In the quiet morning hours inside the Flat 12 Bierwerks, I talked with Brewmaster and Director of Brewing Operations, Sean Manahan, about beer, and as we discovered, our mutual unrequited love for baseball.
Rick: After graduating from Purdue University in 2010 with a pre-law degree, Sean originally sought to follow his father’s path in being an attorney. While serving an internship with the Tippecanoe County public defender’s office, weekly meetings with beer – mostly light lagers – made discussing cases more tolerable. He didn’t know then that a simple decision would be a life changer.
Sean: Finally I was able to go into a liquor store at 21 and see all of the other options. And the Alpha King [3 Floyds] label really stood out, so I’ll grab that one. So Alpha King was really my first “craft beer” and I remember that meeting, thinking, “Why is this beer so different?” I’m not going to say I was big fan, at first, but it really opened my eyes to what was different.
And I think just like any other brewer, you’re interested, it becomes a hobby, and then it becomes an obsession. All that reading made me want to focus on something more creative. So there was a moment that it changed and there was no really looking back.
Sitting in a courtroom and “having my ass handed to me” lost its appeal, and working at a West Lafayette bottle shop after graduating only whetted his thirst for more beer.
At that time there were 35 breweries in the state and right when I graduated I sent letters, handwritten letters, to every brewery asking for the opportunity just to get my foot in the door and do whatever they needed. I got two responses. Clay Robinson said, “Yeah, we could work that out”, but that was in Indy and I was in Lafayette, and I didn’t really want to do back and forth.
Then Chris [Johnson] (People’s Brewing) opened up and he was looking for anybody and everybody to give him a hand. I started at People’s in 2010 so Chris by far, is one of my mentors. I still talk with him on a regular basis – he really taught me everything I know.
I started in bartending and I was really in Chris’ face, “Hey give me an opportunity. I want to do this and I want to do that!” I learned the bar and then the draft system, and then I started delivery. People’s self-distributes so I was doing all the deliveries in Tippecanoe County, handling draft accounts.
It was Abel [Vander Bosch] and Chris brewing, and ultimately you find people that open up a brewery, very rarely do they have the chance to actually brew. They get so tied up with the business. I got an opportunity to brew with Able and allow Chris to work more on the business side. Able got hurt and wasn’t able to brew and be as active as he was in the back. Chris was still busy and we really didn’t have anybody else. It was a lot of work for sure, working those 17 hour days, doing those batches by myself. I did most of all the brewing and I really got to be very intimate with the process and develop my own process. That was extremely valuable for me. I did that for 2 ½ years, doing most of the brewing there.
I set up a collab with Flat 12 when I was at People’s and it was funny, a lot of people working at People’s at the time, they saw it as an audition. I was such a huge Flat 12 fan and I knew Josh [Hambright] and I knew Rob [Caputo], and we got that worked out.
I wanted to come down and work with them, bigger market, similar sized system. It was an opportunity to see more and see it in a different light.
When you get to that point, it was his brewery and I love Chris dearly, but I wanted to be…I wanted more responsibilities and there were things at People’s, and I completely understand, they were his. It was his baby. So, just a chance to see something else too.
Since his start at Flat 12 in November of 2013, Sean has been “rolling since.” After helping with some brews and working on one batch with Rob Caputo, he was in the mix. Shift brewer, cleaning tanks, running packaging and doing sort of everything helped free up Rob to do office work and continue his work with the Brewers of Indiana Guild.
Josh left to pursue Central State [Brewing] and kind of put Sean Lewis and I in a more active role in brewing together. I trained Erik [Fox] (“EZ”) about two years ago and then April of last year (2015) is when I was promoted to Brewmaster and Director of Brewing Operations…and now I’m the guy with the office job (laughs)!!
I think everybody’s aware we had some issues with the bottles. And so that was issue number one. Myself and the rest of my crew really sat down and we took it down to raw ingredients. Are we using the right ingredients? Are we handling these ingredients properly? Start from square one and if we do everything correctly, we’re going to solve this problem. People put beer in bottles all the time. It’s not the beer, it’s somehow we’re not handling it. That was my number one priority.
I really started working hardcore on the bottles infected before I got my position. Christmas vacation in Mexico, I took a few clothes, but a suitcase of books and stripped down the brewing system, and refresh how it is to be done. Determined the problem: was simply incomplete fermentation. Reinvigorating yeast that continued fermentation, left with residual fermentable sugars, so more fermentation in the bottle. Just like any homebrewers bottle bombs, they were just over-carbed.
We really had these … gems, they just needed polished a little. So by changing the technical stuff on the brew side and changing how we handled it down the line a little bit, that by itself improved the flavors.
