With companies that are large, long-tenured fixtures within their communities, it’s common for people to assume they’re in a constant state of business-as-usual. Chugging along without or swaying from the way things have always been, nothing to see here, folks. In reality, there’s often a great deal going on beneath the service to not only keep such businesses ship-shape but keep them advancing. Such is the case with Coronado Brewing Company (CBC). After 27 years, the trailblazing company is still growing and bringing on talent while making improvements to its brewery and manufacturing processes.
In 2022, CBC saw demand for its products rise. Management knew that increasing inventory and production capacity would require more robust expertise and strategic planning on the operations side. Around that time, longtime head brewer Mark Theisen turned in his resignation to head to Raleigh, North Carolina, to become director of brewery operations for R&D Brewing. The timing was less than optimal, but CBC was able to quickly find veterans to fill both of their open positions.
Their first hire was John Egan, whose beer-industry career began in 2001 at Stone Brewing, where he worked for nearly a decade, rising through the ranks to become the Escondido-based company’s lead brewer. In 2010, he moved on to Mission Brewery, where he served as head brewer and then director of brewery operations. During that span, he hired Theisen, giving him his first beer-industry and serving as his mentor until departing to work in a sales capacity for Vista’s Country Malt Group in 2018.
Egan’s first order of business as CBC’s new Vice President of Operations was to put in a good word for a former co-worker he believed would be perfect to take on the head-brewer role. That individual, Chris Sartori, got the job and now oversees all brewing and cellar operations, as well as ordering of raw materials, recipe development and quality control.
“Working with such great people has been the most exciting thing about joining CBC for me,” says Egan (pictured above, left). “The icing on the cake was adding my old buddy, Chris, to the team.”
Sartori worked with Egan at Stone, starting on the packaging line in 2006 before moving to production and being promoted to brewhouse manager. In 2018, he moved to the Bay Area to serve as brewery manager for 21st Amendment Brewery for two-and-a-half years. Following that, he worked at Golden State Cider as the Healdsburg company’s director of production. He has been CBC’s Head Brewer since coming aboard in July.
With CBC’s staff at full strength, Egan and company are focused on installation of a reverse-osmosis (RO) filler system with a de-aerated water (DAW) skid. The former will allow the brewing team to create beer-specific water profiles depending on the styles they are emulating.
“The DAW skid will give us quite a few options with our processing, including on-demand de-aerated water, which we can use to adjust ABVs (alcohol-by-volume) and brew high-gravity beers,” says Egan. “It can also be used to chase beer out of pipework and hoses instead of using CO2 along with a few other applications.”
Both of the newly installed mechanisms will assist CBC’s brewing team in increasing batch-to-batch beer consistency while simultaneously lessening wear-and-tear on pump seals and allowing for processing flexibility.
As the company nears the finish line on its 2022 capital improvements, it has its gaze fixed on the coming year. In 2023, CBC will release beers as part of a new three-part hazy IPA rotator series featuring their own unique hop bills. The first beer in the “Surf Break Series” is called Rocky Point and debuted earlier this month. The other two beers in the series will hit the market in April and September, and like Rocky Point, will be named after iconic surf breaks around the world.