UnCapped: Sly Fox Brewing Co.

Jun. 17—In this episode of the UnCapped podcast, host Chris Sands is in conversation with Peter Giannopoulos, director of sales at Sly Fox Brewing Company. Here is an edited excerpt of their talk.

Back in 1995, the craft beer industry was just a tad bit different, and people's perception of craft beer, or just beer in general, was just a tad different. When they opened that first brewpub, what were the offerings, and how did they approach it back then?

Well, I was a wee little lad then, but I can tell you, just from hearing stories. First off, craft beer, the term, didn't exist yet; it was microbrew. We were the Sly Fox Brewhouse and Eatery, with a big microbrewery sign on top. I think back then it was about teaching people that beer could be more than yellow, fizzy crap. That's where it had gotten to in the '80s. There weren't many options. When my parents and uncles tried Sierra Nevada Pale Ale or a better beer for the first time, it really opened their minds that beer could be so much more. So then you gotta do that to your customers, too. When they come in and are like, "You make beer here? How do you make beer?" It was such a new concept. There was a lot of educating. Amber ales were big in the '90s. Even our IPA, which was our flagship beer at the time, was called Amber IPA. Like, "It's an amber, so you'll like it ... but it's hoppy amber." It was a learning process. We had some light lagers, we had some porters that were flavored — vanilla porter, I think we had. My uncle John was the original brewer, I think, and then they hired a few different people over the years that were bringing in different recipes. We hired Bill Moore who was at Stouts, and that's when our beer jumped to the next level. He did brewing for Lancaster Brewing Company. Now he sells beer to Lancaster Brewing Company. He's like me — he went from brewing operations to sales. He brewed for us. Later on, Brian O'Reilly came, and he was our brewmaster starting in 2002 to 2017 or 2018. He had a major influence on the brewery. That's when our lineup changed to be closer to what it is now. A lot of his recipes and his ideas, we started digging into more. We started getting into more traditional German stuff, too. We've always kind of harkened back to English ales and German beers and obviously some newer American stuff. It's evolved over time.

Had you opened multiple brewpubs before opening the production brewery?

It was one pub in Phoenixville [Pennsylvania], and then we opened a second location, which was our first production brewery in the back. The restaurant was really cool — it was a nice, big space — but we made the brewery too small. That's when we first starting canning. After six or seven years, we had to move out of there, and that's when we moved to the current location we're at in Pottstown. We closed that restaurant and opened a restaurant here. We added another location in 2019.

And then you went on a spree.

We went on a spree. Great time to open a bunch of new restaurants, let me tell ya.

What size brewhouse was in that original brewpub?

Fifteen barrel.

So that's a pretty big system.

It was. I think my dad or one of them was like, "You know, it's not that much more money to [increase] this thing up from a seven barrel to a 15. Why not just have more beer?" We actually still have that original brewery in Phoenixville. We make small batch stuff there, but most production is done here in Pottstown.

What size brewery do you have there?

It's a 50 hectoliters, so, like, 45, 43 barrel.

I like that you just went straight to telling me what the real number was. So I'm guessing it's German built.

Yeah, the Braukon system, right from Baveria. It's an amazing system. It has a closed loop. The steam is recaptured and then utilized to heat up the hot water tank, so even brewing three times a day, it's a contained system, so it really doesn't get hot from the brewhouse in the brewery space. It's super efficient.

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