THE WHO BEHIND THE BREW
Origins
This small-but-mighty operation is the collaboration between two friends and home brewers, Dan Shaw (formerly the manager of Pinocchio’s Beer Garden To Go in Media) and Bob Bagonis. Both hail from Wallingford, Pennsylvania and still live in the area.
They currently brew in their new facility in West Chester, and you can also try Wrong Crowd’s beers on draft at different bars in the area, like South Philadelphia Taproom and Side Bar in West Chester.
What's in a Name?
Bob and I have been best friends since middle school. When we came up with the name as a possibility for the brewery, our mothers pretty much forbade us from calling it anything else. You could have described us as troublemakers, but we weren’t too bad.
For me, though, the name has a lot of meaning just in terms of having an outsider identity and being comfortable with that. Recognizing that we’re all human and everyone has a path, and that the existence of the “wrong crowd” is really just an exercise in perception, having empathy for the other. That kind of thing.
The Process
One of the first head brewers I ever worked for called himself a “water-boiling janitor.” I wouldn’t say he was very far off. Most of what I do is cleaning and sanitizing things, making sure I hit consistent numbers and focusing on safely operating with chemicals, materials at high temperatures and pressurized vessels.
The obviously great part of the job is the satisfaction of enjoying your product with friends and family, as well as strangers at a bar. The mashing in of the grain and hot water is my other favorite part. The smell, the whole morning ritual a lot of brewers have with it … it’s fulfilling.
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