We don’t talk a lot about chain brewpubs here, especially since Gordon Biersch left the city, and closed most of their locations. Rock Bottom Bethesda is still going strong, and so is BJ’s Restaurant and Brewhouse, with locations in Bowie, Columbia, and Laurel, Maryland; and Vienna (Tyson’s Corner) and Gainsville in Virginia . We chatted with Alex Puchner, Senior Vice President of Brewing Operations for BJ’s about how they’re succeeding where others are not, what beer styles sell best in Maryland and Virginia, and the 25th anniversary of their Grand Cru beer, a Belgian-style strong golden ale (10% alcohol by volume). 

Highlights:

DC Beer: At a time when many chain brewpubs are closing how is BJ’s bucking the trend? 

Puchner: BJ’s brewing model differs from the brewpub model. We centralize our brewing operations, which has been a big part of our success and will continue to be key to our future growth. It’s a model that we fell into when I was hired by BJ’s in 1995 to build our first brewpub in Brea, California. At that time, BJ’s was a small chain with 8 restaurants in SoCal. We installed a 30-barrel brewhouse in Brea with tank capacity for 5000 barrels a year so we could also supply the existing restaurants with BJ’s beer. We soon realized that this “hub and spoke” model made strategic sense as we began to expand aggressively in California and other states. We built large brewpub breweries with capacity to supply non-brewing restaurants in each market. This makes sense from a quality perspective. The brewpub chain model really isn’t sustainable beyond ten or so brewpubs because you lose control of quality and consistency across brewpubs. Your beer is only as good as your head brewer. Our model also makes sense from a real estate perspective because breweries take up valuable dining space and the equipment is a big investment. As we continued to grow with plans for hundreds of restaurants, we realized that building even bigger breweries to ship across state lines was the next step in our growth. These days most BJ’s beer is brewed in our large production brewpubs in Reno and Temple, Texas. The Reno brewery primarily supplies BJ’s restaurants in Western states, while Temple supplies our restaurants in Central and Eastern states. Given that our future restaurant growth will be focused in the East, we are starting to look for a third production brewpub location in an Eastern state.

Alex Puchner, all pics via BJ’s Restaurant and Brewhouse

Related, at a time when other chain restaurants are closing (Red Lobster, TGIFridays, etc,…) how is BJ’s succeeding and what role does beer play in that? 

Beer plays a huge role in our success. Craft beer has been a key differentiator for BJ’s since we started brewing in 1996, and it continues to be a key differentiator going forward. We are the only major restaurant chain that brews its own beer. Granted there are other restaurant chains that contract their house beers with craft brewers, and these house beers can be very good. But we offer more variety and fresher beer because we have more control over production and distribution. We also clean our own draft lines every two weeks and have an in-house draft system troubleshooting team to facilitate pouring the perfect pint. We truly control the quality of our beer from grain to glass.

28 years is an eternity in the beer industry. How does BJ’s stay current in terms of trends in brewing? 

We take R&D seriously, which is easy because our brewing team thrives on creativity. Most of our team got their start as homebrewers and we’re still homebrewers at heart. We still operate three of our smaller breweries mainly for R&D purposes, as well as small batch barrel-aged and sour beers. Our smallest brewery is in Boulder where our R&D director Aaron Stueck is based. The 3-barrel brewery there is used exclusively for experimental brewing. Aaron is a super creative and skilled brewer but every batch he brews is a team effort. He leads a weekly R&D meeting with our brewing team and seeks ideas and feedback from everyone. We discuss trending styles and ingredients that might be worth a test batch. You never know what might be a hit with our restaurant guests in Boulder. We have a reputation for brewing obscure historical or indigenous styles, while we’re also known for brewing traditional European styles [Ed: the last time BJ’s poured in DC was at the last SAVOR in 2022. They brought a gotslandrinka, one of the more unusual beers of the festival, and a good one, too.]. Whatever the style, we strive for authenticity and perfection. But brewing unique new beers is where we have the most fun. We regularly brew with experimental or new hop varieties and new malts. For example, Aaron just brewed a SMASH IPA with Gambrinus IPA malt and Alora hops that is fantastic. We also do a lot of experimentation with unusual ingredients, such as a spruce tip ale brewed with spruce tips picked fresh from a tree right outside the brewery window in Boulder. Or we sometimes experiment with ingredients that are trending in cocktails and NA beverages to see how they might work in a beer. Of course, much of our recent R&D has been focused on the “beyond beer” category and NA beer. During the pandemic we experimented with different production methods and tested a number of products. The most successful of them was our Prickly Pear Hard Lemonade which we launched in all of our restaurants early this year. More recently, we’ve been testing hard teas and hard sodas. One of these products – BJ’s Hard Root Beer – was a big hit in test markets. Look for it at your local BJ’s when we launch it in April of next year. We’re also very excited about our new NA IPA which will be tested on tap in our Colorado restaurants in January. If it tests well, we’ll tap it at every BJ’s later in the year.

