Daniel Drennon

Urban Roots Brewing and Smokehouse: 2021 Brewery of the Year

At the California Craft Brewers Cup awards this Fall, unsurprisingly Urban Roots Brewing and Smokehouse was named “Brewery of the Year” for the state of California. Sadly, Beer Paper was still dormant due to the Damnemic. Otherwise, Urban Roots would have surely been our October cover story.  Now that the paper has risen like the proverbial Phoenix, we interviewed Urban Roots brewmaster and co-founder Peter Hoey as our year-end cover story.

Urban Roots launched in Sacramento way, way back in May, 2018 to high expectations, as well as excitement and anticipation, since Hoey and co-founder Rob Archie were already respected, if not revered, in the wonderful world of craft beer.

Hoey, who doesn’t look old enough to have spent nearly a quarter of a century honing his knowledge and skills, has evolved as a brewer the old-fashioned way.  First, he got an education as a student, but later became a long-time teacher, at the American Brewers Guild. He climbed the ladder from being a shift brewer at some obscure place in Chico, Sierra Nevada, before accepting the head brewer gig at Bison Brewing in Berkeley. His next step was becoming the brewmaster at Sacramento Brewing Company before launching his first solo effort, Odanata Brewing, a contract brewing endeavor. When that didn’t pan out (contract brewing is a tough road for many reasons), Hoey started consulting. That role translated into an offer to become Brewer Supply Group’s (BSG) West Coast Regional Manager which he was for seven years.

Along the way, he met and became pals with his future Urban Roots co-founder Rob Archie. Archie is the owner of the critically-acclaimed Pangaea Bier Café in Sacramento, a super cool beer spot that features a fantastically eclectic beer menu and a phenomenal burger that has been named Best in Sacramento multiple times. The two hit it off and discovered they loved travelling the globe in search of world class beer and, even more importantly, immersing themselves in what Hoey describes as “beer culture,” that unique camaraderie characterized by a strong sense of community and friends who share a love and respect for the art form of brewing great beer.

DRENNON: Urban Roots has been what I call a “buzz brewery” and a beer industry darling since the day you opened. To what do you attribute that remarkable affection from patrons and industry peeps?

HOEY: We are happy to have been well received from the start! I think the biggest contributor to that are the relationships that Rob Archie, my business partner, and I have built over our careers. People we look up to and people that inspire us were standing with us when we opened and I felt a huge responsibility to deliver the very best we possibly could to not let them or our guests down. We joke that the brewery was new but Rob and I weren’t. Our goal was and is to contribute to beer culture in Sacramento and in California – to be part of what makes beer in this state special and that is one of our driving forces to this day.

DRENNON: Why did you guys choose the name Urban Roots and what does it mean to you?

HOEY: Making beer is a combination of agriculture and industrial production. All the ingredients are grown away from cities on farms but most breweries can be found in city centers. That combination of urban setting of an agriculturally based product led us to the name, Urban Roots. The city and the farm coming together to make beer.

DRENNON: I’ve heard and read how you incorporated your favorite elements of breweries from you and Rob’s travels, but please highlight the main ones for our readers.

HOEY: Rob and I traveled together going to beer events for nearly a decade before this project and fell in love with beer cultures all over the world. I was drawn to the biergardens of Germany, which is why we have the large front patio complete with chestnut trees. Rob loved the cafes of Belgium which influenced our bar area design. We both loved the comfort and community of an English pub which is why in the restaurant area we have the high-backed booths. Beer cultures are different all over the world but the one constant is being a place to gather – whether it’s standing at a bar, tucked into a booth, or taking in the beer garden on a sunny day. We loved all those elements and wanted to incorporate our favorite things into the design of the brewery to share with Sacramento and with visitors from all over.

DRENNON: Do you have a brewing philosophy and is that something that has evolved over your many years as a brewer?

