By Mark Tichenor and Bruce Lish

San Diego’s Stone Brewing Company is legendary among craft beer lovers. The brainchild of brewers Greg Koch and Steve Wagner, Stone Burst on the scene with a beer named “Arrogant Bastard,” with the text on the bottle insinuating that the drinker was probably not good enough for the beer contained within, Stone piqued the interest of beerheads nationwide.

Turns out the Bastard is a very good brew, and so are the rest of Stone’s beers. Brewing beer for themselves, general public be damned, has been a successful formula for these guys and a slip in the face of traditional beer marketing. Stone is now available throughout the country, and their presence in the Northeast is growing.

“We don’t compromise, ever,” says Michael Saklad, Stone’s Regional Sales Manager for the Northeast. “We’re never going to change to meet mass market desire.”

Fortunately, Saklad has no problem connecting with inquisitive drinkers. A big, burly guy who’d look as much at home on the packaging of a certain brand of paper towel as on the Tap & Mallet barstool where we caught up with him, Saklad is nonetheless adept at gently educating the tastes of new customers.

“I ask people [at beer festivals] what kind of beer they like,” he explains, “and if they say light beer I tell them they’re selling themselves short. It’s like light dawning over Marblehead. I love the reaction when they taste our beer.”

Saklad points out, however, that Stone beer is not for everybody. The result of the brewery’s refusal to compromise for mass-market tastes is a line of beer ranging from the assertively hoppy Stone Pale Ale, to the outlandishly hoppy Ruination IPA. “It’s a progression of aggression,” he chuckles.

It’s a testament to both the quality of Stone beer and the maturing tastes of American beer drinkers that the brewery has been able to expand across the nation without paying for a single external advertisement. The evangelism of the beer community, and the occasional gushing article by people who fancy themselves beer journalists, have carried Stone to every corner of the nation except, bizarrely, Connecticut.

Undoubtedly, a key factor in that expansion has been a willingness to listen to customers that seems out of sync with Stone’s uncompromising attitude.

“We take a manila folder in a file cabinet and put a state name on it when we get the first customer email from that state.” Saklad says between swills. “We allow our customers to pull our beer through the market rather than making the beer and trying to push it through the market.”

For Saklad, a former home brewer who once pounded a desert sales beat for a distribution company in Arizona, it’s a natural approach for this special industry. “I think Stone can become more of a household name within the beer community. On our terms.”

Considering that Stone Brewery is now one of the most revered names in American indie Beer, Saklad is in a god position to have those terms met. And it turns out they coincide quite well with the desires of the American beer lover.

In other beers
It’s a good week for beer tasting. Lovin’ Cup, the new café in Henrietta’s Park Point, adjoining RIT, hosts it’s second monthly “Brew-ha-ha” this Wednesday at 8pm. They’re featuring the beer of Cleveland’s Great Lakes Brewing Company, another recent and excellent addition to the Rochester beer scene. It costs 10 bucks, but you’ll get $2 of if you’re an RIT student or faculty member.

We are also restarting our beer tasting series, Beer School, this Thursday at Monty’s Korner. Now a monthly event, We’ll be guiding people through the finest beers we can get our hands on starting at 7pm. $5 “tuition” gets you plenty of samples and food.

Bruce is a certified beer judge and commercial brewer. Mark owns a laptop and likes beer. For more on beer, check out the beercraft blog, updated regularly, at http://www.beercraftsite.com. Send your questions, suggestions, or comments to beercraft@rochester.rr.com.