5 Stupid Questions With Lost Generation Brewing’s Jared Pulliam

Over the holidays American Craft Beer spent many an evening enjoying craft beer in our own backyard, Washington, DC.

And more than once we ended up hanging with Lost Generation Brewing’s Co-owner and Head Brewer, Jared Pulliam, who launched this exciting craft brewery along with his wife, Anne Choe in 2022.

After several beers, we pitched Jared on doing a “5 Stupid Questions” with us and he kindly agreed… so here goes.

ACB: Jared, thanks so much for making time for us. Can you share with us a little about your background and how you ended up at Lost Generation? Was the brewing biz always in the cards for you?

While I’ve been in the game for a long time, brewing is actually a second career.

A buddy of mine invited me to a homebrew day almost twenty years ago and I went and we made some mediocre Amber Ale, or something of the sort. We were drinking a lot of Lagunitas Hop Stoopid at the time, though, so I said “Why don’t we just make this?” I figured brewing was so easy that I did some quick Googling, devised a recipe and we made our version of Hop Stoopid. We dumped all of it down the drain. It was just completely undrinkable.

It inspired me to learn everything I could, so I bought every book on brewing that was in existence. DC had just had its first breweries post-prohibition open and I took a job at one of them, running the whole brewery. Mind you, I was doing this while working as a full-time high school teacher, so I would shut down my classroom, gather all my papers, head into the brewery and fire it up. I’d grade papers during the lauter and wrap up at midnight or so, having to be back in the classroom by 6am the next day.

I did this for about a year before my wife, Anne, told me I need to choose one or the other and she really pushed me to choose brewing despite how terribly it paid in comparison. I wrote a letter to Tony Magee, the owner of Lagunitas, saying all of this and a week later I had a job and had to move to California. That said, Anne and I always wanted to come back home to DC and open up something of our own.

ACB: Not that far from the US Capitol and mall, Lost Generation Brewing is located in a classic retro building in DC’s up and coming Eckington neighborhood. Great find Jared, how were you able to lock this iconic location up?

 We were really lucky with our building, honestly. Over a hundred years ago, it was a Nabisco Factory and since then it was a famous bakery in the 70’s, so it’s got history with grain. All of the wood is original, so we really didn’t have to do a lot. Even the entire bar and back bar was built out of the wood joists I pulled out when making the concrete pad for the brewery. Our architects at Demian/Wilber were amazing at helping us bring this natural aesthetic to life and allow us to give the place a “1920’s meets 2020’s” speakeasy-like vibe.

ACB: You had us at your lagers. Not many craft breweries offer such a varied selection. We were wowed by your dark lagers, especially “Dying Moon & Shadows” and “Grave Shift.” What can you tell us about those?

When I first conceptualized Lost Gen, I had a rotating line up of beers with no real core brands with the exception of a light and dark lager that would always be available. Those two beers were creations inspired by my time while working at Lagunitas. When I was done with a brewday, Shift beer is exactly the beer I craved while my brow was still heavy with sweat in the mid-afternoon.

On the flipside, when I worked overnights, I would get off at 6am, before the sun had even risen, sweat still on my brow and Grave Shift is the beer that I made for those moments. It’s a hybrid style—not Schwartz, not Tmave—that is meant to be the perfect 6am beer. To be honest, I wasn’t sure Grave Shift would sell very well, but since we opened, I feel our dark lagers are what people seem to love and so I keep churning them out. You don’t have to twist my arm to get me to make more lager. While Grave Shift will always be my baby, Dying Moons & Shadows, our Czech-style Tmave is one of my favorite beers we’ve ever made.

People have jokes that we’re starting a “Dark Lager Empire.” I’m not certain that’s true, but we continue to have them on and people continue to love them, so I’m here for it and we make sure to have a minimum of 4-5 lager varieties on the menu at any time.

ACB: But your lagers are just the beginning, your IPA roster is deep. And every time we drop in there are new offerings. Seems like you enjoy exploring new recipes and different styles, no?