HOEY: Curiosity and inspiration. I have always been curious and curiosity drives a lot of what I have learned and a lot of what we do at Urban Roots. Whether it is a new ingredient, or a new process, I want to dive into it and learn as much as I can and bring that back to the brewhouse. Inspiration plays a big role in that as well – tasting a new food can inspire a new beer, or having a remarkable experience on a trip fuels me to look at how our team can improve. Looking at what we can add to make the beer or experience better for our guests. Being open to change and continual improvement is important for the entire business. We are always trying to be better than you were yesterday. You never arrive at “great” – it is a process not a destination and letting that guide or decision making keeps the whole team working together on making great beer.

DRENNON: In any successful partnership, whether it be marriage or business, both individuals complement one another and bring certain advantages to the relationship. How do you and Rob complement one another and what are the strong suits for each of you?

HOEY: Rob has taught me so much over the years about hospitality and guest experience. It’s something that comes naturally to him that didn’t to me. His ability to lead and coach has made me a better leader in the company. We still make decisions together for all business operations but knowing I have such a strong partner looking after hospitality frees me up to focus on brewery operations. I see brewers open their own businesses and frequently they are pulled into tasting room or restaurant management because that side of the business needs a lot of attention. It pulls them out of the brewery that got them into the business in the first place. It is intensely important to me that I remain involved in the brewing operations because that is where my heart is at and working with Rob allows me to do that with confidence that our hospitality won’t suffer when the brewery is demanding my attention.

DRENNON: Having been a teacher at the American Brewers Guild for 13 years, do you believe a person can learn to become a great brewer? How much is natural talent and how much is education, application, process and work ethic?

HOEY: All of those things are important. Being able to thoughtfully impact your beer through a command of the brewing process is really what it’s about. That takes experience, education, and making lots of mistakes to arrive at the thing that works. Building a tool box starts with education, then experience, and you continually add whatever is necessary in order to solve problems, create recipes, and make better and better beer as you grow as a brewer. Drive, ambition and curiosity play a major role in the growth of a brewer and ultimately learning and growing is what is going to help anyone make better beer.

DRENNON: To extrapolate that line of thinking from the quality of the brewer to the quality of the beer, what is the key to brewing great, or what I like to call “wow beer,” as opposed to the more common encounter with good or “just OK beer?”

HOEY: I talk a lot about the small things, water chemistry, pH, recipe formulation, process. Every brewer has access to the same set of ingredients so it’s how you combine them and the processes you use that makes your beer unique and hopefully great. It is all the small details that can elevate a beer from good to great. The other thing I think it requires is being realistically critical of your own beers and not being afraid to continually make small tweaks to fine tune flavors. Ingredients change from crop year to crop year so recipes can’t be static. The other thing is editing what is released – no one wants to dump a batch but if what is in the tank isn’t good then it shouldn’t see the light of day. The pressure can be intense to release just ok beer especially for startups and the last two years of operational restrictions we all experienced. The damage a batch that isn’t up to your standards going out into the world can do to your reputation is far more expensive than making the choice of dumping it.

DRENNON: Where do you rank the importance of equipment, ingredients, original recipes and water quality? Or are they all inextricably linked and thus equally critical to brewing great beer?

HOEY: If a brewer is brewing by taste and experience, brilliant beer can be made on rudimentary systems. And just ok beer can be made on state of the art automated brewhouses. It really is up to the brewery to craft something delicious given the constraints that they face, be it municipal water that isn’t ideally suited for brewing, converted dairy equipment for a brewhouse, or whatever might not be an ideal situation. Making critical choices in recipe, process, fermentation can result in delicious beer in some of the most unusual brewing situations.

DRENNON: I am hoping that the title to this cover story reveals your own recipe for becoming a world class brewer: Passion, process and patience. Have I gotten close to what might just be the Urban Roots mantra?

HOEY: Pretty close! We love what we do, are passionate and process driven brewers. And patience comes in for many of our releases. Waiting until the beer is ready can be difficult. Brewing lager takes a long time. Barrel aged beer takes even longer. The temptation to rush an IPA through is real when you are up against cellar capacity and are risking running out of beer at the pub or shorting distributors. Time is an ingredient that we talk about often for our barrel aged beers, lagers, and even the quicker fermenting ales we produce.

