Portrait of a Brewer: Donny Firth, Booze Brothers Brewing

There are hundreds of talented brewing professionals giving their all to help maintain the San Diego beer industry’s storied reputation. While these industrious practitioners share numerous similarities, each is their own unique person with individual likes, dislikes, methodologies, techniques, inspirations, interests and philosophies. The goal of San Diego Beer News’ Portrait of a Brewer series is to not only introduce readers to local brewers, but dig in to help them gain a deeper appreciation for the people making their beer and how they have contributed to the county’s standout craft-brewing culture.

Today’s featured brewer is…

Donny Firth
of Booze Brothers Brewing

What is your current title?
Owner / “Dr. Beer”

Where did you grow up?
I was born in Örebro, Sweden, and moved to Vista in 1993, where I spent my formative years roaming the streets.

What brought you to San Diego?
My dad is from California, so we moved here to spend time with his aging parents. It turned out to be good timing, with my grandpa dying that year. He had a heart attack playing golf at a hole called something like “Heart Attack Hill”.

What was the first beer and/or alcoholic beverage you ever had?
Playing Texas Hold ‘Em with my brother Dave in high school. The loser of the hand had to take a sip of booze – whiskey, I think. I lost quite a bit that night.

What was your a-ha moment that turned you on to craft beer?
I moved back to Sweden in 2006, and moved back in 2008 when I was 23 years old. I started studying biology and chemistry, and around the same time I reconnected with old friends who had started brewing. The overlap of brewing beer with friends and the studying of the relevant sciences in class clicked, and I was hooked.

What led you to consider a career in brewing?
It’s the age-old story of a hobby that turned into an obsession, which turned into a career. I didn’t plan on a career in brewing, but when my brother Dave joined me, our hobby turned more serious. We started planning ahead and upgrading our equipment. Eventually, our garage had 15 taps, 120-gallon fermenters and a walk-in cooler. We outgrew the garage and, put under pressure by our parents and significant others to turn it into a career or stop, we moved into a warehouse space and up into the big leagues.

What breweries have you worked for over your career and in what roles?
I have an honorary lifetime position at Booze Brothers. I started as the head brewer, but after a few years, Maurey Fletcher (who is now with Stone Brewing) stepped in to take the role. When Maurey left us after the better part of a decade, Garrett Perkins grabbed the brew paddle and got to work. These days I loosely manage production and occasionally throw a small pilot batch in the tanks, but focus more on the business as a whole.

Who have been the individuals that have helped you the most to learn and advance in your career, and how?
Although it’s hard to single out any one person, the entire community has been pivotal in my personal growth in the industry and our brewery as a whole. Locally, the collaborative nature of our relationship with Culver Beer Co., Craft Coast Beer & Tacos, WestBrew, Burgeon Beer Co., Pure Project Brewing, Pizza Port and many more, sharing information and procedures while swapping cases of beer, has been priceless.

What singular piece of advice would you give to someone interested in becoming a professional brewer?
I would start by taking a brewing program, like Brewtech at MiraCosta College. It’s difficult for beer manufacturers to take the risk on someone who has no professional experience and these programs provide opportunities to intern at a brewery, which reduces the inherent risk for breweries taking on someone new.

What ultimate career goal would you like to achieve?
Open a tucked-away beachfront brewpub in a quaint pueblo in northern Spain, sipping Txakoli and binging on Pintxos.

What is your favorite beer you’ve ever brewed, be it on a professional or amateur level?
Big Blue Imperial Berliner

What is your least-favorite beer you’ve ever brewed on any level?
As an ambitious homebrewer, I tried to brew a Thanksgiving potato cranberry ale. It didn’t work, but thankfully I had friends who were willing to drink it regardless. I also made a few batches of grapefruit wine. It’s not something I’d recommend.

