Brock Wagner
Founder
Brock Wagner has a long history with beer. In fact, it starts before he was born. His great-great-great grandfather came from Alsace in the mid-1800's and opened Wagner's Beer Hall in San Francisco (now the oldest existing bar in the city, renamed The Saloon.) Brock grew up in Cincinnati and Brussels, both big brewing towns, where he was exposed to many of the beer styles of the world. Then in college at Rice University, fate (and a friend) introduced him to homebrewing. This love of beer and brewing was what eventually led him to the inevitable: opening a microbrewery.
Brock develops the recipes for the Saint Arnold beers based on his own homebrewing experience coupled with a desire to create world class beers for local tastes. His preference is for beers with rich malty, creamy flavors and no shortage of hops. Brock also revived the old tradition of cask ales, a style of beer not seen distributed in Texas since probably prior to Prohibition. Several of the Saint Arnold beers have won awards, including from the Great American Beer Festival, the World Beer Cup, the Real Ale Festival, the Colorado State Fair and the World Beer Championships.
Prior to starting the brewery, Brock spent six years in investment banking working on corporate finance, mergers and acquisitions projects totaling more than $4 billion. Brock graduated from Rice University in 1987 with a BA in Economics. Brock is married to a cool wife (she lets him go to work to make beer) and has two beautiful, intelligent children.
Austin and San Antonio Sales
Joined Saint Arnold Brewing Company in January 1998.
Interview Process: Frank used to be the volunteer that picked up donated kegs from the brewery to deliver to KPFT events. He was known to be one of our biggest promoters around town. When our sales position in Austin became available, he seemed the perfect fit. He loves live music and Saint Arnold beer, so when he's out selling, he is never sure if he is working or playing.
Brewer
Joined Saint Arnold Brewing Company in November 2002.
Interview Process: Another frequent tourist, Vince kept showing up on Saturday tours, telling us about being an outlaw homebrewer and doing his best to look the part. After several years, we decided he was sincere. He now brews here and we discovered that the whole outlaw thing was a facade. He's actually as cuddly as a teddy bear. He also chooses good names for his children.
Regional Sales Manager
Joined Saint Arnold Brewing Company in September 1996 to May 2002. Joined again in March 2003.
Interview Process: James began as a tour regular, then offered to paint a large mural of St. Arnold on the wall behind the bar. The incentive for him: he got to enjoy the fruits of our taps while painting (his girlfriend did, too). Soon after he completed the fine work, we had an opening for someone to run our old finicky bottling line. James spent the next five years greasy and sweaty, but the bottling line ran well. Then he brewed for a year. Then he decided to do something else. Then he realized he was kooky for leaving. He came back and now sells our beer.
Regional Sales Manager
Joined Saint Arnold Brewing Company in April 2004.
Interview Process: Kendra is another example of persistence. While living in Austin, Kendra came to love her Saint Arnold beers. Then she moved to DFW where she was inexplicably selling things like Orange Pineapple Bahama Mama. It turns out the only reason she was selling these other beverages was because we had not yet asked her to sell Saint Arnold's. We asked her, and now she gets to sell what she is passionate about.
Shipping and Receiving
Joined Saint Arnold Brewing Company April 2005
Interview Process: Pedro arrived through the gift of nepotism as his brother Juan was working here and we needed another person for the bottling line. Pedro ended up outlasting his younger brother here though.
Head Brewer
Joined Saint Arnold Brewing Company June 2006
Interview Process: Another fine example of persistence winning out! Michael kept telling us how much he wanted to work here, plus he had a good reference from Matt “The Viking” Thrall who interned here. When the opening finally appeared, Michael pounced on it.
Engineering and Maintenance Manager
Joined Saint Arnold Brewing Company in June 2006
Interview Process: After talking about all the normal interview stuff, Justin pulled out the pictures of his Miata. After seeing that he could fit a small block Chevy engine into a Miata, we figured that he would be able to fix anything at the brewery that we might be able to throw at him. And we started throwing things at him right away!
