BeerMe Brew Club

The World According to “Lawyer Dave” (more on that later)

I first met Dave Barone at a Sons of Liberty Aleworks in Norco, CA (Current location of Greywolf Brewing Company), where I arriving dressed up in a suit and tie for a professional networking event….that I missed by more than a week due to a calendaring error. So, I introduced myself to Dave Barone at the bar, who was sharing his homebrew with the owner.

After trying some of Dave’s delicious brew, I fell in love (with brewing and Dave Barone) and decided I would just copy everything Dave did to replicate his beer. Dave invited me over to his house for his next brewing session, where I took pictures of his brew rig, and then I immediately bought everything that Dave had as part of his rig. Over the following months I was a sponge and learned everything I could about brewing from Dave. I was so excited about my new hobby, that I dreamt about quitting my job as an attorney to open up a brewery (potentially with Dave, who is a very talented brewer).

Dave thought it was a great idea to open up a brewery, and we decided the best way to learn more about the business, was to start a homebrew club. That way, we could go to different breweries every month and ask questions about the brewery’s process, research different professional brewing rigs, and generally learn the business. When talking about the club aspect of our plan, we didn’t care if anyone else showed up for the meetings, because what was important was scheduled drinking time at least once a month when we could tell our wives “oh we have club responsibilities tonight-and we CAN’T miss tonight’s meeting, because we are very important-being that we are the President and Vice President of the Club”.

In Dave Barone’s garage we came up with the name of the club; over a few homebrews I suggested “Beer Me Brew Club” and Dave loved it. We shared the name with Dave’s wife for a 2nd opinion, and she said it was the dumbest name of a club she had ever heard. We shared the name with my wife for a 3rd opinion, and she agreed it was a bad name for a club and we should definitely change the name to something else. But Dave and I didn’t care what our wives thought, as long as they let us attend to our very important monthly club duties as President and Vice President for a club with a membership of 2.

Much to our surprise, local homebrewers actually showed up for our meetings, which turned out to be a blast. To be honest, Dave and I were shocked at the success of the Beer Me Brew Club and the lasting friendships we both would make. In 2016 Dave Barone fulfilled his dreams of becoming a professional brewer and opened up Stone Church Brewing with his partner Bill Steinkirchner-now with x3 locations! I am still thinking through the logistics of opening up a brewery, maybe someday, but for now, I could not be prouder of the success of the Beer Me Brew Club and all that its members have accomplished! – david ruegg

The origins of BMB as recollected by Dave Barone

It turns out Dave Ruegg has the story of how the BeerMe Brew Club began down well. There are a few things that I can expand on perhaps. We did meet at Sons of Liberty brewery and Dave was wearing a suit and tie. I quickly found out he was dressed that way because he is lawyer. Interesting part of this story is that I had a few friends named Dave and ever since that day he was referred to as “Lawyer Dave” and still is to this day (to avoid confusion).

Yes I did have homebrew with me that day (I was that guy that brought homebrew to breweries). I was making a ton of homebrew to practice and hone recipes and had no one to give me feedback. Fortunately, after that first day I had Dave Ruegg hooked and he spent a lot of time in my garage drinking and learning to brew. He was obsessed with replicating my system and brewing my recipes, which made it easy for me when I went to his house to help him brew.

Dave’s ultimate plan was to create an automated brew system so that he could do his lawyering thing and brew at the same time. So after a lot of drinking in mine and Dave’s garage we decided we needed to expand our brewing and drinking circle. The idea of the homebrew club was born.

At the time Dave had many small children and sometimes it was hard for him to get away from his house. We thought that if we had a homebrew club meeting it would be an excuse to get out of the house at least once a month. We honestly never thought anyone would show up but we could fool our wives for awhile before they would figure it out. Low and behold people showed up. This freaked Dave out at first and he told me “ I don’t know enough about brewing to talk to these people, you have to do all the education for this group” OK.

People just kept coming month after month and new people were showing up. I am still shocked to this day by the success of this club. Every once and awhile I run into a homebrewer and they mention BeerMe club and I’m proud to say I helped start that club. We had our first meeting of BeerMe Brew Club January 13, 2015. I opened Stone Church Brewing March 16, 2016.

When we came up with the name BeerMe Brew Club we thought it was a great name. Dave is right when he says that our wives thought it was the dumbest name ever. I remember my wife saying that we sounded like fraternity boys (that’s probably why we liked it). I still think it’s a great name. The whole point of the club was to get local homebrewers together to share ideas and educate each other on making great beer. Honestly, after trying multiple beers from club members at a local beer festival, I have to say that these guys are making better beer than the professionals. Cheers to all the past, present and future BeerMe Brew Club members I’m proud to be part of this amazing group.