Port and Parcel R
By Ryan Lamb
ight after the October 1st awards ceremony at the 2011 Great American Beer Festival, we made it our mission to have the Pizza Port family’s director of brew- ing operations Jeff Bagby grace this month’s cover. Thanks to his hands- off style of guidance Pizza Port Ocean Beach, Pizza Port Solana Beach, Pizza Port Carlsbad and Pizza Port San Clemente won a combined total of thirteen medals at this year’s big dance. Carlsbad and Ocean Beach also won the Large Brewpub and Brewpub Brewer of the Year, as well as the Small Brewpub and Small Brewpub Brewer of the Year awards – two of the most coveted in the competition.
The Brew Guys, ballin’ on the roof of Pizza Port Carlsbad
Originally we envisioned the crew donning their medals and posing in front of the brewhouse à la Michael Phelps for Sports Illustrated after the Olympics; we had gone for the gold, but the ‘Brew Guys’ had other ideas. “I got a few replies from the guys. The consensus seems to all hang out on a stoop somewhere with 40s or cans. Not sure how you guys feel about that. I thought it was pretty funny,” said Bagby. And hell, so did we, so up to Carlsbad on an overcast Thursday afternoon we went to shoot the ironic picture. “So, where’s this magic stoop?” we inquired. “We’re going up on the roof instead,” said Bagby. After a few rounds of “washoes,” and craps with debit cards and iPhones to break the ice, we started the formal part of the afternoon by asking each of Bagby’s brewers how they’d arrived to this point of beer wizardry. What we learned was that no magic formula exists; just hard work, dedication, and one brewer who strives to instill these values in his team.
Ignacio “Nacho” Cervantes is Bagby’s assistant at Pizza Port Carls- bad and started with the company doing prep work in the kitchen before moving to bartending. “I started learning a lot about beer and what was going on with the Pizza Port beer scene,” Cervantes said. We were
Pouring one out for the homies. (l-r): Noah Regnery, Brandon Edwards, Yiga Miyashiro, Mike Aubuchon, Jeff Bagby, Ignacio “Nacho” Cervantes
instinctively curious if he’d ever brewed before, consid- ering his current title. “No. I didn’t know much about it until I came here. I started doing some deliveries for the guys and tried to pick up everything as fast as I could. A lot of us started this way – learn as you go and with enough work, before you know it you could be an assis- tant or even a head brewer.” Avid homebrewer Mike Aubuchon kept coming into Pizza Port Carlsbad “begging” Bagby for a chance until finally his tactics worked. “I started in the bottle shop and then did deliveries. I was in OB brewing for awhile when they first opened and now I mainly work with San Clem- ente, OB, and Carlsbad.” The utility man, Aubuchon works to fill the needs of his teammates. “I clean all the kegs and bring this and that – ingredients, yeast, etc. – to the three pubs San Clemente, OB and Carlsbad, but rarely Solana.” Noah Regnery, head brewer at Pizza Port San Clemente, has worked with the company for nearly a decade. “I’ve done everything from the kitchen side to keg deliveries, which I think is how all of us started,” said Regnery, and Bagby agreed. “I did that too, with Stone and Pizza Port.” Regnery continued, “Through Jeff I learned the trade of brewing and I’ve been up in San Clemente for almost five years now.” Brandon Edwards started “slinging pies” at Solana Beach years back before moving on to a delivery driver position. “After that I was assistant brewer for a few years at Solana Beach, then I was Jeff’s assistant for awhile, and now I’m back at Solana Beach, brewing there,” he said. The system Edwards brews on is uniquely dug into the floor at Solana, Pizza Port’s original location. Yiga Miyashiro, head brewer for the newest of the Pizza Ports in Ocean Beach, was an intern at The Lost Abbey, a delivery driver for Carlsbad, an assistant brewer at Solana Beach, and an assistant
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