What are your favorite and least-favorite hop varietals at present?
Saaz, Enigma, Galaxy (crop-year dependent) and Mosaic are some of my favorites. I’m not a fan of hops like Summit, Galena and Cluster.

What are some of your favorite brewing ingredients that aren’t hops?
Blueberries, raspberries, blackberries, black currants…I need those antioxidants.

If you weren’t a brewer, what do you think you would do for a living?
Is being Anthony Bourdain a job? (Besides the ending.)

In your opinion, what non-brewing position is of great importance at a craft-beer company but often gets overlooked or less credit than those making the beer?
Driving (deliveries, pickup up ingredients), keg-washing, accounting, data-entry, restocking. Without a reliable team, production grinds to a halt.

What is your favorite beer style?
These days, a crisp craft Mexican lager.

If you could wipe one style of beer off the face of the earth, what would it be?
Call me old school, but sweet, sugar-based, smoothie-like beers, whether they call them IPAs or sours.

What single brewing company’s beers and/or ethos/style has been most influential on your style?
I think like a lot of other North County breweries. Pizza Port Carlsbad really influenced my early taste in beer. When other breweries made amber-colored, malty IPAs, Pizza Port would produce these light, crisp, fruity, citrusy, nose-forward beers that really let the hops shine through. Also, their bottle shop (RIP) was my favorite way to spend an evening, tasting beers from around the world and trying to refine my palate.

What is your favorite San Diego County brewing company?
Pizza Port. As far as smaller local breweries where I like to spend my time, Culver and Craft Coast.

What is your favorite brewing company outside of San Diego?
Internationally, Omnipollo in Sweden and To Øl in Denmark.

What three breweries that you haven’t yet visited—local or elsewhere—are on your current must-see bucket list?
Westvleteren and Cantillon in Belgium for obvious reasons, and Jopenkerk in the Netherlands because it’s a beautiful brewery in an old church.

What are your favorite local beer events?
Locally, I like the Strawberry Festival in Vista, otherwise, June Lake’s Autumn Beerfest and Mammoth’s Bluesapalooza.

If you were to leave San Diego, where would be the next-best place you’d want to brew?
Spain, Greece or Italy. I need my siesta.

Which musical genre or artists are on your brew-day soundtrack/playlist?
I like to be energized by what we call “Sad Bastard Music”, the sadder the better. The likes of Townes Van Zandt, Songs:Ohia, Hiss Golden Messenger (Bad Debt album), Red House Painters, Deer Tick, Kevin Morby, Elliot Smith.

What motto rules the way you brew and approach brewing in a professional brewhouse?
If we don’t personally enjoy drinking it, we don’t serve it.

What do you consider your greatest professional accomplishments?
Booze Brothers Brewing as a whole

What are you proud of having achieved in your personal life?
I live for traveling and have been to around 30 different countries. I also ran a marathon in 3:45, but it’s not something I’d like to do again. I couldn’t walk straight for a few days afterwards.

When you’re not at work, what do you like to do for fun?
Documentaries, riding bicycles around the coast, trying new restaurants, indoor bouldering gyms and low-tide beach runs.

Where do you like to drink off-the-clock?
Bottlecraft Oceanside, Craft Coast, Culver and Booze Brothers Oceanside, AKA: “Boozeside”.

What is your favorite beer-and-food pairing of all time?
Deathly hot chicken wings with a Berliner or Gose to cut the heat.

If you could somehow plan your last beer dinner before dying, what would you drink and eat, and who would you invite to join you?
A last meal with my brothers, sister and parents, and a couple of close friends. A long nap on a sandy beach, sushi with a light Mexican or Japanese lager and a bottle of hot sake for a last round of cheers. Kampai.

Who do you think you are (a purposely broad question)?
A left-brained introverted Swede who accidentally fell into such a position that he can hire his friends to eat, drink and brew with him.

If you’re a brewer at a San Diego brewing company and would like to be featured in our Portrait of a Brewer series, drop us a line at [email protected].