. And so that's kind of that fun of playing with the fresh hops.
Keith Flamer:
You are a great ambassador for Beer and that's pretty impressive.
Meredith Maier:
Yeah, Good, good.
Keith Flamer:
It's pretty impressive.
Meredith Maier:
Good.
Tom Jackson:
Meredith, can you talk a little bit about your clientele? I mean, this is a beautiful facility. I know it's historic. You talked about that briefly earlier. It's big and and it's on the edge of Mckinleyville. Can you share a little bit about who comes here and how committed they are to you and this place?
Meredith Maier:
Yeah, certainly we wouldn't be here without the loyal, really Mckinleyville community. We see a lot of families in here. We're kind of fun for all ages and we also get a lot of people coming over from Redding, especially in the summertime. As soon as I dial hits like the three digits over there, they're kind of bailing out to the coast. And so we have a lot of what I call regulars, people that I know their name and they come over every year a few times during the summer. And so we see a lot of regular clientele, not only from the local area but out of the area, which is really cool too. A lot of repeat customers. And then we built this incredible new beer garden during the pandemic. And so we have this gorgeous view of the river valley and now we really want to capture it sitting outside and you can feel those sunset and catch a green flash. You guys seen the green flash?
Keith Flamer:
I'm sorry, what is the green flash?
Meredith Maier:
You're not, do you guys know the green flash yeah?
Keith Flamer:
No.
Meredith Maier:
So right when the sun sets and right when it hits the rays and it's got to be quite, kind of like the right setup of the clouds and the sun and the light.But right when it hits the horizon, it sets this green flash across the horizon of the ocean.
Keith Flamer:
Is that true?
Meredith Maier:
I say its true. Mike, do you think it’s true?
(Incomprehensible audio from presumably mike)
Meredith Maier:
But I think that some people say it's a hoax. I have seen it.
Keith Flamer:
You have? Okay.
Meredith Maier:
Yeah, I think it's real thing.
Tom Jackson:
How many beers do you need to see it?
Meredith Maier:
Yeah, Yeah, just one.Yeah.
Tom Jackson:
You talked about rays. Which brings me now to Rachael Ray. There's a connection for you and her in this brewery's past. Can you share?
Meredith Maier:
Yeah. We were featured in her magazine for beers that taste like food and featured for our chili pepper ale, which is.
Keith Flamer:
Congratulations.
Meredith Maier:
Yeah, it was really cool to get some national recognition.
Tom Jackson:
How'd she find you?
Meredith Maier:
We went down to L.A. Fashion Week, and we were there, like, official beer sponsor one year. And so we, we ran the bar at the Fashion Week down there, and we met, so many great people and tons of PR people. And I am we were kind of connected that way because someone had tried the beer and told her about it. So yeah, that was really cool.
Keith Flamer:
I talked to students about business. So you started your business 20 years ago?
Meredith Maier:
Yeah.
Keith Flamer:
Because you wanted to do it?
Meredith Maier:
Yeah.
Keith Flamer:
What things have you learned that you would tell a student who’s righ sitting in front of you right now is like, I want to do this. What would your advice be?
Meredith Maier:
Do it. Do it. Yeah. I think it's really and I tell people this all the time, like just take the leap and take the chance. You know, there's support in town if you follow kind of the breadcrumbs of things. If you use SPDC, if you use RREDAC, and you use the chambers and use these things to kind of network and connect with people. I think that's like a good recipe for the start of a successful business. So if you're willing to jump through the hoops to get a business started, I think go for it, do it, take the chance. Money tends to come and always try to get more money than you think you need to start. But yeah, if there's people that believe in you, around you that I've always found that that's, you know, of course it's a hard part, but it's kind of like the easiest piece because the rest is really that hard work piece and that's the hard part that it takes is this that passion and drive. And if you have it just do it and take it and take the leap.
Keith Flamer:
So trust what you want to do?
Meredith Maier:
Yeah, do it.
Keith Flamer:
That's good advice.
Tom Jackson:
As we begin to close, would you mind talking about one or two of the biggest highs you've had in running the business or in engaging people? And one of the more difficult moments you've had to overcome in keeping this business afloat?
Meredith Maier:
Should we start with the lows I guess, we can end on the high. I think the low is kind of low hanging fruit, really. It's kind of easy is that pandemic time was kind of a really hard time. There were a lot of silver linings there, but it definitely was a time where we really had to dig really deep and there was this kind of a great unknown and things were had been really rough, you know, in the community coming up to that with the we had the legalization of marijuana, which kind of dipped down just like the finances that were available in this community. We had those power shut offs. We had the government shutdown. And so there were things leading up to that that were really kind of spelling disaster, I think, for a lot of local businesses. So it was just kind of a rough unknown. And to take that pause and try to figure it out. And I think coming out of that has been a real high and the most recent time.
