Like so many first-time brewery owners, Erik and Shannon Fowler had full-time jobs when opening their Allied Gardens operation, Good Pressure Brewing, last December. At the time, Erik was in his second year as the executive director of the San Diego Brewers Guild, a post he recently resigned from in order to apply all of his energy into the brewery, where patronage is solid and things are going well. Meanwhile, Shannon, whose career has been spent working for non-profit organizations, was nearing a half-decade of service with the Center for Plant Conservation (CPC), where she is currently Director of Communications and Public Programs.
When founding Good Pressure, the Fowlers decided to make a point of working with other small businesses and organizations in order to raise visibility for the meaningful work that they do. To date, they have teamed with local artisans (including other San Diego brewing companies), while supporting local school and neighborhood events. And now, they are working with an entity that hits as close to home as possible, the aforementioned CPC, to share its conservation message with a broader audience. Their vehicle for doing that is a collaboratively crafted wheat ale named for the non-profit’s motto: Save Plants.
“There was no question that our first ‘give-back’ collaboration beer would be in support of this non-profit making important strides to protect our natural world,” says Shannon. “We both find respite and inspiration in nature – the natural beauty of East County was a primary influence when developing our brewery’s branding – so we viewed this collaboration as a great opportunity to bridge our passion for craft beer, plants and nature through something special that we can share and enjoy with all of our guests and San Diego fans, while supporting a good cause.”
CPC is a national organization with a fully remote staff, but three of its key staff members are based in San Diego County. That trio includes Shannon, Chief Operating Officer Dr. Matora Fiorey and Conservation Program Manager Tina Stanley, all of whom assembled at the Point Loma production facility of Good Pressure’s contract-brewing partner, Bay City Brewing, in late July to roll up their sleeves and take part in the brewing of a 20-barrel batch of Save Plants. And even though CPC’s remaining staff members in Hawaii, North Carolina, Oregon and Texas couldn’t be present for the brew day, they got involved with both the naming and hop-selection processes for the beer.
Coming in at 5.2% alcohol-by-volume, Save Plants is an American wheat ale brewed with California-grown, low-till barley and wheat from Alameda-based Admiral Maltings. Those raw materials were selected because they require less water to produce, support regenerative farming practices and cut down on negative transportation impacts. On the hop front, Pacific Northwest varietal BRU-1 brings in tropical-fruit aromas and a touch of pineapple on the palate. Last but not least, the beer was fermented with California Ale Yeast from White Labs, a Miramar-based business Erik worked for from 2014 to 2023.
A portion of sales of the beer, which will debut at Good Pressure’s taproom during a release event starting at 6:30 p.m., Thursday, July 16, will be donated to CPC to help fund its mission to prevent plant extinction. Members of the organization will be on hand for a special “brewer’s talk” covering the topics of developing a collaboration beer with environmental sustainability in mind as well as CPC’s work and why plant conservation is important.
“When I first joined the CPC, the world of plant conservation, botany and ecology was new to me. What I quickly discovered was an incredibly welcoming community of passionate scientists, horticulturists, land managers and conservation practitioners across CPC’s Network, who are deeply committed to collaboration, knowledge-sharing and preventing plants from going extinct,” says Shannon. “Through my work, I have had the opportunity to learn from this remarkable community while helping share the stories of North America’s rare plants and the people working to conserve them, highlighting the extraordinary diversity of our native flora as well as the collective effort required to ensure these species survive for future generations.”
Brewing a fundraising beer at her business to support the work of colleagues at her other place of work is an extension of what Shannon does on an everyday basis, and both she and her husband are excited to create such meaningful overlap between their two worlds.
Good Pressure Brewing is located at 7559 Mission Gorge Road in Allied Gardens