North County native Dave Kachorek is the San Diego Territory Manager for Firestone Walker Brewing Co., located north of San Luis Obispo in Paso Robles. Just this morning he was spotted delivering some of the brewery’s most sought-after beers to Hamilton’s Tavern in South Park for tomorrow’s big “Second Saturday” tap-takeover event. After loading in a bunch of kegs and unwrapping an obscene amount of fresh tap handles, I sat down with him for five questions.
What are you most excited about for tomorrow’s big event?
Let’s just say this is the most developed event Firestone Walker has ever done in San Diego. Four of the twenty-four draft beers we’ll be tapping at 1 p.m. are making their San Diego debut, including our Pivo Pilsner, Double Double Barrel Ale with Brettanomyces, Helldorado – a blonde barleywine – and Luponic Distortion, which is a blend of Union Jack and Double Jack, two of our best sellers here in town. The list is just insane. We’ve got beers that range from two days old to two years old. And the keg of Abacus is, in all likelihood, the last available in San Diego before the name changes to §ucaba.
I hear there will be a special guest appearance tomorrow…
You heard right. David Walker will be here, and he’ll undoubtedly be slinging some beers. He really enjoyed last year’s event, so this one’s been on our calendar for awhile. It’s been a long work in progress, and Blair (Hamilton’s owner) has been great in reaching out to us over the past year to tell us what beers he’d like to see at the event.
For awhile now you’ve been the only sales rep for Firestone Walker in SD. That recently changed, didn’t it?
Yes! Sarah Grossman, formerly of Neighborhood in downtown San Diego, just joined us on January 3rd as the South County Sales Manager. She spent the last week up in Paso Robles brewing with the guys, and tomorrow will actually be her first promotional event with the company. I’m really excited to have her onboard; on a side note, she, David Walker and myself all share a May 20th birthday. Pretty weird, huh?
Any new beers San Diegans can look forward to in 2012?
We’ll be coming out with Wooky Jack, a black rye IPA, in the middle of the year. We’ll also be bottling our Double Double Barrel Ale.
You’re tapping a few casks tomorrow too, right?
Yes, at 5 p.m. casks of Double Jack and Walker’s Reserve Porter will go on. At that point, all the draft beers go down to $3.75 (til 8 p.m.) and the free Greek food feast begins. It’s going to be insane.