Q&A: Firestone Walker’s David Walker

CBB // What are some key timeless takeaways that you have learned from the journey of Firestone Walker?

DW // I think the most humbling takeaway looking back on our journey is how the customer and circumstance drive so much. When you start an enterprise like a brewery, your instincts are telling you, “this is huge risk,” and you have to develop a thick skin to prevail. The hardest thing is shedding that skin at the right time and not believing everything you think. Learning how to listen to customers and circumstances is critical and inevitable.
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CBB // What’s similar—and what’s different—for breweries today, versus when Firestone Walker started?

DW // When we started our brewery, the world was indifferent to beer—it was a beverage defined by brand built around a notion of refreshment and good times. Conversations around tradition, flavor, and raw materials were not ones the consumer was interested in. Brewers of the time had diluted their own product and work in the eyes of the consumer. The modern American craft beer movement changed all of that, and within a few decades, American beer became dynamic and interesting—even aspirational. A brewery starting today opens their gates to a world familiar and interested in what they are doing. That’s real change and progress.

CBB // What should new entrepreneurial breweries be mindful of as they try to make their mark?

DW // Be humble, be curious, and don’t believe everything you think.

CBB // What does it take to stand out today—what advice would you give?

DW // I wish the answer to building a healthy brewery was simply to brew beautiful beer. Without a doubt, beautiful beer is at the center of solving the riddle, but it seems so much more complex today. The world is soaked in messages, and consumers are seeking authentic brands (or, in our case, beers) they can connect to, understand, and emotionally invest in. Nothing gives one more pleasure than to make a recommendation to a friend that reflects your taste and style. The brands you love reflect who you are. Think as carefully about brand and message as you do beer.

CBB // What trends should brewers be mindful of as they plan for the next five years?

DW // Trends are exactly what they purport to be: “a change of direction.” Predicting them is helpful, and ignoring them is painful... until they change again, and you get another shot. Either way, we are all stuck with them, like the weather. None of us is immune to their impact.

CBB // Steve Jobs once famously said, “I’m as proud of many of the things we haven’t done as the things we have done. Innovation is saying no to a thousand things.” For a brewery the size of Firestone Walker, most things are possible, but there’s an opportunity cost associated with every new avenue you choose to pursue. How do you make decisions about what to pursue and what not to pursue, and how do you evaluate those decisions and course-correct when necessary?

DW // You have to have guardrails—guiding principles—or you’ll go insane. It’s especially important, as a craft brewery jammed to gills with creative personalities being egged on by a rapacious consumer looking for more flavors. One of our principles is “beer before glory”—a meaningless string of words to most, other than us. In short, it reminds us why we all go to work—because we love brewing beer. We could make other beverages, build restaurant chains, etc., but really what we want to do is make—and be remembered for making—beautiful beer. That’s a guiding principle, and it helps.

CBB // With a business the size of Firestone Walker, there are an infinite number of data points that can influence decision making. What do you find to be the most important metrics to focus on, why, and what systems has your team put in place to track those indicators?

DW // You need to make profit and generate enough “bendy foldies” to fund your expan-sion and sustain the folks who run the brewery. That’s the driving KPI. If you are doing things that lose money, then you need to reevaluate those swiftly. The business model has to be healthy before each stage of growth. A brewery is simply too capital-intensive to run “fast and loose.” Banks have been funding breweries for centuries, and they are not easily confused when covenants are threatened.

CBB // For decades, craft beer has had a familiar marketing playbook—pint nights, tap takeovers, hand sales, etc. But engaging with younger beer drinkers requires a different approach. How has Firestone Walker moved beyond the tried-and-true to engage with customers in fresh ways?

DW // I think none of those traditional ways of reaching consumers has gone away; we have simply added additional ways to compound the noise we make. Digital is obviously one critical way, and I believe it’s no coincidence that when the first tweets started flying in 2006, craft beer entered one of its greatest growth curves. As indicated, building emotional connections with consumers is essential and social media provides that platform.

CBB // Non-brewer owners face a particular challenge in the world of brewing, as smaller breweries can be devastated when key brewhouse staff leave to seek better opportunities. How does Firestone Walker keep key creative and technical team members engaged and rewarded.

DW // We are “who we are” at the brewery, and that is the people who work within it. Keeping our staff feeling as fulfilled as they can be is essential—compensation, benefits, incentives, culture, respect, and purpose are all things we deliver as best we can with the resources we are able to conjure. But ultimately, we are a mortal regional brewery and are blessed by the fact that most of our staff work at the brewery because they enjoy what they do and the role that plays in communities around America. They are proud of the work they do, and that’s the best place to start when keeping people smiling.

CBB // Maintaining a community and “craft” philosophy becomes more difficult as a brewery grows. What steps should brewers take to make sure they don’t lose important connections to customers and to maintain integrity and authenticity while they grow?

DW // Stay engaged. When the driving forces leave a brewery, it loses its magic. The world is littered with empty brewery buildings once helmed by passionate individuals who drifted away or died, and so the heartbeat stopped.

Breweries are no different from anything else you want to create and share—they need purpose and a story. Breweries by nature are easier than most enterprises to start because of this. They require craft and love to create, and personality and charm to share—all the ingredients to build a story and purpose around. They need loving, and if that for some reason wanes, that absence quickly spreads to the brand.

CBB // Having grown a brewery to such significant scale while experiencing a myriad of challenges along the way has given you plenty of perspective to draw from. If you were launching or managing a small (sub-1,000 bbl) brewery today, what might you do the same, what would you do differently, and how would you approach growth?

DW // The sweetest beer is the beer you drink closest to the brewhouse. Small-batch brewing—brewers making their beer in the same place they serve and sell the beer—is the most profitable beer model on the planet and the hardest to compete with. Clear out the remaining regulations and let these guys thrive, literally direct-to-consumer. We’ll have 20,000 breweries in America in a few decades.

This interview has been edited for clarity and length.