Today is the 50th birthday — The Big 5-O — of Lee Chase, co-owner of Blind Lady Ale House in San Diego, and brewer at Automatic Brewing, located in the Blind Lady’s back room, and brewery consultant to the stars. Chase was also the head brewer at Stone Brewing for nearly a decade and oversaw the building and installation of the new brewery in Escondido. Lee’s a terrific brewer and a great beer ambassador, and also great fun to hang out with a share a pint, which I was able to do a few Decembers ago at the Stone Vertical Epic Tasting. Please join me in wishing Lee a very happy birthday.
Lee at Beer School for CitySearch San Diego in 2008.
Lee, with Meg Gill, Garrett Marrero and Matthew Brynildson at CBC in San Diego a few years ago.
Greg Koch and Lee at the Stone 5th Anniversary Open House Celebration, which later became the “Stone Anniversary Celebration & Invitational Beer Festival.”
Lee with Stone co-founder Steve Wagner on April 14, 1999 celebrating their first bottling run on their then new Maheen bottler. [Note: photos purloined from Facebook & Stone Brewing.]
Lee, and several other Stone employees, along with some other beer people, around 1996.
The folks in that last picture include Stone co-founder Steve Wagner (top left), AleSmith founder Skip Virgilio (center back), San Marcos Brewing founder Dave Nutley (black jacket 2nd from right), and Vinnie & Natalie Cilurzo of Blind Pig fame who disappeared and are in the Where Are They Now? file 😁 (Natalie kneeling on right, Vinnie standing on right).
I’m front and center with the goatee.
Lee is in the brown sweater with his wife Jennifer in the black hoodie in front of him. Lee was with a different brewery at the time, the name of which refuses to be dislodged from the cobwebs, but will come to me as soon as I hit “Send.”
This pic was taken in March 1996 in the soon-to-become-Stone-Brewing warehouse space. I referenced it during my 2009 CBC Keynote in Boston.
Cheers to Lee, and cheers to you Jay!