EP-117 Dan Jansen of Blue Point Brewing Co.

A few years ago on vacation on Long Island, I stumbled across a few local
beers that caught my attention—Toasted Lager and Rastafa Rye were two of
them, both beers from Blue Point. After some searching, we found the
brewery a road just a short walk from the center of a sleepy town. It was
closed that day, so I didn’t get to visit, but the image of that building—a
sort of repurposed gas station with an old school dive bar for a tap
room—stuck with me.

Shortly after, I started seeing the growth of Toasted Lager as close as
Michigan, and the Bluepoint story started to become regional. That little
brewery on Long Island had contracted their Lager in upstate New York, like
so many growing brands on the east coast. And it was about this time that
AB InBev took notice as well, acquiring the brewery in a deal that was
largely ignored compared to the uproar that came with some of their other
acquisitions. Who was Blue Point? And why did AB want to buy them? Those
questions were the common refrain. I’ll admit, other than the regional
advantage, it seemed like a curious choice to me at the time, too.

But watching the brand evolve since the acquisition, some themes
emerge. The coastal story is more prominent. The connection to the local
culinary culture is there. And of course, they had a unique Lager that was
already scaling up and reaching new markets. Now? They’re distributing to
Chicago for the first time.

In all that change, Blue Point brought on a new brewmaster, a guy who came
up through the St. Louis Budweiser brewery, a trained engineer who found
his passion for beer. When the opportunity opened up for a role in one of
AB's craft breweries, he leapt at the chance.

It’s a career story that can only exist in 2017 with America’s talent pool
starting to move back and forth from big and little breweries within the
same ownership structure, as each seek out a particular expertise. Whether
it be engineering or cultural, both work to define innovation for
themselves, and as some talent graduates, along with opportunities for
scaling up or down, your focus as a brewer becomes valuable. Interesting
times.