Portrait of a Brewer: Joe Peach, Kairoa 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…

Joe Peach
of Kairoa Brewing

What is your current title?
Co-founder & Head Brewer

Where did you grow up?
Christchurch New Zealand, Seattle, and a place just north of Philadelphia 

What brought you to San Diego?
I moved to San Diego when I was 19 to kind of get a fresh start in a new state, plus I was always intrigued about living in California.  

What was the first beer and/or alcoholic beverage you ever had?
I remember my grandma giving me a sip of her whiskey when I was about five at my insistence. I strongly disliked it. I then started drinking beer with my cousins at family gatherings when I was around eight years old…Canterbury Draft, Speights, Tui’s and some others I can’t remember, basically New Zealand macro-beer. We would also drink shandies at small country pubs.    

What was your a-ha moment that turned you on to craft beer?
As long as I can remember I’ve always been interested in trying new beers.  

What led you to consider a career in brewing?
After attending the Musicians Institute in Hollywood and trying to make a living through music, it became obvious that focusing on brewing would allow me to at least barely pay my bills. Also, struggling to sleep, in general, didn’t lend itself well to sleeping in vans, on floors and on couches.  

What was your first brewing/brewery position?
In 2006 I was offered a part-time job at Lightning Brewery in Poway. As a 24-year-old, I was stoked to take the job.  

What breweries have you worked for over your career and in what roles?
I started at Lightning delivering and washing kegs, standing on buckets cleaning the inside of the kettle and doing whatever else they wanted me to do. Eventually, I moved full-time into the brewery doing everything there is to do in a production facility, and was promoted to Brewery Manager. After 10 years at Lightning, I moved over to Bitter Brothers Brewing for two years, helping out in the brewery with whatever was needed. I then co-founded Kairoa in 2019, and have been running the brewery ever since.   

Who have been the individuals that have helped you the most to learn and advance in your career, and how?
I’ve learned something from most of the people that I’ve worked with over the years, whether useful information or not. I learned about brewing beer, running bottling lines and the beer industry as a whole from Lightning owner Jim Crute. I learned about brewing German styles of beer from Lutz, Thomas and Niels from Heildiburg. I learned from co-workers such as Chris Takeuchi, Cody Jackson, Sean McCamish and John Hunter, and I also learned a lot from Nick Cain in the first year of Kairoa. I’m still learning from others in the industry and things are ever-evolving.  

What singular piece of advice would you give to someone interested in becoming a professional brewer?
Get a job as a kegwasher and work your way up. That way you learn every aspect of the business. If you can’t do that, then you have a very small chance of running a successful brewery. It’s not impossible, but just because I fixed my sink at home doesn’t make me qualified to run a plumbing business.

What ultimate career goal would you like to achieve?
To swindle a major corporation into acquiring Kairoa for $1 billion. I won’t settle for anything less.

What is your favorite beer you’ve ever brewed, be it on a professional or amateur level?
Our Back Paddock New Zealand Pilsner is always my first beer of the day.

What is your least-favorite beer you’ve ever brewed on any level?
We brewed a porter back in the day that had way too much Black Patent malt (any Black Patent is too much) and it tasted like sucking on an ashtray removed from a 1986 Buick Bonneville.

What are your favorite and least-favorite hop varietals at present?
Motueka is probably my all-time favorite hop. Riwaka and Raku are also favorites. My least favorites are anything older than three years, and I’ve never liked anything with American Goldings.  

What are some of your favorite brewing ingredients that aren’t hops?
High-quality cacao nibs and anything dry-hopped with fresh cannabis. 

If you weren’t a brewer, what do you think you would do for a living?
Probably an astrophysicist, militia leader, brain surgeon, professional athlete, garbage man or the Prime Minister of New Zealand. In other words, I have no idea.