Brewer
Joined Saint Arnold Brewing Company July 2006
Interview Process: Sam dropped off about 5 copies of his resume but then to make sure we noticed, he brought by samples of his homebrew. Aaaah, the way to our heart. Plus after 5 years with Nabisco he realized that beers and Oreos just don’t work together.
Events and Marketing
Joined Saint Arnold Brewing Company January 2007
Interview Process: First Lennie emailed from Beaumont during ad breaks in the evening news where he was the sports anchor. He really wanted to work at a microbrewery. Then Lennie came to pub crawls and events at the brewery to make it seem like he really wanted to work at a microbrewery. But it was when Brock saw Lennie at the GABF handing out koozies with his phone number on them to other breweries that Brock realized how badly Lennie wanted to work at a microbrewery.
Packaging Manager
Joined Saint Arnold Brewing Company November 2007
Interview Process: First we discovered that his real name was Melvin Finkelstein but he changed it for his career in movies. He still survived our rigorous interviewing regimen. Plus he had a good plug from a devoted volunteer.
Executive Assistant
Joined Saint Arnold Brewing Company January 2008
Interview Process: Kathy seemed more organized than the rest of us which helped move her up in a large field of candidates. But what really did it for us is when she informed us that she (not her husband) had a beer fridge. Hired!
Packaging Team
Joined Saint Arnold Brewing Company February 2008
Interview Process: Daniel quietly showed up one day. We attempted to interview him, but he didn’t say anything. He seemed happy working, but still didn’t say anything. We are still trying to get him to say something. Can you get him to say something?
Controller
Joined Saint Arnold Brewing Company December 2008
Interview Process: Mary knew the perfect way to get an interview with us: write your cover letter in a bad, sappy rhyme. Ah, somebody after our own heart. Then she told us that she wanted a job with variety. We said, “Heh, heh, you’re hired!”
Packaging Team
Joined Saint Arnold Brewing Company October 2008
Interview Process: Brett had a friend who already worked here and used that as his in. We asked him what he knew about kegging and he said he knew how to empty them. “Perfect!” we said.
Packaging Team
Joined Saint Arnold Brewing Company December 2008
Interview Process: We were short a person on the bottling line so we called the staffing agency for an extra person. Once Felix showed up, we decided he was our new starter. Kind of like the injured quarterback that loses his starting job to his backup.
Maintenance
Joined Saint Arnold Brewing Company March 2009
Interview Process: Call us suckers for the unusual resume. How many jobs would it be seen as an attribute to send in a Halloween picture of yourself dressed up as a robot made from beer cases? Hired!
Packaging Team
Joined Saint Arnold Brewing Company March 2009
Interview Process: Mark quietly joined our bottling team first as a temp, but slow and steady won him the respect of all. Now he is a permanent fixture on the line!
Sales & Operations Planning
Joined Saint Arnold Brewing Company May 2009
Interview Process: Donny took the path of persistence. We decided that his number crunching background probably wasn’t right for the bottle crunching packaging line. But then we came up with a job with a title that we didn’t understand, and Donny was the perfect fit. Does that mean he’s smarter than us, or that we don’t understand him?
Packaging Team
Joined Saint Arnold Brewing Company May 2010
Interview Process: After seeing how he operated as a volunteer at our MS150 tent, we knew he could hold up under the pressure of the bottling line.
Packaging Team
Joined Saint Arnold Brewing Company June 2010
Interview Process: Eric followed the “impress us as a temp and join the team” method. Worked well on the bottling line so we threw him into kegging!
Brewer
Joined Saint Arnold Brewing Company June 2010
Interview Method: We discovered that he not only knew what a pump was, he knew how to buy them, install them, take them apart, fix them and clean them. We have lots of pumps here. Perhaps we’ll call him “Pumper”.
Packaging Team
Joined Saint Arnold Brewing Company May 2010
Interview Method: Robbie started as the happy party and tour worker. But this work was too easy. He wanted to toil in the bowels of the brewery, where it isn’t air conditioned and the public doesn’t see the hard work it takes to get the beer into kegs and out the door. And we recruited him to be on our basketball team, although it turns out we don’t have one.
