Kern River Brewing Head Brewer Kyle Smith Departs

(Kernville, CA) – We learned that talented head brewer Kyle Smith of Kern River Brewing left his post at the end of August to brew at Lengthwise Brewing in Bakersfield,CA.  We were shocked to learn this news, as Kern River Brewing has just finished a substantial expansion that would help alleviate demand issues they’ve faced during their rise to craft beer fame.

For those not familiar with Kern River, they have been brewing exceptional hoppy beers, even more famous than their Just Outstanding IPA is their GABF Gold Medal Winning Citra DIPA. Demand for that beer in particular has gotten so out of hand in the past few years, that it has been taken out of the hands of draft and bottle accounts, and kept at the brewery tasting room and very select beer events.

Here is a word from Kern River Brewing’s owners Eric and Rebecca Giddens regarding Kyle’s departure and the plan for the brewery moving forward.

From the beginning KRBC has defied the traditional business model of finding a favorable marketplace. Instead, the brewery opened it’s doors in a small mountain town that the owners loved and stood firm in the belief that if we made great beer, people would come through the door. Against all odds and to the disbelief of many, Kern River Brewing succeeded. Through a lot of hard work, locals made the transition from our Isabella Blonde to our Sequoia Red and eventually to Just Outstanding IPA – now we have a town full of hop heads! Even more impressive is the delight that visitors share with us in coming to the pub and sampling our variety of award winning beers. We still remember the day we decided to take our last keg of Macro-Lager off the tap list; it is one of our proudest moments and we have never looked back.

We would like to thank our KRBC friends and family for being incredibly supportive during this change as these things are never easy. Looking ahead to the next generation of talented brewers, we are pleased to announce that Adrian Barrera has been promoted to head brewer. Over the last year with KRBC, Adrian has shared our same commitment to quality and innovation while also creating award winning recipes. Rebecca and Eric remain with the company and our values and love of craft beer and craft beer people have not changed. We are excited about the future which includes a new canning system that will be coming on-line this fall, as well as continuing to phase in the new production facility. These additions will not only help us get our beer out to more KRBC fans across California but will also allow us to increase the production volume of our consistently quality beer (our old 7 bbl Pub system has been a workhorse but she is hardly state of the art!) And before you ask, YES, we will be producing Citra on the new system in greater quantities this November.

With that said, Kyle will be missed. He is like family and we will always be thankful for what he has done to help build this fantastic brewery and the community that gathers here. We wish him nothing but the best of luck and all the success he deserves. When you have a chance, we ask that you raise a glass and do the same.

Cheers,

Eric and Rebecca Giddens

Kern River Brewing Company