General Partner of Clipper City Brewing Co., L.P., Sisson is among Baltimore’s premier authorities on craft brewing and a former manager of the state’s first ever pub brewery (brewpub), Sisson’s, located in Baltimore’s Federal Hill.

In the mid-80’s, Sisson observed the potential for a small brewery in Baltimore, a historically “big beer” town. After researching the industry at its heart — in Germany, England, and the west coast of the United States — he, along with the help of Senator George W. Della, Jr., successfully lobbied the Maryland General Assembly in 1987 to pass legislation required to open a brew pub in Maryland.

After the inception of craft brew in Baltimore, Sisson immersed himself in the development and market recognition of both Sisson’s and its beers. In 1994, he left Sisson’s to begin a new venture, Clipper City Brewing Co. (now known as Heavy Seas Beer). Clipper City has been in operation for nearly 15 years and markets fine beers in 19 states and Washington, DC.

Sisson is a member of the Master Brewers Association of America, the Brewer’s Association, and is past President for the Brewer’s Association of Maryland. He has served as President of the Cross Street Irregulars Home Brew Club, and co-hosts a weekly program on WYPR Radio entitled Cellar Notes that critiques fine wine and beer.

Sisson is a graduate of the McDonough School in Baltimore County. He went on to receive his Bachelor of Arts from Washington and Lee University in 1976.

I interviewed Hugh at his brewery on a May morning and got his thoughts on the recent brand name change, the possibility of a Heavy Seas themed brewpub, collaborations and more.

ASN: It’s been almost 15 years since you started Clipper City Brewing Co., what are some of the biggest changes you’ve seen in the craft beer world during that time?

HS: When you’re in the middle of something for so long, you don’t necessarily see all of the changes, but I would say the emergence of higher gravity beers. I guess that was sort of a natural extension of what was already happening. The point of craft beer in general was to bring production back to the United States, as opposed to having all of the “good beers” coming in from abroad. And secondly, to significantly differentiate what we do from what the macro brewers do. So higher gravity was sort of a natural extension of that desire to differentiate ourselves from the big guys.

ASN: Many folks believe the best time for craft beer is right now. Do you agree?

HS: If you’re a beer drinker, this is the best it’s ever been. Will it continue to remain this good? I don’t see anything changing, per se. The big guys, for years, tried to convince the public that this would be a short term fad. That’s turned out to be an invalid assumption. I think for the most part, craft is going to continue to be a strong player. I do not know whether or not all of this SKU proliferation is going to end up being a problem long-term. I do see some of the same issues that caused a problem in the mid-late 90’s, potentially rearing its ugly head again. We’re all guilty of it. Making more and more things, which is causing problems for a distributors and retailers. Having said that, the wine industry, which I believe the craft beer industry today in this country — is where the wine industry was in California, 25 years ago. I happen to think our industry is full blown in its adolescence. The wine industry has always been driven by, in the most part, by variety. And the craft beer industry is driven by variety. So it may end becoming a non-issue, but it definitely adds layers and layers of complexity to retailers and wholesalers. If they embrace them, it works fine. But if it doesn’t really fit in their context, it becomes difficult.

ASN: Example?

HS: We’re doing all of these limited release products under our Mutiny Fleet. We have some distributors doing a great job with all of those, but we also have distributors who are seriously struggling to manage and they’re not doing such a great job with it. While I wouldn’t say “market saturation” is an issue on the consumer’s part, the complexity is a potential issue with retailers and distributors down the road.

ASN: The brand name change this year from Clipper City to Heavy Seas made sense to those “in the know”, but you still catch flack from some of the local folks.

HS: I get the occasional hate email. My reply is, if their issue is that we “turned our back on the locals”, that’s totally untrue. We were more successful trading under one set of branding criteria than we were another. First, it just made huge amounts of business sense to transition everything over to our most successful concept. Secondly, it took products which were only sold locally (the Clipper line — ex: Gold Ale, Marzhon, McHenry Lager), all of which were award winning beers and made them available to a broader market. I think, if anything, it gives our local market a larger footprint to now celebrate. We are definitely a regional player and perhaps down the road, a national player; though that’s not going to happen anytime too soon. So, if anything, it gives local people more to celebrate. People are going to have their own feelings. This is not a super logical decision for a lot of folks. Consumers are often influenced by emotional ties to the products that they support and we have to respect that.

ASN: Heavy Seas has been doing some exciting things as of late. Barrel aging, homebrew contest…any new and exciting plans in the near future?

HS: We’re going to continue to explore wood barrel aging. We own a couple of wooden firkins which we’ll be doing more with. And we’re also developing a unique wood project with a local fellow here, details of which I won’t be forthcoming with for the time being.