Events and Marketing
Joined Saint Arnold Brewing Company June 2010
Interview Method: He came to us to do some contract web work. Then he insidiously took over an office, put his name on the door and threatened all of our internet access unless he was hired. Ransom paid.
Brewer
Joined Saint Arnold Brewing Company August 2010
Interview Method: Since he had gone to Germany to study brewing, the interviews took place when the time zones allowed, after we were at work and before his beer drinking started.
Shipping and Receiving
Joined Saint Arnold Brewing Company October 2010
Interview Method: If you studied radio and television but liked homebrewing, which should you pursue? Easy: follow the beer. So he did.
Tour Team Leader
Joined Saint Arnold Brewing Company many moons ago, and in this job January 2011
Interview Process: Deb began as a giggling frequent tourer. Then she became a giggling volunteer. We decided that we needed a giggling person to be in charge of our tours. After reviewing many peoples' giggles, we decided that only her giggles met our expectations. She is also a giggling clock repairman.
Packaging Team
Joined Saint Arnold Brewing Company April 2011
Interview Method: Kevin started working here as a temp but pretty much immediately started acting like this was a permanent position. Then he just waited for us to realize that he was with us for the long haul. Eventually we realized!
Houston Sales
Joined Saint Arnold Brewing Company April 2011
Interview Method: Kelsey was working in the lions’ den in Washington, DC for the National Beer Wholesalers Association when he sent us his resume. But it was his poem “Ode to the Saint” that won us over. We had to save him from the dark forces of the district.
Brewery Rentals & Events
Joined Saint Arnold Brewing Company May 2011
Interview Method: We first spoke to her about a sales position. But while she was in here, she bugged our office, took over our minds and forced us to hire her for the brewery rentals position. She continues to use her Army Intelligence experience in nefarious ways. And she can kill you with a paper clip.
Brewer
Joined Saint Arnold Brewing Company June 2011
Interview Method: Claire had the longest interviewing process. We first met her as a precocious 7 year old at local beer festivals with little brother in tow. Clearly, she was the product of excellent parenting. Later she returned to her native England for university, returning here with proper British accent and love of beer.
Brewer
Joined Saint Arnold Brewing Company August 2011
Interview Method: Aaron was a homebrewer and liked public speaking. So we brought him in to rotate through tour guide position. But this was just his secret way to get next in line for a brewer position. And it worked.
Louisiana Sales
Joined Saint Arnold Brewing Company August 2011
Interview Method: We went to New Orleans to interview candidates. She was working for almost nothing at a crisis center. Which is similar to working for a craft brewery. Plus she loved New Orleans and appeared sober in the interview, two things you rarely find at the same time in New Orleans.
Logistics Analyst
Joined Saint Arnold Brewing Company September 2011
Interview Method: We asked Ricardo if Donny had three cases of Divine Reserve and six cases more of Amber Ale than Justin did, and Justin had the same amount of Elissa and Amber Ale, but James had equal amounts of Amber Ale and Divine Reserve, but three times as much Divine as Donnie, how many cases of Elissa does Justin have?
Party Host
Joined Saint Arnold Brewing Company June 2010
Gonzo spray painted his resume on the side of our building which caught our attention. Plus he is now one of our artists-in-residence. He didn’t really spray paint our building in case you were thinking this a good idea.
Marketing Team
Joined Saint Arnold Brewing Company November 2011
Interview Method: Simply put, best resume ever: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Xphv-7tt5ag
Patron Saint of Brewers
In 641, the citizens of Metz requested that Saint Arnold's body be exhumed and ceremoniously carried to Metz for reburial in their Church of the Holy Apostles. During this voyage a miracle came to pass in the town of Champignuelles. The tired porters and followers stopped for a rest and walked into a tavern for a drink of their favorite beverage. Regretfully, there was only one mug of beer to be shared, but that mug never ran dry and all of the thirsty pilgrims were satisfied.
Saint Arnold is recognized by the Catholic Church as the Patron Saint of Brewers. Read more...
Founder Emeritus
Saint Arnold proselytizers, truly worthy of sainthood...
