(Escondido, CA) – You are looking at a photo of a rather grizzled Stone Brewing Co-Founder CEO, Greg Koch, during a talk he gave at Cal Poly Pomona on Tuesday.

Over on Reddit, a class attendee and member of the beer forum, posted up a pic of he and Koch, smiling for the camera. He then briefly mentioned that Koch said that “he is/was known as the ‘asshole’ of the craft brew community.” Koch joined Reddit this afternoon and replied.

—

Context is important. I told about the struggles during the early days at Stone, and how I was burning 14-16 hour days, 6 1/2 days a week. I was in “panic mode” over the survival of our company in the early days. Craft beer acceptance was not like it is today, and few retailers wanted to sell our beer. It was an intense time. A few years into it around 1999, I realized that the combination of intense hours, and feelings of uncertainty about the future of our fledgling brewery, coupled with my admittedly-intense-at-times personality type led me to coming off as an asshole. I was developing a reputation. I looked in the mirror (proverbially) and said to myself “I don’t want to be ‘that guy.'” I didn’t (and never did) want to be an asshole. I like folks being nice to me, and I want to be nice to them. I think I overcame that a long time ago, and I was telling this as part of the story of our early days.

I am an introvert. I overcome that by thrusting myself ‘out there’ (and lots of coffee). I am naturally quite socially awkward. I’d like to be cool, and suave and all that, but I wasn’t born with those gifts. I’m a dork. I do my best. Folks sometimes give me flak when I’m not ‘on’ enough (usually, means I’ve not had enough coffee…it’s my crutch to the slight amounts of social-acceptability I can pull off to be certain). I’m a nerd / geek /zealot who tries too hard. I’m passionate about the things that I believe in — environment, good/clean/fair food, craft beer, and the fight against evil forces — and I get a bit amped sometimes. I related to that Napoleon Dynamite guy, although he was geeky/nerdy in a MUCH cooler way than me. Heh. I’m just a dude. If anyone has a challenge with me, maybe consider actually TALKING with me.

As my friend Sam at DFH said a few years ago, craft brewing is 99.9% asshole free. I agree! Let’s keep it that way. And if we stumble, and we all do, let’s employ the good ol’ punk rock moshpit ethic and pick each other back up, rather than taking the opportunity to land a kick.

—

That wasn’t actually the comment that drew Koch to sign up for Reddit in the first place though…

…and one last thing, let us give this guy his due.