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Meet Justin Stambaugh of Stave & Nail Brewing Company North San Diego County

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Today we’d like to introduce you to Justin Stambaugh.

Justin, please share your story with us. How did you get to where you are today?
My story, like many other professional brewers today, started with simple home brewing roots. I had a passion for creating in general and found the science and art aspects of making beer to be intriguing and limitless. Turns out I was right. There is so much to learn when it comes to alcohol fermentation, and one of my favorite aspects of my job is knowing that it’s an endless journey. No matter how many years I spend honing my craft, I never feel like I have mastered it, and that is a powerful motivation. That drive to learn eventually led me to getting a job at a local brewery here in San Marcos called Rip Current. This was in 2012 before the brewery had opened, and I was bartending at a restaurant across the street. When I saw they were opening, I practically beat the door down to get a job, and after several emails and drop-ins, they agreed to take me on as an unpaid intern. That’s the way it stayed for about a year. I would work in the brewery during the day doing cellar work, washing kegs, and eventually training on the brewhouse and go to work at the restaurant at night. Eventually, I got paid to work at the brewery and what a great feeling that was. My goal was to become a professional brewer, an accolade I considered prestigious, even if the money was shit. I didn’t care about the money, I was doing what I wanted to do and I was passionate about it.

After devouring as much information as possible from books, internet forums, and of course from new brewing gig, I was able to progress quickly. Within a couple of years, I was promoted to Head Brewer and from there to the Head of Brewing Operations. Obviously, these roles came with a lot of learning and growth. That shaped me and I really started putting together a list in my head of how things should be done and how they shouldn’t. Getting to see a brewery go from startup to seven years in gives you a unique view on the growth and growing pains of a small business. It was these lessons, coupled with my developing beer and brewing knowledge that gave me the confidence to start formulating my business model.

Between 2010 and 2016 or so, the country went through a craft beer boom. When an industry booms like this, you tend to see new market entrants eager to get a piece of the pie. Those entrants came in droves in San Diego and I had a front-row view of the effect that had on the brewery I was with and the local beer industry, both positive and negative. One thing I noticed was a cookie-cutter model being born. All of the breweries started to look the same, same beer styles, similar tasting rooms, even similar branding style. It was as if somebody had held a secret meeting, put beer in a box and said, ‘This is how we do it, this is how you make money’ and everybody gobbled it up. What I saw was a need for something new. I had a dream of owning my own brewery one day, but I did not care to fall in line with the status quo of the industry. That is when I stumbled across barrel-aged sour beer and it really flipped my world with regards to beer. I started experimenting with sour fermentation and just like my initial homebrew batches, it wasn’t great. I persevered, mainly because it was a whole new world with regards to fermentation. I was used to following the rules. A single yeast strain, avoiding wild yeast and bacteria at all costs, narrowly defined flavor profiles and style guidelines. Sour beer was different, it was brewing with the handcuffs off. Now I was able to experiment with different strains of wild yeast and bacteria to achieve different flavors. The results were varied and that was acceptable and encouraged. Now instead of a handful of different control knobs, I had literally hundreds. I had an endless amount of buttons to push and it felt great.

The next step was to take it to the professional scale which led me to approaching the brewery about starting a Barrel-Aged Sour Program. They said yes, and I’m forever grateful for that. I now had the ability to experiment on a larger scale and really hone in my skills, all the while in the back of my mind making mental notes of how I would do it if I had my own. This phase lasted a couple of years and I felt confident with my newly developing skills. Confident enough to spend the next six months writing a business plan which I then pitched to my grandfather, I got my brother on board (who is also a professional brewer in San Diego), and that was the beginning of my Stave & Nail Journey.

Great, so let’s dig a little deeper into the story – has it been an easy path overall and if not, what were the challenges you’ve had to overcome?
Certainly not, but that is business. I think initially you don’t know what you don’t know and that makes things difficult. A huge learning curve there is initial expenses. If I were to do it all over again, I would save myself a lot of money that was spent on things that were not critical during the startup phase. I would also say, if you have the option, don’t come into a new business venture undercapitalized. You need room to grow, and you build that growth runway with capital. Things were and still are difficult with how tight our budget is. Our growth could have been accelerated and kept up with demand better if we would have started with more money. Of course there are so many more struggles but the one I would say stands out the most is one that I am currently struggling with, and that is delegation. I feel like every business owner goes through it, and I am in the thick of it. Why? I think it’s tough to let go of your baby. That can be good and bad, of course. You want things to be done well and up to standards, but you don’t want to have to be the only one who does things. Currently, we are working on outsourcing social media and bookkeeping but it won’t stop there. As we grow, the goal is to simplify how the business is run and slowly become more hands-off.

Alright – so let’s talk business. Tell us about Stave & Nail Brewing Company – what should we know?
Stave & Nail Brewing Company is a small, family run craft brewery that has a strong focus on Barrel-Aged Sour and Wild Ales among other styles. We have been around for just over a year, but that journey started over 18 months before that when we filled our first barrel. Our beers can take between 1 and 3 years to produce including barrel aging, fruiting, and bottle conditioning time. Our beers are different, they are complex and obscure, but we believe that there’s a beauty in the obscurities. We are passionate about what we do which includes the beers we create, the atmosphere we have cultivated, and the brand that we are building. What am I most proud of? Well, that’s a little early to say. We have big dreams and lots of goals to accomplish on the way, but I would say I am most proud of getting the team fully bought into our high standards.

Is there a characteristic or quality that you feel is essential to success?
We put in absolute effort with everything which means settling is never even a question, not only with the beer quality but in every aspect of our business. Give everything and you will regret nothing.

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