We hit that five years, and after having some of the experiences that some of our customers had, we needed a better way to say, “We fixed this. Give us another shot.” We could definitely see sales were picking up because people were having good experiences with the carry out or the packaging. So we got that fixed, so now how do we go out and sell this as a new and improved, kind of the same product? We thought it was kind of time to grow out of those cartoons.
We wanted to bring it back to a classier look that better exemplifies the liquid inside. We’re named after this awesome engine that you find in these really sexy cars, let’s go that route. Let’s be that sexy engine. Reinventing our look with bottles and cans and you’ll know it’s Flat 12 beer. More brand recognition. We had four to five different labels here and there, and it kind of got confusing. Now we’ve got a consistent, nice clean look.
The community as a whole, brewers and everyone in the industry are all great. I love meeting up with them. It doesn’t take us three hours to set up an event, it takes like a half-hour maybe, and then you have two-and-a-half hours to shoot the shit with your fellow brewers.
There are 30 breweries now in Indianapolis. I love talking to people. I get to see a lot of people that I don’t normally get to see. Love the guys from Burn’ Em [Brewing Co.], they’re brewing, they’re busy. I’m brewing, I’m busy, but to hit the time to drive to Michigan City to hang out for a while, it doesn’t happen very often. Same thing with Drew [Fox] at 18th St. [Brewing Co.] Love Drew. I get to see him at Winterfest and Summerfest and Bloomington, and all of these festivals. Tony [Fleming] (Tow Yard Brewing) and I were hanging out at the Winter Warmer in Lafayette. The guy works two miles away from me but I have to drive all the way to Lafayette to really chat.
I always tell these guys, “We’re like… carnies!” Every weekend it’s the same group of guys going to a different city, entertaining other people. We all know each other. Then the next week it’s same stuff, different city.
Talking about Jonathon [Mullens] (Broad Ripple Brewpub), we always just laugh about it because John Hill (Broad Ripple Brewpub owner/founder) trained Greg, who trained Chris, who trained me, and then right before Jonathon went to go work with John Hill, I was training him here. So between Chris and Greg, and growing up in Lafayette in a small brewing scene, those guys have been very influential to me.
I love the industry and I love to brew. But having done it and being as lucky as I have over these past couple of years in this industry, my favorite thing is really to teach and to advocate the industry. I love giving tours. I love at the end of the day talking to people at the bar, being incognito and if they have a question about a beer, I just like to inform them.
Pulling the strings and directing the team is much like a baseball manager
It’s very important to have a team that you trust. It’s kind of like talking to plants…like me for example. My team is awesome. I miss brewing the beer, but I got two guys that I trust more than anything to brew the beer in the exact way that Flat 12 brews beer. And handle the beer in the exact way that we think it needs to be handled. Building that crew. It’s gonna show in your liquid, you know, our liquid is fun and it is full of life because it is surrounded by fun and life while it’s fermenting.
That’s why I have my small batch system, keep things light, keep things fun, and also forward movement. The guys on the bottling line, I know they want to brew beer. But it’s like a baseball field. I can only have one pitcher. I got to have a left fielder at some point. So I’ve got my team back there and everyone has their niche, but if they like pitching, I want to make sure they pitch a little bit, maybe toss in the bullpen. So I have this small system program and that’s one of my favorite things I was able to do, was start to implement these fun programs. If we’re going to do a new beer, it’s often decided at the bar.
Friends, social lubricants and happy pills
I read this book called “The Philosophy of Beer”, and a lot of what it talked about was this social lubricant and kind of like a social magnet. Even before I was brewing, I can just sit at the bar and start a conversation with anybody. I can go to a bar and grab an appetizer but nobody really likes to talk to you when you’re eating, with somebody you don’t really know. With beer, there’s this like…I don’t know. This happy pill, that really kind of gets conversations going and now there’s this social bond. It’s an in-group, it’s this exclusive club where anyone over 21 can join.
Plus, I get to know people like Jonathon. We’re going through these life phases together with Jonathon and Lewis having their first child, and I’m expecting mine in May. So we get to talk all the time about, uh, you know…beer. We definitely talk a lot about beer. But beer has given me the best friends I could possibly ask for.
On May 6, Flat 12 (414 Dorman St., Indianapolis) will celebrate their release of The Bricks, a brick red IPA, in collaboration with IndyCar driver, James Hinchcliffe. Many other highlights are planned.
Next up on “Behind The Beer” is Chris Johnson, People’s Brewing, and Steve Murray, Burn ‘Em Brewing. You can follow Rick on twitter at @indybeersleuth.
