E-Malt.com News article: USA, CA: Strand Brewing to open new brewhouse in Torrance on October 22

Strand Brewing Company’s co-owners Rich Marcello and Joel Elliot plan to open a new, 36,000 square foot brewhouse in Torrance, Easy Reader News reported on August 27.

Together, the pair have put together one of the South Bay’s first brewing success stories.

State Assemblyman David Hadley named Strand Brewing Company the South Bay’s 2015 Small Business of the Year, calling the company “an early pioneer in what has now become a craft beer renaissance in the South Bay of Los Angeles.”

Marcello went to Sacramento to receive the award, spending the day in the state capital with Hadley.

“From starting in 2009, underfunded, over budget, working two jobs, with no craft beer scene to within six years having someone notice our work enough to give us an award? To win that is an honour,” Marcello said. “It shows that people are noticing the work we’re doing, so we’ll keep our heads down and our sleeves up, grinding away at it.”

After nearly six years in business, the brand that started out as two men and a minivan is moving into their new space with an eye on the future and the thought that this may be Strand Brewing Company’s permanent home.

Near-fanatical dedication to their work has become a trademark of Strand Brewing Company. “We’re proud of that. It’s hard to maintain 100 percent ownership,” Marcello said, noting that he still spends days selling beers himself, going up and down the coast in his trademark white buttoned-down shirt.

But that, Marcello feels, is part of Strand Brewing Company’s charm, and its good fortune. Residents of the South Bay, he believes, are people with a taste for the finer things, with an understanding of the difference between handcrafted and mass-produced goods.

The only problem with a passionate following like Strand Brewing Company’s is high demand. Though they’re running at as high a capacity as they can currently manage, Marcello says they’re “running on E” almost daily.

When Elliot and Marcello split from their former partner, it was a pivotal time in their nascent history. If they couldn’t recover, they’d sink.

Luckily for them, however, Elliot thrives on pressure. “I feel like I’ve done my best work when I’m drowning,” he said.

Elliot was forced to fall back on what he learned when he was young, taking things to their most basic units and putting them together to work. So, Elliot went about re-assembling Strand Brewing Company’s beers — not remaking their old partner’s work, but brewing them as his own, making them for himself.

“I think a large percentage of brewing is art, and really, what good is copying art?” Elliot said.

“The key,” Elliot said, “is in honesty, an ethos that he feels runs throughout Strand Brewing Company as a company.”

“Like any art, it comes from life experience. It sounds cheesy, but it’s true — painters, musicians, they all pull from their life. I suppose I’m doing that too,” Elliot said.

Elliot’s doing that in every facet of the business, keeping his hands in everything from constructing brewing equipment, to building tables, to brewing beer — and as he admits, that might make him sound like a control freak.

“I approach beer the same way — it could easily be automated to the push of a button, but I would probably never do that,” Elliot said. “Whether it’s my hands or the hands of the guys that I train, someone’s hands are involved, and that’s important — hands are the things that build things.”

That, along with their propensity for running on a shoestring budget, is one of the reasons why Strand Brewing Company has kept its personnel numbers low (ten employees, including Elliot and Marcello) as its production numbers continue to jump.

With the new brewhouse, Strand Brewing Company hopes to expand on production numbers that jumped nearly ten-fold in five years, from 350 barrels in 2010 to 4,000 in 2014. Their goal for 2015 is to finish with 8,000 barrels produced.

But for Elliot, it’s not about numbers as much as it is about being satisfied with the product. That satisfaction, and the mutual respect between Elliot and Marcello, is what keeps them working.

“As long as you know your teammate is there, that no matter what he’s going to be doing his best, it makes things easier,” Elliot said. “I think that’s where relationships can fall apart — where one person feels they’re working harder than the other. I’ve never felt that way with Rich. I think we’re just trying to keep up with each other.”

Together, the two hardest working guys in L.A. beer look forward to their business’s new home.

The Grand Opening for Strand Brewing Company’s new brewhouse, 2201 Dominguez St., Torrance, falls on October 22.


28 August, 2015