In 2016, commercial reality professional and serial entrepreneur James Langley teamed with investors and his brother-in-law, award-winning homebrewer Robert Masterson, to build a brewery in downtown San Diego. Dubbed Resident Brewing, it was constructed next-door to and within venerable hospitality venue, The Local Eatery & Drinking Hole. The setup was far from ideal, with brewers transporting raw materials and kegs through underground catacombs and using elevators to get them into and out of the brewery, but that was immaterial. What the operation lacked in convenience it made up for with heart, enthusiasm and skill.
Behind a solid brew crew, energetic sales personnel and engaged leadership, Resident made a quick, quality name for itself. The company grew to such an extent it became necessary to enter into multiple contract-brewing agreements with local breweries to produce enough beer to meet demand. Then came the pandemic, which knocked Resident—and every other U.S. brewery—off course. Langley and his crew had been searching for a large-scale production facility that would allow Resident to ascend the next level, but in the blink of an eye, all energy shifted from expansion to survival. Resident made it through, but things haven’t been the same.
Langley says COVID-19 and the fight to keep Resident afloat—along with his and his partners’ other business enterprises—took every bit of wind out of their collective sails. And due to challenges such as supply-chain issues, staffing, inflation and a looming recession, they haven’t been able to catch their breath much less build up the vigor needed to forge ahead full-steam with Resident like they did before the pandemic. Realizing that focus and energy are essential components to the brewery’s success, Resident’s owners decided to search beyond the organization for both.
“We recognized that we needed a fresh perspective and new blood to pump energy back into the company,” says Langley. “We knew that if we were going to bring someone on, it would take someone with great experience who was passionate about the journey and not just a nice paycheck.”
Langley says the individual they brought on to serve as the company’s new president checks all of those boxes twice. His name is Marty Ochs, and he brings roughly two decades of multifaceted beverage-industry experience with him to his new position.
Ochs got his start managing on-premise programming for Miller Brewing, before moving into sales and distribution within the craft-beer space with Denver-based Oskar Blues. In 2019, he moved to Portland, Oregon’s Ninkasi Brewing, where he helped grow the company from 3,000 barrels a year to 90,000 barrels over a four-and-a-half-year span. Since departing Ninkasi in 2013, he has launched a pair of companies, a beverage-business consultancy called E3 Craft Strategies and a beer-distribution interest called Brew Pipeline. He has also served as an instructor on the subject of distribution in the craft industry for Portland State University.
“I was part of the growth, headaches, hurdles and success at Oskar Blues and Ninkasi,” says Ochs. He says being able to do more with less made his successes with both brands even sweeter, and realizes that, in joining a smaller-sized operation with an annual barrelage of around 1,300 barrels, he will once again to be called on to stretch finite resources. But he has faith in the company’s potential based on what he says are its greatest assets—its employees.
“My job is to provide vision, direction and support for the brand and team to let them do what they do best. We will plan together and work together to meet a level of success that we get to define,” says Ochs. “I will manage and connect the financial aspects of the business to the creative production capabilities of the brewery to the revenue generation of sales and marketing.”
Resident’s immediate goal is to set itself up for the next chapter by cutting wasted effort and maximizing efficiencies in every phase of the business, including marketing. Ochs wants to clarify Resident’s brand, image and status as a local brewery. It’s not lost on him that the company’s greatest successes over the past three years have come via products with local ties. The most high-profile of those beers is No-No Joe, a double IPA crafted with San Diego Padres starting pitcher Joe Musgrove. Resident has also done well with a series of hazy IPAs bearing the names and imagery of local landmarks and communities such as Encinitas, Mission Beach and Point Loma.
Resident is going to dive back into the roots that prompted us to start the company in the first place, get back into our core values and equip our sales team with the tools they need to be successful.
James Langley, Co-founder, Resident Brewing
Langley’s longer-term goals for the company include having a more functional brewing facility capable of supplying multiple San Diego County tasting rooms. He would also like to see Resident beer available throughout California and Arizona, including at major grocery outlets.
With experience mapping out and executing growth strategies for breweries, both as an employee and a consultant, Ochs feels lessons learned will help him put Resident not only back on track, but on the fast track to where it wants to go. But he says he realizes it will take everyone on the team to make it happen. As such, he downplays his role and flat out rejects his title.
“I absolutely abhor titles. I will never have a business card with ‘president’ on it, nor do I want anyone to call me the boss or any other ridiculous, pompous moniker,” says Ochs. “We’re too small to be using silly titles. If anything, I am the secretary, owner cat-wrangler and go-to MacGyver-er. No one at Resident works for me. We all work for Resident and we all work together.”
Resident Brewing is located at 1065 Fourth Avenue inside The Local Eatery & Drinking Hole in Downtown San Diego