Mr. Cruz sent us an email letting us know that Against the Grain has hired Austin Smythe as new head brewer down at their Portland (, Kentucky) production brewery. He came here from DESTIHL in Bloomington, IL. AtG’s latest expansion is also up and operational. More AtG beer, y’all!
In true Against the Grain weirdness (and I mean that in the best way possible), here’s Smythe’s bio:
Raised by a pack of wolfs in the marsh where the I&M canal meets the Des Plaines River (near the bridge where Gacy was fond of dumping bodies) Austin learned to get by. Early on he was taken in by an engineer and an artist who introduced him to the civilized world. Once out of the wild, he became fascinated with the construction of everything from from horror films to small machine. From there he naturally went on to study film and philosophy in the wood of Carbondale. Not surprisingly these fields of study resulted in endless part time work from delivering pizzas to delivering cars; making sandwiches to making different sandwiches. At some point during the collegiate experience, he and the engineer decided they might have better luck making beer they wanted to drink as opposed to buying it. While rallying against the inequalities of the world as any good student is apt to due, Austin found himself another saint to take him in. This launched his continued food service career and backyard brewing to Normal Illinois. Eventually Austin conned his way into a brewpub, somehow appearing civilized enough to wait tables. Once inside, what he saw was a place in need of some help. While we can’t divulge much of that story (it’s tied up in the courts) we can say he came out the other end supervising a large scale production facility, managing a decent sized barrel program, and leaving a slimy trail of lactobacillus in his wake. Coming off of this Austin managed to find his way to our Portland facility. We’re not sure how or why, but he showed up one day and started following Jerry like a stray cat. After tolerating it and Austin ignoring all requests to ‘go the fuck home’ we let him stay in hopes that he will allow the alien brewer enough time to focus on proper cultural development.