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?
I think in today’s market, overlooking anything is a death sentence. Cellar work is extremely important because a beer can be destroyed if it’s not handled properly. Quality control is often at odds with business decisions, so do you really care about quality if your beer is not refrigerated at stores or when beer is not replaced after it’s three months old? Can you afford to take those losses? Does your beer need to be in every store in the state?

What is your favorite beer style?
West Coast IPA, followed closely by NZ and German-style Pilsners.

If you could wipe one style of beer off the face of the earth, what would it be?
I try not to be too much of a hater because who am I to tell somebody that something they like is shit.  Personally, I’m not a fan of anything with pastry or smoothie in the name, but if that’s what people want, you better give it to them or you won’t be giving anyone anything. Thankfully, we don’t get a lot of requests for those styles at Kairoa or else I’d be forced to make them.

What single brewing company’s beers and/or ethos/style has been most influential on your style?
Behemoth Brewing, Garage Project and Russian River Brewing are probably my three favorite breweries. 

What is your favorite San Diego County brewing company?
I’m a big fan of Burgeon Beer Co. Their beers are always on-point regardless of style.

What is your favorite brewing company outside of San Diego?
Behemoth Brewing

What three breweries that you haven’t yet visited—local or elsewhere—are on your current must-see bucket list?
I’ve always wanted to hang out at Jester King Brewery and Cloudwater Brewing, and I’d also like to visit Drie Fonteinen.

What are your favorite local beer events?
Brews, Chews, and Views, and SoNo Fest are two of my favorites.

If you were to leave San Diego, where would be the next-best place you’d want to brew?
Wherever that place is, I have not been yet. I’ll be in San Diego for a while.

Which musical genre or artists are on your brew-day soundtrack/playlist?
I like to listen to a large variety of music, so it could be anything from Earthless, Tommy Emmanuel, King Crimson, Albert King, Russian Circles, Tchaikovsky, Umphrey’s Mcgee, Strunz and Farah…the list is endless as I have thousands of albums. I prefer listening to full albums over streaming services.  

What motto rules the way you brew and approach brewing in a professional brewhouse?
Never look for shortcuts, and if it takes longer then it takes longer. Basically, quality over everything else.  

What do you consider your greatest professional accomplishments?
Designing, building and opening a brewery was a good start, but I still have a long way to go.  

What are you proud of having achieved in your personal life?
Mostly that I haven’t died yet and that everyone in my family still talks to me.  

When you’re not at work, what do you like to do for fun?
I like traveling to new places and checking out restaurants, breweries and dive bars.   

Where do you like to drink off-the-clock?
Sidewalks, alleyways, parking lots, local parks, places like that. Lancers, Live Wire, and Pretzels & Pints if I win my football bets. 

What is your favorite beer-and-food pairing of all time?
Bincho tacos with Garston Gold West Coast IPA

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?
I would go back to the late ‘80s as an adult and host a party at my grandparents farm in French Farm on the Banks Peninsula. I would invite everyone I know that doesn’t want to argue about politics or engage in petty disputes. The All Blacks would be playing in the World Cup Final a few hours after the conclusion of a Mike Tyson fight. We would harvest and roast a lamb served with mint sauce, roasted vegetables and gravy. We would also prepare corned beef with mustard sauce. We would wash it down with a large supply of beverages, everyone drinking what they like the most. Beer, wine, gin, bourbon and scotch combined with the best spring water on the planet, straight from the farm. We would have pavlova for dessert, and follow that with Port wine and probably more whiskey. At that point, I think I would be ready to die.  

Who do you think you are (a purposely broad question)?
It is not the critic who counts; not the man who points out how the strong man stumbles, or where the doer of deeds could have done them better. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood; who strives valiantly; who errs, who comes up short time and again, because there is no effort without error and shortcoming; but who does actually strive to do the deeds; who knows great enthusiasms, the great devotions; who spends himself in a worthy cause; who at the best knows in the end the triumph of high achievement, and who at the worst, if he fails, at least fails while daring greatly, so that his place shall never be with those cold and timid souls who neither know victory nor defeat.  

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].