Updated: January 15, 2015
Our friends at FLIX Brewhouse are at it again!
When we met up with the team at FLIX Brewhouse via video hangout last summer to talk about their business and their need for a brewer in Des Moines, Iowa, they told us about their big plans to expand throughout the mid west and open up several more cinema-brewery combos. Well, they are true to their word!
FLIX Brewhouse is hiring a Lead Brewer for their new Carmel, Indiana location.
See Job Description and Application instructions here.
This is a pretty cool opportunity for someone who has some commercial experience brewing and who has a love of movies, so if you or someone you know may be interested in this position, be sure to polish up your resume and pick out your favorite brew to share with the crew at FLIX.
Summer 2014: Google Hangout with FLIX Brewhouse
Craft Beverage Jobs founder, Cindy Molchany, recently sat down with Justin Rizza & Greg Johnson of FLIX Brewhouse, via a Google Plus Hangout. The trio chatted about FLIX Brewhouse, the cinema/brewery concept they have, and the need for a Lead Brewer at their new Des Moines, Iowa location.
The position of Lead Brewer will be responsible for brewing the 6 core craft beers for the brewery / movie house, but FLIX is also looking for someone who can be inspired by the regional cuisine and culture and brew beers reflective of their own personal style and neighborhood.
FLIX Brewhouse is actively recruiting for this position, so if you are interested and have some commercial brewing experience, you are encouraged to apply!
Welcome FLIX Brewhouse to a Craft Beverage Jobs Spotlight!
Cindy Molchany: Welcome to the Craft Beverage Jobs Spotlight. I am Cindy Molchany, founder of Craft Beverage Jobs, and I’m really pleased to have Greg Johnson and Justin Rizza of Flix Brewhouse joining us today.
We have some exciting things to talk about and share about Flix Brewhouse, so I want to welcome Greg and Justin to the show.
Greg Johnson: Good morning. How’s it going?
Cindy Molchany: Greg is Director of Marketing and Justin is the head brewer for Flix Brewhouse. Will you each take a minute and tell us a bit about your job and how Flix Brewhouse came to be about.
Greg Johnson: I am going to let Justin go first, because he’s been here since the beginning, so it would probably be more appropriate for him to.
Justin Rizza: Yeah. I had the pleasure of kind of putting this brewery together myself with my own hands, which was a lot of fun and create all the recipes that we have going so like I said I have been here since day one and I am in charge of pretty much all the brewery production, quality control, sampling, work force.
Greg Johnson: The sampling is the fun part it all falls under quality control.
Justin Rizza: So everything from grain to glass, from the actual brewing process, we also have a full time assistant brewer as well but everything through the cooking side, the hot side, transferring beers, making sure everything is sanitary, making sure that everything is up to our quality.
Greg Johnson: I am a little bit newer to the team. I have been here less than a year but Flix is really young. We have only been around for about three years and we are in the backyard of one of the most well know cinema beer concepts out there but they are not a brewery like we are so one of the things are that my focus is here is to help us in our current location, which is central Texas just outside of Austin for people that don’t know that, is launching a national brand and taking what we do here and being able to do it in other places outside of here because Des Moines is next and Indianapolis is after that and then well without knows.
Well we know where we are going after that but nothing is official so I am not going to throw anything out there!
So our job is to make sure that what Justin does here is something that we can build upon and put out there to all of these new markets.
Cindy Molchany: It is really cool – Flix Brewhouse is a combination craft brewer/cinema, movie theater/restaurant correct?
Justin Rizza: That is correct. We are a first run cinema.
Cindy Molchany: How many screens do you guys have?
Justin Rizza: We currently have six and we are expanding to ten by the end of the year here. Our new location in Des Moines is going to be a ten screen cinema.
Cindy Molchany: Wow cool. Is it all new releases or a mixed bag of cult classics? I saw some pretty fun stuff on your website. 
