The Value of Doing What You Love

I enjoyed this story about the unconventional business practices of a successful local brewery. There are several interesting ideas in it, but this one I think can be most easily replicated -- making the work environment one where employees remember why they were drawn to their jobs in the first place:

First, the tiny company spent a small fortune sending staff to beer festivals across the country. Second, they humored Arthur.

“Everything he wanted to do, they’ve backed up,” said Tom Nickel, then Arthur’s assistant and now owner of O’Brien’s Pub in Kearny Mesa.

Arthur wanted to create sour beers with cherries and wild yeasts; unfiltered farmhouse ales; deep, spicy abbey ales. In 2006, the Marsaglias, Arthur and a fourth partner, Jim Comstock, opened Port/Lost Abbey in San Marcos. There, Arthur bottles his work — the brewpubs’ beers are only available on tap.

But in brewery or brewpubs, the Marsaglias urge brewers to experiment and create.

“That’s the only way you can be passionate about something,” Vince said. “Otherwise, it’d be ‘I’m coming to work today’ instead of ‘I’m going to make my beer today.’ ”