The Glory and The Power of Beer

Pictured above: Top L-R: Tommy Suwara, Luigi Lucas; bottom L-R: James Potter, Chris Enegren, Lucy Enegren (dog), and Steven Bradley.

Enegren Brewing was founded in 2010 by two brothers, Chris and Matt Enegren, and their pal Joe Nascenzi. The three attended Loyola Maymount together where Chris and Joe played on the lacrosse team. They bonded over beer and Chris, a mechanical engineering student, not only led the three into home brewing…he envisioned how he could actually design his own brewhouse systems. And that he did. Each evolution of Enegren as a brewery, from their first 10-gallon home brew system to the current 15 BBL professional brewhouse, was designed by Chris. 

And then there is their dedication to brewing almost exclusively lagers in hop-crazed California. Sure. There have been other breweries which eschewed the call to focus on IPAs, but over a decade (a longevity which only includes handful of local breweries), Enegren is a rare example of sticking to their proverbial guns: a profound love of German-inspired lagers.  

Enegren states this on their website as to why they brew: “There is something special about beer. Something uniquely intrinsic about its nature that brings people together to celebrate life, feats of strength and the honor earned from a hard day’s work.” They go on to ask us to raise a glass to the glory and power of beer.  And in these challenging times, that is exactly what we plan to do. 

DRENNON: I’ve interviewed a lot of brewers, but you are the first that had a homebrewing operation in your campus dorm and met your brewing partner on a lacrosse field. Of course, the third partner is your brother Matt. Take us through the discovery of home brewing and the relationships that brought the three of you together. 

ENEGREN: I was a Mechanical Engineering major at Loyola Marymount University and I was always involved in drinking beer and building things.  One night I was at a BJ’s and I was looking at a schematic of the brewing process and I immediately realized I needed to figure out how to build something like that.  I went to a local homebrew shop, bought the typical malt extract brewing equipment and that was the start.  After a few brews, I got on my CAD computer and designed a structure and piping system and built my first all grain system soon after.  I brewed on this with my brother Matt for a year at LMU in the backyard of the house I was renting.  I moved into an apartment the next year and my friend Joe (Nascenzi) who I played Lacrosse with offered up his garage in addition to his help in brewing.  That kicked off the Matt, Joe and Chris brew team. 

DRENNON: You went from a 3-gallon homebrew system to a 10-gallon homebrew system to a 3-barrel commercial system to your current 15-barrel pro system. You designed them all yourself. What was your technical skill set that enabled you to design your own systems? 

ENEGREN: My degree in Mechanical Engineering really came in handy when it came to mechanical system design.  Being able to use CAD to design everything before I built anything was invaluable.  To add to that, I was also working as an Automation Engineer at Medtronic where I spent my time designing factory automation systems.  I worked for a German Electrical engineer named Marco who I learned everything programming and electrical engineering related from.

After work, I would combine everything I was learning during the day with all of the scrap automation parts I could get a hold of and integrate everything into my homebrew system.  It wasn’t long before that system had a full control system with a 15” color touch screen. 

When we realized it was time to go pro, I contacted Premier Stainless and purchased a 3bbl system that I was able to custom design and incorporate all of my automation into since the systems were mainly pushbutton and basic. 

A few years later, Rob Soltys, the owner of Premier Stainless offered me a part time job designing automated brew systems for them and that’s when I left Medtronic and was fully in the brewing industry.  I would then spend the day designing automated brew systems for other breweries and the nights designing and wiring my own custom 15 bbl system. 

DRENNON: Was there an epiphany moment when you realized you wanted to open your own brewery? 

ENEGREN: I always wanted to start my own company, but It wasn’t until the time I pulled the cover off the first fermenting bucket and tasted the first beer that I realized that brewing would be the rabbit hole I’d go down.  For me, it’s a complete dream job.  I’m constantly designing new systems and able to run a brewery where I only make beer I like with some great employees. 

DRENNON: You guys focus almost exclusively on lagers.  What’s up with that given California’s famed love of hoppy pales and IPAs? 

ENEGREN: Matt, Joe and I have never been into IPAs.  We were more interested in German and other European styles and started our first commercial brewery with a focus on that.  As an engineer, I have always been impressed with the German brewing methods since they involve a lot more brewhouse technology and the beers are a lot harder to manage properly.

DRENNON: Do you have a brewing philosophy? 

ENEGREN: Our philosophy is that we brew beers that we are passionate about.  We expanded our brewery slowly but steadily on the philosophy that we would keep growing as we needed to be able to handle demand for our beers.  Pushing primarily lagers was tough at the start because most beer buyers at the time just thought that lager meant cheap beer.  The day people don’t want to drink well-made German style lager will be the day that I’ll find something else to obsess over.  To me, it’s sad to see brewers begrudgingly talk about hype styles they are forced to brew to justify expenses.  Brewing takes way too much work and being passionate about it is something that gets myself and the rest of our brewers through tough days.  I can’t manage spending the time I do brewing to make a beer that I don’t plan on drinking. 

DRENNON: Aside from the focus on lagers, what else differentiates Enegren Brewing from the hundreds of other options beer drinkers have to choose from? 

ENEGREN: Our focus on German styles in general is what really differentiates us.  I would describe our brewery as German-style, but lager focused.  Having a focus has enabled us the really dive deep into mastering a few styles instead of trying to be great at everything, which is never possible.  We used to make an IPA, but now we just send people to our friend’s breweries where they dream of hops at night instead of decoction mashes.

DRENNON: Needless to say, 2020 was a business nightmare for small independent breweries. How did you guys navigate the ebbs and flows of closures, regulations and restrictions? 

ENEGREN: Luckily, we had a nice canning line in place when everything closed and were able to switch to canning pretty much everything.  The restrictions and regulations have been difficult since they have always been highly subjective.  It was aggravating trying to tell people that they could drink wine in our biergarten that we shared with a winery but we couldn’t sell them beer because there wasn’t a food truck.  For now, we are just focusing on brewing, canning and NOT throwing office furniture through a window.  We’re so thankful for the support and I’m glad we can keep ourselves afloat.   

DRENNON: You are entering your tenth year. What are the most important lessons you have learned? 

ENEGREN: The most important lesson I’ve learned is to just stick to what you’re passionate about and that will never fail you.  When we first got our current location off to a start, we had a lot of styles we were brewing but were really passionate about our lagers.  It wasn’t until our distributor at the time told us to “knock it off with the German stuff and make fruit IPA” that I said screw this, I’m brewing what I want.  Being focused made our brand what it is today. 

DRENNON: What, if anything, would you do differently if you could go back in time? 

ENEGREN: I really don’t have any regrets.  It’s easy to say that I would have built a bigger brewery from the start, but I don’t think we would have gotten to where we are today if we didn’t take a lot of the steps we took and faced a lot of the issues we faced.

DRENNON: What are your goals and what is your vision moving forward? 

ENEGREN: My goal is to continue brewing the beers we are passionate and letting the brewery grow as big as it can naturally. 

DRENNON: Between talent and work ethic, which is more important? 

Having work ethic but no talent is like wanting to dig a hole without a shovel.  I think both are needed. 

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

Beer Nerd.