microbrew | Jerry Slough Photography

When handed the assignment of an environmental portrait, I really wanted to do something more out of of my box. I did not want to just go out and find a friend to shoot. However by the time the assignment was do I had not received permission to do this shoot yet. I reached out to Iron Fist brewing one of my favorite purveyors of brewed beverages in the county. Eve one of the owners responded and after a few exchanges of emails we scheduled a date and i was allowed in for a little behind the scenes visit with the staff. Unfortunately the head brewer was not there but the assistants Mike, Chris, and Zack were as well as one of the owners Greg.

I arrived around 11 am the brewers where busy involved in a cleaning day cleaning out used kegs and sterilizing for reuse. Leaving them to wait to be filled. Around 1130 Greg arrived and curious to try some new brews they had been working on. Greg was gracious enough to allow me to partake with them. What an honor to be allowed to try some new experiments that were not yet released to the public.

Overall the guys were really accepting of me being in there space and willing to stop and pose during their day. Overall I tried to stay out of their way and allowed their work day to continue. The brewery was warm but dark inside, part of the heat was the hot water used to clean the kegs, part of it was the abnormally warms days we have been experiencing in San Diego. The lighting was difficult, overhead fluorescent mixed with bright sunlight let in from large rolled up doors industrial doors.

Although I wish I had been there on a day they were brewing it was great to be involved in a part of the work that gets little recognition. The following photos are part of the project, and not all i gathered mostly the guys and the tasting part of the day. I hope to return on a brew day to capture some of those very important images of the creation process.