Tom Jackson:
Before you go to the high, what is it that you did to to make it work during that period? From a business point of view?
Meredith Maier:
I think in the most profound way, we really kind of lost our ego and really like, you know, just found our humility and like, man, this is a huge blow and we're going to have to count on everyone around us to be able to get through this. So I think Talia and I were really open to listen to the staff who wanted us to kind of put on our big girl pants and like figure out how we were going to get back open and how that was going to look for us. And so we were just, I think, really open to feedback from the community. And we were kind of just willing to like, take some heat to make decisions that were right for us, right for our customers, right for our staff, and right for our families at home to keep people safe. And I think just kind of being open to what people had to say was really, really helpful. And I think the key to kind of our success in moving out and to that, we really embraced that everyone was struggling. And so creating like the marketplace here and just trying to like uplift as many people as we could in the best way that we could, even if that wasn't always in our best interest, but kind of just for the greater good, became our motto.
Keith Flamer:
So it sounds as though you're almost an official or unofficial mayor.
Meredith Maier:
Mayor Meredith Maier?
Keith Flamer:
Yes, Of of of this area. So talk to us about how how did you get that particular name?
Meredith Maier:
Well, I think I was just dubbed that today by Mike. But, you know, I think, you know, any local pub is going to be your community hub and people call this place the office. We call it the living room where everybody knows your name and we're always glad you came.
Keith Flamer:
Just like cheers?
Meredith Maier:
Exactly that. And so I think, you know, like I said, we're family friendly. Last night we did a fundraiser for foster youth, and I just yeah, so, like, we just had been having events. We've had cookie classes and pairings that we do with other organizations.We host food trucks here. And so just trying to kind of embrace as many things we can do in this community is really important to us.
Keith Flamer:
Wow, what a great vision.
Meredith Maier:
Yeah, it's it more fun with friends?
Tom Jackson:
Well, speaking of what's next?
Meredith Maier:
What's next tomorrow is Friday.
Keith Flamer:
And that means what exactly to you?
Meredith Maier:
Tis the season for off-site bar events and banquets and Christmas parties and holiday celebrations. And so we're booked solid through the end of the year and we'll just see it through. And I think hopefully, you know, we're going to then get geared up for our 20th anniversary in March. It'll take a little planning and so we'll try to see what we can do and celebrate for a week, maybe. Talia I feel like we have the stamina for that and try to get events and bring back old bands and try to get as many old friends that have been with us along the way to come and celebrate with us.
Keith Flamer:
So do you want to grow?
Meredith Maier:
Do we want to grow? Honestly, at this point, I think that I mean, do we want grow? Sure. We want growth in a way that's positive and sustainable for us. Do I want to be the biggest brewer in Humboldt County? I don't think that's where my sights are at. I think Talia and I feel pretty good about what we're doing here and have kind of found our niche. So I love the opportunity for a little more growth. Of course, I have the ability to produce a little more beer, so maybe getting up to more capacity levels and that will come. We were there before the pandemic, and so I foresee us kind of climbing our way back to doing that again, and it'll just be a little different this time. We just added cans back and I think some lessons along the way of kind of trying to diversify your draft versus production beer and cans and bottles and figuring that out along the way. So we'll see. I didn't I haven't forecasted, so.
Keith Flamer:
You do have a forecast?
Meredith Maier:
No, no, no Talia and I like to have kind of fly by the seat of our pants. We generally have, you know, some goals in mind, but we try to keep it low and slow. Yeah.
Tom Jackson:
Meredith, thank you very much for your time today and letting us come into your brewery, seeing it and experiencing it and hearing the story, the 20 year story about how you got to this point. Thank you very much.
Meredith Maier:
My pleasure.
Keith Flamer:
You are so inspirational.
Meredith Maier:
Oh, thank you.
Keith Flamer:
Thank you so very much.
Meredith Maier:
My parents will be happy you said that.
Keith Flamer:
Okay. I'm glad, we are glad to make your parents happy.
Meredith Maier:
We always need a gold star from our parents.
Keith Flamer:
We do.
Tom Jackson:
Do you want to write? We can write something.
Meredith Maier:
Yeah, will you sign it?
Tom Jackson:
Meredith is inspirational. I'll sign. You sign. All right.