I’m not really trying to necessarily repeat what has already been done. And we’re on a learning curve on those things, so I can’t say that everything we do is going to be absolutely brilliant the first time it goes out the door. But I think we’ve thought it through pretty well, so we’re going to continue to play games with that. We’re going to continue to have fun creating some newer styles, some may push the envelope a bit and some we’re going to do just because we’ve wanted to do them for a long time. I want to continue to maintain a fairly overt sense of humor in nearly everything we do. So names like Holy Sheet will continue. And I think more than anything else — our overall drive these days is not to just expand, but to focus on doing a better job where we already are. We’re adding sales infrastructure, expanding the facility so we can fulfill the orders we’ve currently got, which we’re not always doing these days; which is a good problem. We’re trying to get better and better at what we do. An interesting football analysis fits here, “I’m not trying to bring in new players right now, I’m trying to coach the ones we’ve already got to perform at a higher level.”

ASN: It’s been said that you’ve never been a fan of pumpkin beers until your bourbon-barrel aged version of Heavy Seas’ The Great Pumpkin (“The GreatER Pumpkin” — early Sept. release.) True story?

HS: Very true. I thought that was an extraordinary beer. I had to reassess that one. And I’m very excited to be putting that out commercially this year. Though in limited amounts.

ASN: Most of the releases in your Mutiny Fleet series have been met with a good amount of praise. Any surprise there?

HS: Yes and no. Understand that we’re making minuscule amounts of these. Selling these successfully over a 20 state market, that hasn’t surprised me. I’ve been gratified. Pleased to see people are responding positively. Most of these first time releases are experimental for us. I think some of these have been outstanding and others, we’ve agreed they’re good…but we can do better the next time around.

ASN: Going back to your brewpub history, do you miss that at all?

HS: Yes and no. It was a lot of fun. The retail side of things has a totally different energy than the side we’re on now. So yes, I miss those things. And from a marketing standpoint, the power of branding from the retail site. We’re still looking around to see if we can find some way of having a Heavy Seas tavern at some point, which we would not own, but we would probably do some brand licensing. And that’s something I’m very actively looking for. Although I have to be careful, I don’t want to piss off any of our existing retailers! So I’ll have to think that through very carefully. The truth of the matter is, looking at Dogfish Head and Victory — their brewpubs have been a huge asset to them. We’ve always fought the battle without those assets in our arsenal and I think there’s a way to do that without either pissing off existing retailers or being on the wrong side of regulations…or loading me up with one more thing I don’t have time to manage.

ASN: Marketing your brand. Realizing most smaller craft breweries barely have a marketing budget. We’ve noticed Heavy Seas recently embracing the social media marketing outlets like Facebook and Twitter, as well as the new HeavySeasBeer.com site getting a major overhaul. How important are these tools to your brand?

HS: I think all of those outlets are critically important. Let’s face it, everything in this business comes down to a relationship. Any consumer product comes down to a relationship, with varying levels of intensity based on the actual product. But you choose products for a reason. Beer, wine, etc. are all food products. We take them into our bodies. So the level of relationship there goes up significantly. There’s a certain quality-of-life element and fun that’s part of the equation. So anything we can do to increase the ability to have a relationship with the consumer, retailers and wholesalers is valuable. That’s why social media is so important. It’s also great guerilla marketing. The return on investment is fairly high. It’s why we do so many special events, why I host brewery tours, etc. That’s all important. It’s why people walk through that door. They can touch, see and feel. And that’s what’s going to build this brand.

ASN: Brewery collaborations. Arguably the hottest trend in craft beer. Do you see Heavy Seas doing any collaborations?

HS: It’s a possibility. We haven’t spent an enormous amount of time and energy on it so far. Mainly because we’ve been so damn busy with everything else, between the rebranding and the expansion we’re in the middle of. I think it’s something we’ll probably end up doing at some point, but not sure when. Though I haven’t exactly thought of anyone we’d work with at this stage, though I do have one or two thoughts…but they’ll stay in the thought bank right now.

ASN: Baltimore Beer Week last year was the city’s first beer week and ended up being a big success. Heavy Seas helped by being the top sponsor. This year (October), same thing? Bigger and better plans? What’s the latest?

HS: We’re going to be the lead sponsor again this year. I think it’s important. I think last year we actually did too many things. Some nights we had 10-15 things going on at the same time. This year, a smaller number of things, bigger crowds at each. And going back to collaborations, instead of us doing a firkin gig somewhere on night, Flying Dog doing something the same night, why don’t we all get together and have a handful of breweries doing one event, one location, same night; instead of splitting it up between breweries. That way, we’ll get more momentum and energy.