DRENNON: Having been born and raised in North Carolina, one of the handful of BBQ-crazy states in our country, I would be remiss to not ask about the “Smokehouse” component of Urban Roots Brewing and Smokehouse. In my humble opinion, your BBQ equals the world class stature of the beer, which is no mean feat. Why did you and Rob choose BBQ and what is the secret to great BBQ? (grinning) Any chance that is also has to do with passion, process and patience?   

HOEY: We felt that BBQ would be great cuisine to pair our beers with and it comes back to community again. BBQ is one of those foods that brings people together, whether in a back yard, at a smokehouse or in a park. It’s another social component of what we built in Sacramento. You can feed lots of people really fast so it is great for groups and gatherings. And there is no secret, just like the beer, the biggest ingredient is time. We slow smoke overnight most of the meats for service the following day. The butcher’s attention to detail on how the brisket is trimmed, when it is wrapped, how long it rests and how it is cut are all the little things that take it from good to great. There are a lot of parallels to our beer production philosophy there. And just like only being as good as your last beer, the smokehouse is only as good as its last brisket. Both facets of the business have to get up and do it again tomorrow and always strive to do it better than last time.

DRENNON: Well, Peter. Congratulations on being named Brewery of the Year. I strongly recommend that Angelenos take advantage of a short, inexpensive flight up to our state capital to visit your gorgeous and now award-winning brewery. I know I’ve been spoiled to be able to drink Urban Roots on draft at Bottlecraft in Long Beach as well as at Beachwood and Green Cheek for the wonderful collab beers you did with Julian and Evan respectively. Who distributes your beer in the greater Los Angeles region and where can readers found out which area beer bars are lucky enough to carry your damn delicious beers?

HOEY: Our beers are distributed in Los Angeles by Lime Ventures. Best way to find out where to buy the beer would be keeping an eye on your favorite pub or bottle shops’ social media. We don’t maintain a list because so many accounts these days rotate beers in and out and we are sometimes out of stock if we can’t keep up with demand but you can always ask your favorite spot to bring in our beer.

DRENNON: Speaking of collaborations, I’m sure Urban Roots is in high demand and receives more requests than you can accommodate. How do you go about choosing with whom to collab and what do you see as the value?

HOEY: For us it is about inspiration and learning together. Often, they come about while hanging out or traveling with another brewer and we just get talking about something we are working on. What are we going to learn from the other brewery and what will they learn from us? Will we create something that is outside our comfort zone or typical style? Or will we learn (or share) a new technique that helps both brewers? It’s about growth and relationships.

DRENNON: Finally, if you had to describe yourself in one word or phrase, would it be?

HOEY: Curious.

Frances Michelle Cannon (née Lopez). Several years ago, I described “Franny,” the much-beloved Executive Director of the Los Angeles Brewers Guild, as a force of nature. She is a virtual (and powerful) one-woman army who advises and represents 95 independent breweries. In the wake of the tumultuous 15-month period which has seen brewery tap rooms closed due to a worldwide pandemic, social unrest that shook our country to its core and now revelations of rampant sexism (and worse) that have rocked the craft beer community, it turns out calling her a force of nature was an understatement on my part.  

Franny‘s myriad challenges in helping LA breweries navigate (and even stay afloat) during this seemingly unending shitstorm of cataclysmic events are unimaginable. And yet she remains the rock that anchors a resilient and wonderful “family” of Los Angeles breweries that continue to emerge relatively healthy on the other side of continual chaos.   

DRENNON: You are the first ever and only ever Executive Director of the Los Angeles Brewers Guild.  How did you get the job? 

CANNON:  I was very fortunate to have been approached by members of the LABG board back in 2015 about a possible opportunity to become their first Executive Director. I had been employed by a brewery for the last four years but was ready for a change. I was a very active Guild member and handled a lot of the event coordination and marketing for the Guild so it was only a natural progression for me to sign on full-time. The timing couldn’t have been any better. It was not even a full month after my last day at my former job when that company sold to Big Beer and subsequently was no longer qualified to be part of the organization.  

