Interview with James Fox, our new head brewer

We have shared in a number of posts about our new head brewer, James, who came over from the US earlier this year, having never even visited Japan before having an interview with us. His path is an unusual one, and so Ben decided to interview him to let people know a little bit about his path to being a brewer, and what he sees the state of the industry as being, and why he wanted to challenge this role in Japan.

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--- I want to start off the interview with your career beginnings, before your life in beer. You were in air traffic control in the American military. Why did you want to go for that to begin with?

James: Well when I was a kid I was fascinated with jets, and I originally wanted to be a pilot, and the easiest way to segue into that was through air traffic control. And then I find out that I was too tall!


--So there’s a restriction on that?

James: Yes. I wanted to be a fighter jet pilot and, not only do you need to be able to fit into the pilot’s cockpit, but there is also a limit to your height based upon the pressure the G force puts onto your spine.

--So you were in air traffic control, and then you discovered beer?

James: Well I actually didn’t use to like beer, when I had only had macro beer. My changing point was when I was in air traffic control in San Diego and we went bowling, and we had a pitcher of Stone IPA, and I thought, “I actually like this!” From there, I went around trying different breweries’ beer, and then I realised I could make it myself, and so I got into home brewing, home brewed for a couple of years, and then got into college through the military to do mechanical engineering, while still home brewing.

--So when you started making beer, what was it that was exciting for you? The fact you could do it?

James: Kind of. The mixing of ingredients and the challenge of it. I never went into extract brewing (using brewing kits with malt extract), and so I did everything from scratch from the beginning. I did all calculations by hand. I was self-taught through books and whatever I could find online, and then experimentation, trying new ingredients and seeing how they worked. Sometimes they were great, and sometimes they weren’t, but I was always learning.

--In Japan, home brewing is currently illegal. I get the impression in the US most people start in home brewing, is that right?

James: Yes, it certainly was in the past. Nowadays people go through brewing science degrees and so start from the academic side, but it’s true that a lot of people go the home brewing route.

--It’s one of the challenges within Japan - people have to get experience through working at another brewery to learn how to make beer legally.

So You were doing your degree and working part-time at Stone, then?

James: Actually I went to full-time while I was doing my degree, and even did a part-time job at Hill-crest at the same time!

--Were you sure you were going to get a career in brewing then?

James: I just liked what I was doing at the time. I wasn’t necessarily going to start a career in it then, but I was enjoying what I did. I then started to wonder whether I wanted to continue where I left off, using my military experience and my engineering degree, or starting from scratch with craft beer. I then decided to shift my career towards doing what I love. I didn’t want to just work for money any more. Craft beer gave me what I was looking for, in that it uses my mechanical engineering degree, and then I like the artistic aspects, and it is always challenging. There are always new things to do. That is what has always kept me interested.

--You graduated in mechanical engineering, and then how long after that did you join Ballast Point? 

James: It was pretty much straight after graduating. Funnily enough, my boss at ballast point was the person who actualy got hired for the position i originally applied for before starting at stone!

--You joined as a staff brewer, but you quickly moved up quickly to be Director of Brewing Operations (head brewer) at the second location. Can you share with me how that happened?

James: Yeah. As you said, at Stone, I was doing more work on the packaging side, and brewing at Hillcrest, and I became a trainer at Stone. At Ballast Point I joined as a staff brewer. It was somewhat automated and I hadn’t had experience at that scale really until then. I was afforded quite a bit of freedom for experimentation even at that scale. Several months after commissioning the repurposed Paulaner copper brew house, they were actually considering removing it due to it underperforming on efficiency. With this freedom to experiment on the brewhouse i was able to make several process changes to boost the efficiency by ~12%. Because of this they were able to save the system, and they still use it now. That was one aspect that gave me the chance to prove my worth. They then gave me the chance to manage the cellar, which was my first foray into management in the beer industry, during this time I ended up commissioning 4 centrifuges at that facility alone, learned a lot about filtration, again brought up efficiency in terms of greater yields in several areas.

--So that all happened in San Diego, and then you were given the chance to build up their second facility on the East Coast. As I understand, it was similar in scale to the first place. What scale of operation were you looking at?

James: The building was actually about 3 times the size, the brewhouse was about 100 barrels (around 12,000L per brew), and at the peak of production, and about a 20-25 person team. It was quite well automated, though, and very efficient. With this capacity is when we started to take on and scale up brewing operations for Funky Buddha out of Florida. At Cape May, the production volume was much lower, but I needed more people to run it.

--You were at one of the biggest craft breweries in the US, running one of their two biggest facilities, what made you want to take a change in direction and go smaller? You could have managed larger and larger teams.

