Arizona’s Most Beerfluential: #3

As I men­tioned in an early post regard­ing the poll, one of the lessons we learned was that we need a nom­i­na­tion round before the actual poll took place. The per­son behind #3 is one of the rea­sons why we decided to change things up next year. This per­son had the most write in votes in the poll (to the point of harass­ment ) and he hails from the West Val­ley. This tells me that the beer scene out there is grow­ing and cer­tainly band­ing together. We are really happy to see that the com­mu­nity helped bring some notice to their side of the tracks by get­ting behind some­one that has remained strong in pro­vid­ing the best beer possible.

Please con­grat­u­late Sean Ras­sas, the owner of Ground Con­trol, as he was voted 3^rd in the Most Beer­flu­en­tial poll! Cheers!

The Brew Bros: How long have you been in the craft beer community?

Sean Ras­sas: 17 Years. Old Chicago’s in Col­orado Springs offered 10% off your bill if you made it to 80 on their “world beer tour” and a free mug or T-shirt if you made it to 100 and your name on their wall. I was a col­lege stu­dent — all I cared about was drink­ing good beer for the least money pos­si­ble, so that was my moti­va­tion to make it to 80. Along the way, and well over 100 beers later, I learned what beers I really liked (brown ales) and which ones I did not (cel­e­bra­tor dopple­bock). I have ded­i­cated myself to “edu­ca­tion” ever since.

TBB: What types of things do you do in the community?

SR: Never tap crap! Its been craft beer since day 1. My beer rep 5 years ago snick­ered at me when he saw the line-up of my 6 han­dles. He claimed I would not do well with St Bernar­dus Abt 12, Triple Karmeliet, Schnei­der Weisse, Hoe­gaar­den, Dales Pale Ale and one other I can’t rememe­ber. 5 years later and the first 3 are still on draft. We started doing monthly beer tast­ings 4 years ago. We have been able to develop a great craft beer fol­low­ing by edu­cat­ing dur­ing these monthly tastings.

TBB: What do you feel is impor­tant for the state of Ari­zona to accom­plish to gain an edge in craft beer?

SR: Sup­port local beers. I’ve been reluc­tant to for a long time, some­thing about my liver’s desire for bel­gian beer and a lim­ited num­ber of han­dles. That is chang­ing as I am able to add han­dles at each location.

 TBB: Why do you feel like your peers have voted you into the Top 5?

SR: I’d like to think its because of my charm­ing per­son­al­ity! A joke for those who know me well. Its because I stuck to my guns, never tap­ping main stream beer, always tap­ping some­thing as I like to say “You can’t get any­where else!” or put more sim­ply “no crap on tap”. From a busi­ness per­spec­tive, if I tapped Miller/Bud I’d be like every­one else, fight­ing for a $2.50 pint sale. Peo­ple are going to drive to what­ever is clos­est to get one of those. I wanted to give peo­ple a rea­son to drive out of the way to my place. That drive (pun intended) made Ground Con­trol their place.

TBB: If you could do any­thing to help craft beer in Ari­zona, what would it be?

SR: Con­tinue to do what I am doing. By the end of the year I’ll have 80 han­dles flow­ing in the west val­ley and I’ll be proud to dis­play my “No Crap On Tap” sign above the bar at all 3 loca­tions. My next step is to help with pro­mot­ing and sup­port­ing AZ craft beers. 6. Who in Ari­zona influ­enced your craft beer pas­sion? Jim Sch­a­bely, he used to own Cross­roads Fine Wine at 99^th and McDow­ell. He had 400+ craft beers on the wall. I’d go into his place to scope it out as it was the only real com­pe­ti­tion, albeit 15 miles away, I’d play stu­pid and he’d bull­shit me into buy­ing all sorts of great beer. Then he started com­ing in to my place on the week­ends and we’d ban­ter back and forth about the next beer to tap. He is now a Divi­sion Man­ager for Youngs Mar­ket and one of my best friends in AZ.

Be Socia­ble, Share!

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Patrick

Patrick Schroeder has two rules: 1) Drink beer good peo­ple brew. Craft brew­ers brew for the love of their craft so give every beer a try. B) Never drink the sed­i­ment cake. Other than that, Patrick spends his time home brew­ing, spend­ing time with his fam­ily and tip­ping back a few pints with fel­low beer lovers. If you wish to con­tact him, send an email to patrick@thebrewbros.com. You can also find him on Twit­ter under the name beerguru14. Prost!

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