DRENNON: When and/or how did you first get into the craft beer scene? 

I’ve been involved in the craft beer scene for over a decade. I started covering food and wine (then beer) events for various publications, then signed on with The Full Pint around 2011 as a regular writer and associate editor. I got my first real industry break at Golden Road where I was the social media manager for over three years then immediately moved on to the Los Angeles County Brewers Guild in late 2015.  

DRENNON: Where did you grow up and what were you into? 

CANNON: I’m an L.A. girl through and through. I was born up in the Bay Area but spent the majority of my life in Los Angeles. Left for college but came back about 11 years ago. I was the only girl in my group of best friends. I was more into climbing trees and going to punk rock shows than learning how to put on makeup. I got really into putting shows and events together in high school and throughout college. Looking back on those years, it’s clear to me that that DIY ethos and desire to cultivate community are what drives me in my career to this day.  

DRENNON: How did that shape you into the person you are today which, by the way, is one of the most respected figures in a tight-knit craft community here in the second largest city in the country? 

CANNON: Having been raised by a single mom, I learned early on how to be nimble and resourceful. I took those skills with me when I got into the music industry and have built on that foundation in my career today. Personality-wise, I think my no-bullshit attitude resonates with brewers and business-owners alike. We’re all busy and there is no time to waste. Despite having a firm work personality, I’m a big empath, which I feel brings me some balance.  

DRENNON: Speaking of your abundant and seemingly endless supply of support to your member breweries, let’s segue into the profound challenges you have faced over the past 15 months. Let’s start with your current issue du jour, the revelations of sexism and worse that have come to light after Brienne Allan, a brewer at Notch Brewing in Salem, Massachusetts, posted her own stories of discrimination on her Rat Magnet Instagram page and asked other women to do the same. What followed was a veritable tidal wave of horror stories that detailed countless instances of sexism, sexual harassment and even abuse from one coast to the other and everywhere in between.  

What are your own experiences, and how have you advised your breweries to handle this “crisis?”  

CANNON: It’s been emotionally exhausting to deal with everything these last few weeks. Unfortunately, none of this is really new. We see it in every industry at some point, and you could say that the beer industry was overdue in its “reckoning.” I have to acknowledge my privilege. I haven’t had to deal with the terrible behavior or situations my colleagues have, but I am listening, learning, and trying to find every way to help those who haven’t lucked out the way I did. That’s not to say that I haven’t experienced any harassment over the years. There’s always that garden-variety misogyny that all women experience; be it a passive comment or someone undermining you in your role — but the fact that I can even call it “garden-variety” is indicative of how this toxic behavior has been normalized in society to begin with. The fact that I feel “lucky” means that getting respect and being empowered isn’t the norm, and that needs to change.  

It’s uncomfortable for people to confront the idea that they may have been complicit. Our brewery members were very shaken up during all of this, and though our Guild was fortunate to not have had to deal with anything super explosive, it was important for all of us to reflect on everything from whether our businesses have the right human resources available including training and protocols to whether there is a culture of open communication and trust. Many have been taking a mental inventory of past experiences to try and identify whether they did enough to address an issue or take it seriously. 

DRENNON: What steps do you think the beer industry needs to take to remedy what is clearly a systemic problem?

CANNON: The stigma of communicating openly about these issues needs to go. As a business or employer, it is one thing to have all of the legally mandated trainings and HR resources available. But it is another thing to create a safe and inclusive workplace culture where staff members feel that they can raise issues to management without fear. A recurring issue I have seen with these abuse accusations is that problems reported to management or HR often get overlooked or ignored. Another recurring theme involves victims not feeling comfortable speaking up because they don’t feel like they would be believed. Our industry has a lot of work to do in terms of accountability. I’ve been recommending to brewery members to consider third-party consultants and counselors to help them with addressing workplace issues in a fair and transparent way. Community-wise, it is important for everyone to help keep an eye out for those around them. If you’re at a brewery or an event and you see someone who may be getting harassed or needs help – do your part and speak up!  

