Before we left Georgia, we wanted to try as many local beers that we likely wouldn’t be able to get our hands on in Texas. Second Self, Georgia’s fastest growing brewery in Atlanta, was one of those. Hats off to these guys for not only making great beer but for winning the branding game. I was sold before I cracked them open!
Thanks to Co Founder Jason Santamaria for answering some questions about the brewery. Keep up the great work, guys. Georgia friends, if you haven’t yet, go grab some Second Self!
Happy almost 2 year birthday! What’s been the most exciting thing about these first two years of Second Self:
Seeing my dream come true. My Co Founder Chris Doyle and I have been working on Second Self since 2010. There were many moments when I did not think it would happen, and now, here we are, planning our second year and looking at further expansion in our third year. It was not until this year that I was able to quit my day job at IBM and run Second Self full-time. That is both very exciting and terrifying, cutting the corporate lifeline and truly going out on my own.
Favorite beer currently pouring:
This is always a hard question because I’m a very mood-dependent drinker. I get this question a lot, and I always have to give a similar answer: each one of these beers is like a child to me, with a lot of memories around tasting, inspiration, recipe development, and ingredient sourcing. So it is hard to pick. However, the oldest and youngest tend to get preferential treatment, so Red Hop Rye (our oldest beer) and Molé Porter (our latest seasonal release) are what I am finding myself drinking more than the others right now. The Red Hop is just so good fresh, and I’ve been waiting for Molé season since last year.
Just have to say, you win BIG for coming up with the Maverick & Gose pun and branding. Would love to know when/how this came to whoever is responsible:
This story actually goes back a year. In 2015, we released three different gose beers in the tasting room. Because the name and beer type are unfamiliar to a lot of people, most were pronouncing it as “goose”. We decided to take that and run with it. We had a few alternative ideas, but it was when Chris said “Maverick and Gose” that I knew we’d found to the one. We are all pretty big film/pop culture nerds, so it was a natural progression when we were coming up with names. From there the art was going to be easy as well. We went to Tex Grubbs, our designer, and what is on the can was his first drawing. It was just right the first time.