Yesterday, West Coaster reported a parting of ways between Modern Times Beer and its director of brewery operations, Rick Blankemeier. Like many key Modern Times employees, the company plucked Blankemeier from the business founder Jacob McKean worked for two years prior to opening his own, Escondido’s Stone Brewing. Neither parties provided insight into Blankemeier’s departure, but today we are happy to report the more positive news that the he has been hired to head quality operations at North County’s Belching Beaver Brewery.
As quality manager, Blankemeier will work to develop a comprehensive quality program. Key to that will be construction of a new quality-assurance laboratory at Belching Beaver’s Oceanside facility. Blankemeier’s hiring comes at a time when his new company is in the midst of a great deal of growth. The company currently operates two brewing facilities in Oceanside and Vista (the latter includes a restaurant component), a Vista brewpub and two satellite tasting rooms in San Diego County. Owner Tom Vogel has also shared his interest in opening locations in Orange and/or Los Angeles County.
Blankemeier is a graduate of University of Colorado Boulder, who started his career in petrochemical engineering in Denver before moving to Escondido and accepting a brewer position with Stone in 2010. With his lab and science background, he transitioned to the QA department, ascending to a management position. His key accomplishments with Stone included helping to build QA labs at Stone’s Escondido packaging hall and Richmond, Virginia brewery. He also developed quality-testing standards for Stone as well as Modern Times after being hired by the latter in early-2017. A North County resident, he is looking forward to being closer to home, and will spend most of his time at Belching Beaver’s Oceanside headquarters.