Today is the 40th birthday — the Big 4-O — of Jessica Jones, who’s the former COO of Ninkasi Brewing. Several years ago, she left Ninkasi and became the Chief Marketing Officer and Director of Strategy for Enjoy Beer, the startup founded by Rich Doyle after he left Harpoon, but as far as I know it never really caught on as they’d hoped, and the site is no longer active. Anyway, I haven’t talked to her in quite a few years, and last I heard she and her husband had moved to Eugene, Oregon and they’ve started a honey business, Queen’s Bounty Honey. But since she’s one of the few people I know born on leap day, I wanted to still post about her birthday this year.
When I first met Jessica, she was blogging at beer as the Thirsty Hopster and helped do some of the behind-the-scenes setup when I founded the Bay Area Beer Bloggers. She then put her education to good use by getting a job with Firestone Walker, and found that she liked working for a brewery. So she went back to school and got her MBA, before moving to Portland. Since 2011, she’s been keeping Ninkasi Brewing humming, and keeping Jamie in line. It’s been fun to watch Jessica’s evolution in the beer world, and how amazing she’d made Ninkasi. Join me in wishing Jessica a very happy birthday.
