Neighborly engagement is part of the plan, says Meredith Maier, co-owner of Six Rivers Brewery. "You know, any local pub is going to be your community hub," and her bar serves many of the functions that a proper town square might. "Last night we did a fundraiser for foster youth ... We've had cooking classes and pairings that we do with other organizations. We host food trucks here. And so just trying to kind of embrace as many things we can do in this community is really important to us."
In this episode of Talk Humboldt, Maier tells Keith Flamer and Tom Jackson about the role of local brewpubs in communities, the laborious process of brewing beer, and how Six Rivers Brewery became California's second woman-owned brewery.
TRANSCRIPT:
Tom Jackson:
Well, hello, I'm Tom Jackson, president of Cal Poly Humboldt, and I'm here today with my dear friend and colleague, Dr. Keith Flamer, president of the College of the Redwoods. Good to see you, Keith.
Keith Flamer:
Good to see you, too, Tom. In a bar!
Tom Jackson:
That's right. A really historic bar in many respects. We're here with Meredith Maier, co-owner, Six Rivers Brewery in Mckinleyville, California. Good to see you, Meredith.
Meredith Maier:
Hi! Thanks for coming to visit me.
Tom Jackson:
How did you get into the brewing business?
Meredith Maier:
I got into the brewing business in a nutshell because I loved the idea of the community of a local brewpub. We started on this journey just about 20 years ago.
Keith Flamer:
And so you say ‘we’ opened it… who was the other part of the ‘we’?
Meredith Maier:
Originally, there were three of us, Kurt, Talia and I, who actually were both HSU alumni, and then Talia and I bought Kurt out in 2008, which made us the second women-owned brewery in state of California, the first being Barbara Groom at Lost Coast in Eureka. So we're in good company here. And Talia Talia Nachshon and I are the current owners here today.
Keith Flamer:
Because you always wanted to be a brewmaster… is that correct? Or you wanted to own a brewery.
Meredith Maier:
Yeah, I kind of just I was working in sales and just loved that community of a local pub and this building had been up for sale off and on. So I hunted down some partners and was introduced to Kurt, and Kurt introduced me to Talia and we became partners from there.
Tom Jackson:
I wonder… is making beer hard? There's there's such a science to it. I acknowledge you didn't want to be the brewmaster but you're a specialist at providing beer to a lot of people.
Meredith Maier:
I have some knowledge of my own now that I've gained along the way. But yeah, I mean, is it hard? It's a science. It's a lot of custodial and cleaning work. It's like the joke, that it's 80% cleaning and 20% brewing because you have to keep equipment sterile and clean and you're constantly cleaning stuff and we have kind of an older system.
So it's a lot of math and a lot of more hands-on work than a lot of the newer systems, which are more automated. And yeah, it's it's laborious.
Keith Flamer:
Is that what you're going to keep to… you know, that hand brewing?
Meredith Maier:
Yeah, I think for now and there's nothing wrong with the brewing component that we're using now. It's clean and sanitary and in good working order. It actually originally came from Humble Brewery and so it's had quite a history of being passed around and we use which are open fermenters, which are a little bit more rare, they're more used in European and German style beers, so that makes us a little more unique in what we're doing.
And we're able to process beer faster by simply because we have to, because as tanks are open and you risk infection and bacteria growth, if you're not moving those beers a little more quickly.
Keith Flamer:
So do you have a certain flavor that you do on a weekly basis? Because I'm trying to understand how you do business.
Meredith Maier:
Our brewing is dictated by orders and volume sold at the bar. So we have a couple of distributors in the greater Sacramento area, up through Redding and then just here on the north coast. And so we brew basically to order for them and we brew a seven-barrel system, which is a smaller system in comparison to our counterpart Barbara. She brews on a 60-barrel and 100-barrel systems. So those are a stark difference in volumes.
Keith Flamer:
I talk to students about business. So you started your business 20 years ago because you wanted to do it. What things have you learned that you would tell a student sitting in front of you right now who is like, ‘I want to do this’. What would your advice be?
Meredith Maier:
Do it! [laughter] Do it. Yeah. I think it's really and I tell people this all the time, like just take the leap and take the chance. You know, there's support in town if you follow kind of the breadcrumbs of things. If you use SBDC, if you use RREDC, use the Chambers and use these things to kind of network and connect with people.
I think that's a good recipe for the start of a successful business. The rest is that hard work piece and that's the part that takes passion and drive. And if you have it, just do it and take it and take the leap.
Tom Jackson:
Meredith, can you talk a little bit about your clientele - who comes here and how committed they are to you and this place?
Meredith Maier:
Yeah, certainly we wouldn't be here without the loyal, really McKinleyville community. We see a lot of families in here and we also get a lot of people coming over from Redding, especially in the summertime. As soon as that dial hit three digits over there, they're kind of bailing out to the coast. And so we have a lot of what I call regulars, people that I know their name and they come over every year a few times during the summer and feel those sunsets and catch a green flash.
Have you guys seen the green flash?
Keith Flamer:
I'm sorry, what is the green flash?
Meredith Maier:
You guys don’t know the green flash? So right when the sun sets and right when it hits the horizon, it sets the green flash across the horizon of the ocean.
Tom Jackson:
How many beers do you need to see that? [Laughter]
Meredith Maier:
Just one!
Tom Jackson:
As we begin to close, would you mind talking about one or two of the biggest highs you've had in running the business, and one of the more difficult moments you've had to overcome in keeping this business afloat?
Meredith Maier:
That pandemic time was really hard. Things had been really rough, you know, in the community coming up to that: legalization of marijuana, which kind of dipped down just like the finances that were available in this community, we had those power shut-offs. We had the government shutdown. And so things were leading up to that that were kind of spelling disaster for a lot of local businesses. And I think coming out of that has been a real high and the most recent time…
Tom Jackson:
Before you go to the high, what is it that you did to to make it work during that period?
Meredith Maier:
I think in the most profound way we really kind of lost our ego. And I think Talia and I were really open to listening to the staff who wanted us to put on our big girl pants, and we were kind of just willing to like, take some heat to make decisions that were right for us, right for our customers, right for our staff.
We really embraced that everyone was struggling and then just trying to uplift as many people as we could in the best way that we could, even if that wasn't always in our best interests, but kind of just for the greater good, became our motto.
Keith Flamer:
So it sounds as though you're almost an official or unofficial mayor or mayor of the area...
Meredith Maier:
Mayor Meredith Maier!
Keith Flamer:
Yes!
Meredith Maier:
You know, I think, you know, any local pub is going to be your community hub. And people call this place the office. We call it the living room where everybody knows your name. And so I think, you know, like I said, we're family-friendly. Last night we did a fundraiser for foster youth, so we’ve been having events. We've had cooking classes and pairings that we do with other organizations. We host food trucks here. And so just trying to kind of embrace as many things we can do in this community is really important to us.
Keith Flamer:
Wow, what a great vision.
Meredith Maier:
Yeah. Isn't it more fun with friends?
Tom Jackson:
Meredith, thank you very much for your time today and letting us come into your brewery, seeing it and experiencing it and hearing the story, the 20-year story about how you got to this point. Thank you very much.
Meredith Maier:
My pleasure.
Keith Flamer:
You are so inspirational. Thank you so very much.
Meredith Maier:
My parents will be happy about that.
Tom Jackson:
Do you want us to to write a note? [laughter]
