Yankee Brew News Archive

Who is Pete? West Coast Microbrewer Makes Promotional Tour of New England

Originally Published: Sum/93

Unlike many breweries, which use fictional, often colorful-sounding characters to give their beers an everyman, down-home aura, there really is a Pete behind the Wicked Ale and Wicked Lager of Pete's Brewing Company of Palo Alto, California.

And an everyman Pete Slosberg is. Bearded and bespectacled, clad in jeans and a Pete's Brewing Company jersey, exuding enthusiasm and strong viewpoints about beer, Pete is just the type of guy you'd expect to meet over a beer at a homebrewer's club meeting. He started as a homebrewer in fact, brewing early versions of his Wicked Ale in his kitchen before he went commercial seven years ago.

On a recent promotional tour of New England to introduce Pete's Wicked Lager, Pete stopped in Boston, to meet beer drinkers at the Bull and Finch pub, inspiration for the television show Cheers, and pour his new lager at the Boston Brewers Festival. In between appearances, the YBN sat down with Pete and discussed the microbrewing industry over a glass of Wicked Ale.

Like so many hombrewers, Pete has a technical background. A former engineer and product manager at ROLM Corporation, a telephone systems company, Pete satisfied the taste for flavorful beers he developed during a trip to England by brewing his own for six years. Pete's skills and renown grew, to the point where he was, just for fun, brewing commemorative beers for new products that his company introduced.

Finally, in 1986, Pete's Wicked Ale began as a contract brew made by the Palo Alto Brewing Company. "I loved Samuel Smith's Nut Brown Ale," he recalled. "But the recipe I eventually settled on was hoppier, which I decided I liked even more."

From its beginning as a West Coast microbrew, the growth of Pete's Brewing Company has been meteoric, with an average annual growth rate of 86% over the past five years. Now available in 37 states, including all of New England, where Boston is a very strong market for the brewery, production has zoomed from 5,000 barrels in 1989 to an estimated 60,000 barrels for 1993.

Pete bristles at the idea held by some people that he is only a marketer of a contract-brewed beer. "I have personally brewed in each of the facilities that we have used over the years," he said.

"I brewed my last batch in February. I've spent a day on the kegging line. Have you ever tried to bung 800 barrels? " he asked rhetorically." I don't, however, do all of the day-to-day brewing, obviously, because of the volume, and my other responsibilities.. I'm also involved in formulating new beers, assuring quality, educating our sales staff, and serving as spokesman for the company," he added. "And we do have our own brewery, the old Schmidt brewery in St. Paul, Minnesota. We have our own equipment, our own people, we schedule production, order materials--and we're licensed as a brewer."

When asked if Pete's Brewing Company had any other beers planned, Pete launched into the subject with relish. "We plan to introduce a 'Wicked Winter' but we're unsure right now whether it will be an ale or a lager," he said. As a homebrewer at heart, Pete wants to retain a tie to that creative element within the brewing community. "Our winter beer is potentially going to based on a beer brewed by the American Homebrewer's Association's Ninkasi Award winner," he enthused. The brewery is not limiting the style possibilities to the traditional strong beers or spiced ales, either. "I'm a smoked beer fanatic, for example. I'd like to make something like a smoked porter! We'll fly the homebrewer to St. Paul to oversee the brewing of a 400-barrel batch of the beer, and put his or her name on the beer's label. The brewer will also be able to go to the Siebel Institute's short course in brewing at our expense."

Pete's Wicked Ale is now widely distributed in New England, and has been heavily promoted in the region. With the introduction of Pete's Wicked Lager, a Germanic lager high on hop aromatics, Samuel Adams Boston Lager, long a regional favorite, comes to mind. Pete dismissed the idea, however, that he is trying to take on The Boston Beer Company on its home ground. "I just want to get our beers out to as many people as possible," he explained. "I want to educate people about what good beer tastes like."