We recently ran into Chris Guerra of Fantasy Brewmasters and were fortunate to get him to answer some questions about his beer and some of the "behind the scenes" work that goes into developing and producing it.
How did you get interested in beer?
Growing up in Naples, I was quite deprived of good beer. It wasn’t until I moved out to Colorado for college that I learned what better beer was all about. Breckenridge Oatmeal Stout was a life changer for me. My roommate and I had a killer beer store in walking distance of our apartment and would pull together enough change every night to go get a new bomber to add to our collection. When I moved back to Florida a year later, I picked up homebrewing to fill the void left in my soul.
Any formal brewing training?
No. This is one of the reasons I turned to competitions and collaborative brewing for recipe development. I wanted a better quality beer than I felt I could develop on my own and I wasn’t ready to hire a brewer yet.
How did the tie in with fantasy begin?
I’ve been a fan of fantasy fiction all my life. I often read stories or play games filled with fictional beers and try to imagine what those beers would be like. Aside from that, mythology and beer go hand in hand throughout history. Many if the stories ancient civilizations created to describe the brewing process or tell how beer was gifted to them are as fantasy as it gets.
It seems that you are producing much more than just a beer. I don’t think that even the word experience fits. How would you describe it?
We like to say that we “create beer with character”. We bring fictional beers to life. Every beer has a background story and we’ve created detailed maps and illustrations to indulge your imagination. Our epic beers are the pop that bring it all to life, a window to another world. We love getting out to events because we really get the chance to introduce people to the depth of what we do.
What’s the back story on the name of your beer, “Burdisson’s Dwarven Ale”?
Burdisson is the name of the dwarf clan that created the beer. www.dwarfbrew.com is an in-character website where you can learn about the Burdisson Clan and their mighty brewery.
How would you describe your beer to someone on the beer aisle trying to decide what to buy?
In my mind, Dwarven Ale defines fantasy beer. There are hundreds of beers we can do, but dwarves are the hands down champions of brewing. To start with anything else would have been a disgrace. We didn’t want to goo too heavy with this one though. In crossing niches of fantasy and craft beer, we wanted something that offered a flavor and complexity that the craft guys would appreciate without overwhelming someone that might be new to better beers. We gave Burdisson’s a darker body and kicked up the alcohol to stay true to a dwarven style, but we keep the body a touch on the lighter side for those that are new to craft beer.
Is this the only beer you produce?
Yes, but not for long.
Can we expect to see more down the road? Would they be tie-ins to the same story?
We are currently planning the development of our next release. It will be built in the same world setting, but not be another dwarven ale... maybe ogre or dragon. The community will help make that decision. It will probably be told through the writings of Boran Coalbeard, our traveling beer connoisseur from the Burdisson story.
Besides yourself, it appears that you have a good sized creative team, the majority of which seem to have duties outside of what you’d expect in a brewing operation. Can you explain the process of what goes into your product?
Our Dwarven Ale team consisted of numerous people. Keith Curtachio created the recipe, David Martin created the story behind the beer, Matt Howerter did the art for the label and website, and Herwin Wielink brought the Burdisson lands and brewery to life through detailed maps and illustrations. We also have Douglas Manzini who did the art for two of our t-shirts, and Martin Bolton who created the baddest bottle opener known to man. We look at every piece of what we do as art and love to give the artists the spotlight and recognition they deserve. The whole group is independent, but we keep in touch and consider them part of the team.
I was surprised to see that you make the recipe public. Aren’t you concerned about copycats?
As a way of giving back to those who participated in the development, we released the recipe for Burdisson’s Dwarven Ale under Creative Commons licensing. This allows homebrewers to recreate and alter the recipe for personal use, asking only that they give us credit for the original recipe and share any alterations they make similarly. Personally, I would love to see what others can do building on this recipe.
As for commercial copycats, I guess I’m a trusting guy. I also believe in karma and know that the brewing community would eventually make the connection. I don’t think any brewery worth worrying about would risk their reputation that way.
Can you explain the “open development” concept?
For me, the most exciting part of what we do is the development process, and we’re in a unique position where we can open this process up to our fans to participate in. We call it Open Development, and we’re currently prepping for the next round this summer.
We’ll start off polling the community on what type of beers they want and what the setting should be. Then we’ll release three phases of development. Recipe, Story, and Art. Homebrewers can follow the recipe development and brew pilot batches along side our brew team and post comments and suggestions to the forums. Writers can join our collaborative writing groups and suggest ideas and story elements. Using Google Docs, we’ve even had live writing sessions where fans can participate in a live chat while they literally watch the story unfold word for word. Art being more of a solo project, we tend to stick to competitions, but all fans are welcome to enter and everyone gets a chance to vote for their favs. If we commission a piece or do something through a specific artist, we constantly post work in progress updates and poll the community when there are different mockups to choose from.
In the end, the whole process is open, and there are multiple opportunities for fans of any skill level to participate along the way. It’s very engaging and incredibly exciting!
I’ve seen a number of breweries where the person who started the brewery quickly became more involved in the business development side and essentially turn the brewing over to a head brewmaster. How involved are you in the brew process?
Yes, it seams like the best breweries have a dedicated business guy and brewmaster. My skills definitely lie more in the business side of things. When it comes to the brew process, quality is my main concern. Our Dwarven Ale recipe was created by Keith, then judged and chosen by myself and a panel of certified judges, retailers, and brewers. From there we take it to our head brewer at Cooperstown to for fine-tuning and scaling.
Where is your beer brewery? Tours? Tastingroom?
We brew through Cooperstown Brewing Company out of Milford NY. They do a fantastic job for us. They care about our recipe and they get the big picture of what we’re trying to build. Their NY location also fits our plans to grow this into a national brand. We don’t have a Florida tasting room yet, so we try to get out to the events as much as possible. We’ll see at least one festival per month through the fall and we’re planning a tour of the state in about a month. I would love to open some sort of tasting room / gamer bar at some point.
What’s your brewing capacity?
Our current goal is to reach 500 bbls per year, but the brewery has flexibility to expand on that when the time comes.
Why did you originally start with distribution through a liquor store that sells online?
Due to our online brewing and art competitions our original fan base was dispersed around the country. We wanted to make the finished product available to as many of the people that supported us in the beginning as possible. Online retail was the best way to do that. It also gave us a chance to get feedback from our existing fans before going out to broader distribution.
Where can someone find your beers? Are you primarily just in Florida?
We are distributed through Brown Distributing Co throughout Florida. Easiest place to find us are the Total Wines and ABCs., but there a lot of awesome independent stores out there too. We have a beer finder online at fantasybrewmasters.com/map that we try to keep up with as much as possible. We’ve even flagged a couple places on the map that can ship out of state.
If we were to open your fridge at home, what beers would we find?
Sierra Nevada Pale Ale is a go to in my house for quality and convenience. A six pack of any of the Cigar City beers will be there every week or two. Special occasions usually call for Saison Dupont or St Bernardus Abt12.