What’s the relationship between corporate HQ and individual locations in terms of what beer styles get brewed? 

As far as the R&D process, our brewing team operates pretty independently in deciding what beers to brew on a small scale in Boulder or elsewhere. Beyond that, we’re lucky to have a lot of resources available to us thanks to all the departments that support our restaurants. Obviously, we need to brew beers that sell and brew them profitably, so we rely on reports that are prepared for us by other departments. If a beer in our lineup fails to meet financial expectations, usually a seasonal beer but occasionally a year-round beer, we look for beers in our R&D pipeline to replace it with. Any R&D beer that has been well-received by guests where we brewed it on a small scale might be considered for the next step, which is to brew a larger batch for multiple restaurants in a test market. Just like with new menu items or cocktails, we do extensive testing of new beers to gauge sales potential before launching a new beer chain-wide. This is where we rely the most support from other departments, mainly marketing and restaurant operations, to communicate the beers that are being tested to our restaurant teams and promote them to our guests. We also rely on our finance department to report on sales during the test, and to project production volumes if we decide to launch a new beer chainwide.

BJ's red ale

What are the top selling beers at MD and VA locations, and are they similar to the national top selling BJ’s beers? 

BJ’s Brewhouse Blonde and Jeremiah Red are the top sellers in VA. Both are equally strong sellers, which is often the case across the country. But in MD, Brewhouse Blonde outsells Jeremiah Red by a significant margin. We see that in a number of states, while there are also states where Jeremiah Red is a clear #1. I think the reason we sell so much Brewhouse Blonde and Jeremiah Red is that they were distinctively BJ’s beers when we launched them as part of our original line up in 1996, and even today they still stand out as unique to BJ’s, especially Jeremiah Red. Brewhouse Blonde was one of the first Kolsch-style beers brewed in the US. It was inspired by a trip to Cologne where I fell in love with this delicate style. There are many American craft brewers who brew Kolsch these days but it’s still not a style you see everywhere. Jeremiah Red is a beer that to this day is different from other red ales. It’s something of a unique twist on the Irish red ale style. I describe it as an Irish red ale on steroids because it’s much bigger and bolder in flavor, body and alcohol than traditional Irish red ales like Smithwick’s.

How has the Grand Cru beer changed over time?

For the first 6 years of Grand Cru, we intentionally changed the recipe every year. This was a pretty common idea at the time, when annual holiday beers from Belgian and American craft brewers were anticipated for being different each year, like Fantome Noel and Anchor Christmas Ale. In the same spirit, our annual Grand Cru was a collective effort, with each of our brewers contributing a new ingredient to the recipe every year. The changes were fairly subtle until we made a poor decision to brew a dark version of the beer. It didn’t sell nearly as well. We learned our lesson and decided to go back to the original award-winning recipe and brew that every year. That original Grand Cru brewed to celebrate the new millennium is the one that earned a Silver Medal at the World Beer Cup and GABF. Why mess with a great beer?

Grand Cru is on tap at BJ’s locations, with 750mL bottles available to go. Expect notes of stone fruit, clove, and peppercorn from Belgian ale yeast; along with bitter orange peel and coriander; and effervescent carbonation to hide the alcohol.