I spent a lot of my brewing career running Lagunitas in California so IPAs are practically in my DNA now. I love that the style has such maneuverability in letting the hops really shine.

We opened with some awesome hazies but also a beer named There Are Always Hops, which is a hybrid style we call American IPA. And we keep making new versions keeping everything the same and only changing the hops, which really allows a guest to see the true flavors that the various hops offer. Our upcoming version is V5 and we are using Simcoe and Nelson and I love it.

Our hazies have also been something I’ve been so happy with. We do a little less sweet and a little brighter than some, but I feel we make a really well balanced and delicious IPA. Again, I feel it would be sacrilege for me of all people to not do that style right.

ACB: Lost Generation is a great name for your brewery. How did it come about? And while we’re at it, your beer names and label artwork are so unique – what can you tell about them?

The Lost Generation is a reference to the group of artists in the 1920’s and 30’s led by Gertrude Stein, Hemingway, Fitzgerald, etc…The artists at the time seemed to have been disillusioned with the culture at home and wanted to venture outwards to find like-minded folk to help kindle the artistic inspiration that drove them. We chose it because when Anne and I moved out of DC (where we had pretty much lived our entire lives) it was because I had started brewing here and I didn’t see the beer culture that really inspired me.

We went to California so I could take over Lagunitas and she could work in wine country. To be amongst all that passion towards liquid and that phenomenal product and to be with so many people that just “got it” was everything. While we were gone, the DC beer scene grew, but we were able to hone our crafts while with folk who love it all as much as we do. And thus we saw resonance with the Lost Generation.

Plus I’m a big book nerd, so I dig the literary references. All of our beer names are coined after phrases from works from Lost Generation writers or artists, with rare exceptions. For instance we currently have available Ask The Dead (Hemingway), Dare To be Happy (Stein), Dying Moons & Shadows (Zelda Fitzgerald), etc…

And as far as the labels go, I do the majority of the label art, but we do work with some awesome local artists for some of our labels.

(Bonus Question I)

ACB: We know it’s not fair to ask, but do you have a favorite Lost Generation beer? And if so, please give it up.

This is a tough one. It’s like having to pick a favorite kid, amiright? That said, while I absolutely drink our lagers and IPAs more than anything else, by far, I have to admit, the collaboration we did for Asian American Pacific Islander Heritage month was a pretty cool journey.

My wife and majority owner is Korean-American and we teamed up with some awesome chefs to create a unique beer that would pair well with a bevy of Asian cuisines. We used chrysanthemum tea, Sichuan peppercorns, etc… A weird, very cool beer, for sure.

But what puts it over the edge for me is that for the concept we used a quote from Amy Tan’s The Joy Luck Club that resonated with my wife as it had to do with a mother passing her strength and traditions down to her daughter. We even made the label a tiger lily as that was a flower that was indigenous to Eastern Asia but has thrived so well here in the United States that its pretty much become part of our natural flora.

But I digress, what makes me signify this beer as a favorite, despite how meaningful it was for our family, is that Amy Tan, the legend, got her hands on this beer and she sent us a picture of her drinking it and the book nerd in me may or may not have wept in joy—A gentleman never tells.

(Bonus Question II)

ACB: There are so many great breweries doing interesting things around DC…Can you share some of your favorites without getting into trouble?

DC was one of the last markets in the country to really develop a craft beer culture. And big shout outs to Greg Engert and ChurchKey for helping lead the charge. But the area has totally come around and I think there are some phenomenal breweries here now and we’re just happy to be part of the scene.

We just did a collab with Benchtop out of Norfolk and I think they are doing some amazing lagers that I just love and admire. We are doing an upcoming collab with Ocelot in Sterling and they kept me afloat with their delicious beers during the pandemic. Bluejacket in Navy Yard DC consistently churns out good stuff and don’t sleep on their lager game as it is tried and true.

Lastly, Crooked Run in Sterling has created a mixed ferm and natural wine program that is unparalleled locally.

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