Today we’d like to introduce you to Kirk Nishikawa.
Hi Kirk, please kick things off for us with an introduction to yourself and your story.
We (Sherwin and Kirk) became friends way back in high school when huge baggy pants, Cool Water cologne and Tommy Hilfiger Jackets were still in fashion. We quickly discovered a shared love for cars and disobeying our parents. Sherwin was known as the “go to guy” when it came to fixing our friend’s cars, and I (Kirk) was always there to help with stubborn rusty bolts and stuck axels. This partnership eventually progressed to a point where we began meticulously restoring classic cars together.
After cars, we formed a very, very, very amateur garage band with our friends. You might be fortunate/unfortunate enough to see us bang on the drumset above the office during taproom hours. After the garage band, it was home brewing craft beer and tinkering on Sherwin’s fixer-upper house.
For our day jobs, Sherwin worked as an ASC Master Certified Mechanic for over 20 years and I am an Architect for 8 years and restaurant manager for my mom’s restaurant for four years.
Sherwin’s love for beer and passion for brewing is what initially inspired me and many of our friends to become beer fanatics in their own right. It all started with a Mr. Beer kit that so many of us are given as a Secret Santa gift at an office party and then regifted years later. Eventually, brewing moved to his stove. As Sherwin became more and more sophisticated with his brewing, he began to enter home brewing competitions and accrued a large collection of medals. It was only a matter of time before an ill-advised drunken promise locked both Sherwin and I down a path to opening a brewery together. In a strange way, it literally took massive amounts of craft beer to start this business. It started out as a joke really, then a dream, then a realistic dream. As the pieces of the puzzle started to come together, we decided to quit our careers and go all-in on building out our brewery.
On December 5, 2015 we opened the doors to Glendale’s very first micro-brewery, Brewyard. Since then, we’ve enjoyed welcoming folks in to be a part of our craft brew-loving extended family.
Can you talk to us a bit about the challenges and lessons you’ve learned along the way. Looking back would you say it’s been easy or smooth in retrospect?
Being a bootstrapped dream, the road was anything but smooth. When you don’t have any working capital to start with, you basically have to roll up your sleeves and grind out a slow growth trajectory sacrificing paychecks to buy more ingredients, kegs and equipment to get to where we are today. The COVID Shutdown definitely didn’t help but it did force us to take more chances and double down on our growth to survive the pandemic. Amazingly enough, those bets paid off and we are still here in better shape than before.
Finding our Beer identity was also a struggle since we pretty much knew LA was a lager-centric city but just couldn’t figure out how to market these beers without being compared to establish brands like Budweiser, Miller Coors and such. The term lager was almost a taboo notion if you were trying to break into the craft beer scene not too long ago.
Now that lagers are becoming more widely accepted in the craft beer scene, I feel like we can really start vocalizing our passion for brewing them.
Alright, so let’s switch gears a bit and talk business. What should we know?
Brewyard is a craft brewery in a tucked-away converted warehouse with one simple mission: Redefine and rediscover the universe of Lagers.
We brew beautiful hybrids that offer strong flavor like an ale but still retain the light crisper finish of a lager. Originally this type of Lager had one champion, the California Common. We expanded this category of lagers to encompass dozens of flavors from Hoppy, Roasty, Smokey, Malty, fruity and Pale.
Being of Filipino and Japanese descent, we also enjoy experimenting heavily with Filipino ingredients and various Asian ingredients that we grew up with.
We also like to dabble in Belgian Ales, Barrel aging and various other styles of beer that tickle our fancy at any given time.
The open layout of the brewery & taproom was designed intentionally so you can see and follow the brewing process all the way from the milling of the grain down to the kegging out of the fermentation tanks full of Brewyard beer. If you catch us brewing or working the taproom, don’t be bashful. If you ask, we’ll probably give you an energetic impromptu tour of the brewery.
We are happy to be here, working hard to make world-class beer and to hang out with you all. As long as our doors are open, you are welcome!
So, before we go, how can our readers or others connect or collaborate with you? How can they support you?
We are always looking to collaborate and get all communities in the area involved in brewing beer. We’ve worked with countless non-profits to help them raise money and awareness of their programs and mission statements. All they need to do is send us an e-mail or even just stop by the taproom.
We also appreciate your support when you stop in and share some pints with your friends or pick up 4-packs of our beers at the local bottle shops, restaurants and markets in the area.
Contact Info:
- Website: www.brewyardbeercompany.com
- Instagram: Brewyardbeerco
- Facebook: Brewyardbeerco
- Twitter: Brewyardbeerco
