In 2013, Miramar’s Saint Archer Brewing made waves by hiring Yiga Miyashiro away from Pizza Port to serve as the company’s director of brewery operations (DOBO). At the time, Saint Archer was less than a year old and, having already parted ways with opening DOBO Ray Astamendi, found itself in need of a known, trusted entity to fill his boots. As a young, rising star in the Pizza Port brewpub chain—one who had amassed numerous awards for his beers—Miyashiro provided that in spades. Over the past seven years, he produced high-quality and award-winning beers working with a brewing team he mentored. Now, Miyashiro is moving on, transitioning out of brewing to pursue a new job at a packaging-equipment company, and one of the brewers he brought up will ascend the stairs to the brew deck to take his place.
Saint Archer’s newly appointed DOBO is Judd Weeden, who previously served as head brewer and has been with the company since 2014. Before that he worked in mortgage banking. After knocking off from that job, he would head to an indoor rock-climbing gym he’d frequented for a dozen years. That facility just so happened to be in the same complex as Saint Archer, and their tasting room became his post-workout haunt. He became so enamored with the beers that he shifted his career path to be a part of the company. And it’s paid off. In addition to his organizational rise, he helped Saint Archer bring home a gold medal at the Great American Beer Festival (GABF) for its White Ale in 2014.
“This happened almost seven years ago to the day that, as a homebrewer, I reached out to Yiga through a mutual friend asking for advice on how to get started in the industry. Within days, I quite my job and started work as a keg washer,” says Weeden. “To now be the director of brewery operations is quite surreal to put it lightly.”
Moving forward, Weeden’s lead-brewer duties will be absorbed by Head Brewer Greg Garrity (whose Citra Pils took a silver medal at the 2019 GABF) and Cellar Manager Chris Ryglewicz. The new DOBO says he’s lucky to have both, because as a maker and drinker of primarily traditional beers, he benefits from their creative minds when it comes to conceiving Saint Archer’s R&D beers. The next public offering along those lines will be a four-pack of “PB&J beers” that will include two cans of a bourbon barrel-aged imperial stout with peanut butter, banana, banana bread and marshmallows, and two cans of a Berliner weisse with raspberry puré and raspberry banana bread. Those beers are meant to be combined to form a peanut butter and jelly hybrid quaff.
Since the days when Weeden would reward himself for his wall climbs, Saint Archer has expanded into the space that housed his longtime workout spot. When doing so, the company kept a portion of the climbing wall for their staff to make use of. Given that and his new role as top dog, it would seem Weeden’s has found himself in a dream-job situation.
“I have big shoes to fill, no doubt, but I’m looking forward to continuing safety, efficiency and developing sustainability efforts,” says Weeden, who credits Miyashiro, as well as Saint Archer alums Kim Brisson-Lutz (Maui Brewing), Nick Marron (Harland Brewing) and Greg Peters (JuneShine) for showing him the ropes in those areas. “I feel very fortunate to have been mentored by, learned from and worked with great friends and some of the best in the business.”
Saint Archer Brewing is located at 9550 Distribution Avenue in Miramar