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| James (front) and Dave (back) assisting customers with their beer thirsts. |
“Basically,
this was just a big box with a bunch of stuff in it,” he says, gesturing at the
2,000-square-foot building behind us, adding that, until 2012, a general
contractor used it for storage, and that the adjacent lot on the right was a
once-vacant, weed-choked square of dirt that he and his cousin, James, have
since converted into a picnic-tabled lawn and a 100-plant hop garden.
Dave
here is holding a pint of Santa Barbara Pale Ale, taking regular swigs of the
fresh brew that he and James created just steps away, where a handful of thirsty
patrons imbibe near the bar that is made from local wood.
“We often say that the third biggest part of
the brewery, other than James and me, is Santa Barbara—that being its surf
culture, its art culture, its music scene. These are all things that play a big
part in our lives and in how we operate and run the business.” He takes a swig
of beer and swallows it with a smile. “It’s just the two of us for now—we do
just about everything.”
In
2011, after many years of homebrewing, James, 30, decided to launch Pure Order
Brewing Company, today a microbrewery in the truest sense, featuring a humble 15-barrel
brewing system (producing 1,755 liters of beer per batch—about 3,700 pints)
with which he creates tasty, smooth styles like Crooked Neck Hefeweizen, Red
Eye Wheat, and Black Gull Porter.
James
named the brewery after Reinheitsgebot
(“purity order”), the German beer law, written in 1516, that mandated the sole
ingredients in beer production were to be water, barley, and hops. (Yeast was
not mentioned because it would be another 300 years before French chemist Louis
Pasteur discovered the role of microorganisms in fermentation; hence, yeast was
not known as a beer ingredient.)
“Surfing
is the purest form of a sport—you’re one with Mother Nature—and we like our
beer to be as pure as it can possibly be,” James says, after joining Dave and
me outside. “We’re going to keep it to four ingredients, and live or die by
that.”
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| Pure Order's prolific hop garden and part of the lawn leisure area. |
With
its grand opening on March 15, three years after the cousins’ first “board
meeting” (actually on surfboards out at Rincon), Pure Order is the fifth and
newest of Santa Barbara’s breweries—and with a niche.
“As
for setting ourselves apart from the other breweries as far as the surf
community here goes,” James says, before heading back inside to pour pints for
customers,” we’ve had lots of talks about marketing for the Rincon Classic, and
we’ve talked with Matt Moore about getting in with him and doing collaborations
of a different sort. Stuff like that. The fact that we surf has a lot to do
with our beers. They are very California-centric, Santa Barbara-centric.”
While
James grew up in Pasadena, frequenting the waves at County Line, he now lives
in San Roque, and for his entire life has surfed Rincon and other spots in the
805. Conversely, Dave is a lifelong Santa Barbara resident, a 2005 graduate of
Santa Barbara High who caught his first wave at Rincon when he was four.
“Surfing
is such a big part of our lives,” Dave says. “We have plans to do some things
here and there for the surf community in terms of philanthropy and that sort of
stuff. We’re trying to bring good, new beer into the Santa Barbara area, and in
doing so, trickle out to the best surf spots. Our families own a few homes down
on the point at Rincon, and that’s where we grew up riding waves. The best
times we’ve spent together have always involved the ocean.”
And
so the Queen of the Coast, in more ways than one, has birthed another special
Santa Barbara enterprise.
“Surfing
is such a big part of who we are,” Dave says, finishing his pint, “so it naturally
infuses itself into Pure Order, certainly through James’s creativity with our
beers. If you’re an artist, I’d imagine that waves pop up in a lot of your art.
As surfers like James and I are, waves pop up in our beers.”
Pure Order Brewing Co., 410 N. Quarantina Street in
Santa Barbara, 805-966-2881; tasting room hours: Friday 4-7 p.m.,
Saturday-Sunday, noon-7 p.m.
pureorderbrewing.com; @pureorderbrewco
