Last week, you may recall, I had the opportunity to spend some time with Jack McAuliffe, founder of the first modern microbrewery in America; New Albion Brewery. That was the week after the annual Craft Brewers Conference, which was held this year in San Francisco. At CBC, the elusive Jack was in town for his first appearance at a public beer event in a very, very long time. He was going to do a Q&A session along with a short talk by Maureen Ogle, author of Ambitious Brew, and Jack’s daughter, Renee DeLuca, who writes online at the Brewer’s Daughter. As an amateur beer historian, and lover of the subject, seeing the man who built the first microbrewery from scratch back in 1976 was simply something I was not going to miss. I arrived early and got a chance to meet Jack for the first time. Needless to say, it was a great treat.
Jack and me at CBC.
After a talk by Jack’s daughter Renee on social media, Maureen discussed “The Long View of the Big Picture,” lessons learned from failed breweries and what the ones who survived did to keep going. Then the session was turned over to jack, who answered questions from the audience for a good half hour. I recorded Jack’s Q&A and you can listen to it below. Enjoy.
Jay, thanks for putting all this out there and especially for recording the trip to New Albion. I was thrilled to see the place (and was amazed how much the same it looked… I’ve seen the photos from c. 1980.)
Excellent account. I was glad I was able to also attend this presentation at CBC.
Thanks for posting this, Jay! I’ve enjoyed your posts about Jack’s Northern Cali visit. Renee