DRENNON: Another issue that rocked the craft beer industry over last summer (and actually before and since) was the social unrest resulting from the George Floyd murder (and many others) that featured the Black Lives Matter movement rising to national prominence. This challenged breweries with how to show their support and/or respond. How did you navigate that challenge and what advice did you provide to your breweries? 

CANNON: Personally, I didn’t see the rise of the Black Lives Matter movement as an industry challenge. If anything, it was just a part of a larger battle cry for justice, equality, and representation. The fact of the matter is, our community represents a wide spectrum of opinions and while many were aligned in wanting to show support behind the movement, there is also a lot of nuance and politics that are difficult to articulate to consumers. I advised our members to be genuine in their support if they felt compelled to participate. There’s nothing that makes me roll my eyes more than performative activism, so I urged those to make meaningful statements and not empty ones; to put their money where their mouths were. I encouraged folks to invest thought into inclusive hiring practices, working with diverse nonprofits, or just lending a platform to the marginalized whenever possible. We’ve seen new partnerships, collaborations, and events born out of this – and that’s a beautiful thing.  

DRENNON: Another challenge the entire craft beer industry has faced for many years is the lack of diversity in ownership, brewers, staff and even clientele. What are your suggestions as to how we can improve representation across all of those fronts? 

CANNON: This is an issue that we continue to explore. Taking the time to focus on diversity, equity, and inclusion has been top of mind and has been tied to our efforts to protect our work force. But this is also a delicate topic. On one hand, you want to hire the most qualified workers. On the other hand, you want to open opportunities to the under-represented. So how do you accomplish both goals if your candidate pool isn’t reflecting the diversity of our city?  

One of my personal goals at the Guild is to create a type of “open house” networking opportunity for folks to learn more about the jobs we have available and identify the path towards getting to those positions. Los Angeles in particular has a significant shortage in brewing talent. Our Guild brewery numbers grow every year, but the number of trained brewery professionals is limited. I’m seeing this lately as our state gets ready to reopen and breweries are hiring back staff. I think in order to boost diversity, we need to invest in training and outreach to really recruit outside of our very small bubble and create development plans for folks who want to eventually move from the hospitality end of the business over to production or the other way around.  

DRENNON: I am guessing that even though the aforementioned challenges have been daunting, I would presume the most difficult of them all has been the Covid-19 pandemic.  Your breweries essentially had to shut down overnight, pivot to canning and the resulting sales to survive and then cope with the insane see saw of State and LA County health department regulations that had them partially re-opening, face outside and food requirements, deal with hours changing by the week, etc.  How did you find the courage, time and wherewithal to help them navigate through the storm? 

CANNON: This pandemic has kicked my ass all around this county, but I want to think that we did the best that we could at the Guild to make sure that our members were supported. It was challenging to have to pivot from events and marketing opportunities to focusing on member advocacy, but I did this with the support of our members. The Save LA Brewers campaign to appeal to the Board of Supervisors was a team effort and I am so grateful to our community, the over 30 cities and chambers of commerce who co-signed on our efforts, and the dedication of our supporters who called, wrote, and posted on our behalf. The campaign drew enough support to get the attention of Supervisors Janice Hahn, Kathryn Barger, and Hilda Solis; the majority we needed to move the needle to reopen tap rooms and even get included in a few small business relief grants.  

DRENNON: Are you hopeful that in the wake of this incredibly challenging time for the craft beer industry and, in particular, our local independent breweries, that they will emerge stronger, wiser, more diverse and better suited to serve the needs of our eclectic communities in Los Angeles? 

CANNON: Absolutely! If there’s one thing I believe in, it’s the fact that our community is resilient and devoted to being better. Change doesn’t happen overnight, and I’m sure we will have dips in our journey, but the fact that L.A. is already a bit ahead of the curve in terms of diversity means we can only go up from here. I take pride in being able to name so many women and people of color in our industry and I’ll be even more thrilled when we continue to add to that list.