James: Yes, that was a hard decision. I guess I wanted to focus on doing what I loved, and the bigger the position, the less involved I was in doing what really made me fall in love with craft beer. At this point, Constellation bought Ballast Point, and craft beer was changing. The culture was changing, and it was changing in a way that, long term, wasn’t going to be what I wanted to be doing in craft beer. As a result, I went for a smaller but growing company, where things are more dynamic. More crazy - I guess I like crazy!

--What was it about the culture you liked?

James: It’s just that the environment of the small dynamic team is that everyone is there because they want to be there, and they want to make the best beer they can. The bigger it gets, the more the priority changes away from the beer. You can’t avoid that. But the small-mid size range you can be both business savvy while also focusing on the quality, that really matters and is fundamental.

--Where do you see the industry now? People got into craft beer because it was growing and it was exciting, and there was a lot of freedom, but as businesses get mature, they become more business-like. How do they manage to balance that?

James: I think that is very company specific. As companies get bigger, they can still focus on the people and what they are doing - it’s more than just the product. In some places, it can end up being all about the bottom line. In many instances, if you focus on the product, the business part falls in line and takes care of itself.

--Shifting the conversation, what made you consider a position in Japan? You told me before that you were looking at different paths - what made you consider our job advertisement.

James: I definitely wasn’t searching for an overseas position. It wasn’t something I was seeking exactly. I wanted to find somewhere that I could enjoy what I was doing again. It could be craft beer, or could be a new experience where I could use my skills. When the opportunity came along, it was a surprisingly good fit for what I was looking for.

--But when you first saw, you must have noticed right early on that it was a job in Japan - why did you keep reading?

James: I like challenging myself. Being able to take my experience, but also learn about a new culture, a new environment, a new consumer base. It was a chance to reignite my interest in craft beer, and challenge myself, without fundamentally changing the type of work I’m doing. You can’t often shift your perspective and experience a new culture and part of the world while doing what you love.

-- Before you moved over, when you were still in the process, what was your impression of KBC? You didn’t know the beer culture in Japan yet.

James: The big things I was looking for was the attitude of the people and the product. You can immediately get a sense of that. With my experience, you can see it in the care of the facility, and where the company has invested their money, how the team talks about their products. With the team at KBC, I could tell the people were passionate about the products, the company had invested in the people and the equipment. A lot of good signs were there.

--How would you describe the company culture now that you have been here for a couple of months, as someone coming from somewhere else?

James: It’s fun. People work hard, and there are struggles and issues, and people put their heads down and work seriously. They take their work seriously but not themselves. There is a lot of camaraderie. I really enjoying working with them. The company is changing a lot, but the focus right now is very much on quality of ingredients, and levelling up craft beer, not just for ourselves, but also for the industry in Japan.

--You mentioned just now about “leading the charge”. In what ways do you think we can do that?

James: We are still very much in the educational stage now. Educating the audience for a start. And we have an opportunity in that people are less familiar, and so we can define the industry without necessarily replicating the same mistakes that have happened in the US, for example.

--What mistakes are they?

James: I feel in America, instead of leading the trend and innovating, it is shifting to following trends. Sharing knowledge and challenging what we do is what is strong, and now it feels like it is more like seeing what sells and then focusing on just making those. So finding a good balance of making quality products, and trying to challenge what we do, whether in terms of process or offering new products.

--How do you think Japan can avoid the same pitfalls? When competition increases, it is hard to ignore what the trends are. We are making some of the popular styles now - partly because that fits in with your knowledge and strengths!

James: I think as long as the people in the brewery are having fun and enjoying what they are doing, it will show in their product. Some breweries just do lagers, but do them amazingly well. Some people do just hazy IPAs but do them really well. Some places do a lot of things and are really varied. The key to them being good is how much they are enjoying it, and how passionate and focused they are. The consumers pick up on that.

--America was kind of the pioneer of craft beer, and has its own challenges now. What do you think the challenges for Japan are now?

James: Japan has a great opportunity because it has a strong beer drinking culture. Not many countries have such a high portion of drinking being done through beer, so the key point is really about education. And then outside of that there’s the logistics structure of beer in Japan, getting the craft beer into hands of consumers. Japan will require more relationship development and breaking down walls with the distribution network, so that you can see craft beer gaining exposure to the masses, so that people can learn that they like it, just as I had an opportunity to try Stone IPA all those years back, which of course change my whole career’s trajectory.

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James has only been here a few months, but has already had a lot of challenges in terms of getting our new equipment up and running, including deaerated water systems and our new centrifuge, in addition to improving our operations. We have also been keen to leverage his experience in making beers different to those KBC has traditionally been known for, whilst trying to improve on the beers that people associate with KBC’s beer identity. We hope you enjoy trying our new “KBC 2.0” dubbed beers, many of which are new styles for us, or experimental beers, as well as being ones that brewers love to make and drink. You can also expect information coming up on tweaks to our year-round beers and existing series, which we look forward to sharing in the near future. Cheers!