Greg Johnson: It is a mixed bag primarily we are a first run movie theater but about 2 or 3 times a week we like to show something that is a little bit new. We get to chose that and that is what we call our Flixs Picks. Like this week we are doing 1989 Batman and Justin brewed a special beer; it is a mild, we are calling it Joker’s Mild.
Justin Rizza: The Batmobile is going to be there.
Greg Johnson: Yeah the Batmobile is showing up. We got a costumed Batman here. So we like to do kind of weird things as well just to kind of put all of that together but primarily we are a first run movie theater.
Cindy Molchany: Okay cool so that will lead me into my next question; Justin can you tell us a little bit about the beers that you do make for Flix Brewhouse?
Justin Rizza: Yeah definitely – we have got six kind of core brands that are full time year round.
The Lupulus IPA which is a nice American IPA, lots of nice fresh hop flavor and aroma.
We have a 10 day Scottish Ale which is kind of going more on the malty side.
We have the Luna Rosa Wit blood orange red.
We have a Satellite which is a Belgian red that is also boardering an IPA in hoppiness, lots of fresh American hops in there.
Flixs Golden Ale which is the very approachable American golden ale it is an entry, gateway craft beer type of thing. It is not boring, it is satisfying and very approachable and easy to drink.
Our newest one is a tribute beer for one of the cofounders who sadly passed away a little over a year ago Walt Powell so we named it Saison for him because he loved Belgian beers, he loved all of the sours and saisons and stuff like that so that is a new one that we age a little bit in wine barrels and some wild yeast and get a little funky and we blend it all together. So it is a pretty complex farmhouse ale brewed for Walt.
Then we have several rotating taps as well. We have a home brew contest it is a competition that we do where we give them a style and they brew it and any home brewers are free to enter. They brew it up and enter it and judge it and the winner gets to brew it with us.
Then the Funkhouse series, which is kind of one of my favorites. We have a lot of beers that are aging in wine barrels and on purpose we put bacteria and wild yeast and stuff like that in so we are given sours and different complex kind of funky beers that I love. I love sour ales all day long everyday. So that is a whole another kind of barrel project that we have. Some of these beers, like some of the ones that are sitting next to me right now have been in wine barrels for 2-1/2 years.
Yeah some of those have been sitting in there for 2-1/2 years just like now are starting to get really awesome so that is a fun little project. We also have a seasonal that tend to change. I have done a nice little scotch ale for the winter it is called Kill Shot and is just kind of a sipping beer it is 9% and very malty. We started brewing the beer of the dead which is kind of fun. It has fresh orange peel and Mexican chocolate in it. That is always a popular one.
So with these new locations there will be even more. There is going to be a lot of opportunity to play around. We will still have the same six core beers but we will have another six faucets that we can just do seasonals, and we are going to keep the sours going. So there is a lot of opportunity for future brewers here to really get creative.
Cindy Molchany: So that also leads us into kind of our next topic which is why we are here and that is to talk about the fact that you guys are hiring for a lead brewer in the new location in Des Moines, Iowa. It is a brand new facility, it is going to be 10 movie theaters in the brewery and this sounds like the brewer is going to have the ability to not only brew the core beers that you have, the six core beers but then also play around with their own personal style. So will you tell us a little bit about the new place, the new facility and this position that you are going to be hiring for.
Greg Johnson: So yeah, I will jump in on that part. Obviously kind of what we are looking for is somebody who is going to be able to one be able to brew the six core to the standard that Justin brings here but someone who also is just passionate with creativity to really put their fingerprint on the other location, which will be the only location in Iowa. So we actually want everything to be regionally inspired and to have its own identity. Down here more in the Austin area we have the fine folks that have another brewery but Jester Kind is quite frankly in our back yard so we are in a really sour area and Justin is really passionate about sours and so many different sour beers is part of our identity here, but we are looking for someone who can help define that identity in Des Moines and bring their touch to it.
We don’t even necessarily know what that looks like yet because we are going to let that person have a heavy hand in helping us establish what is going to work in Iowa and what is their passion and what can they do really well. So that is what is really exciting for us because we already have the food menu pretty well set and we have a lot of cool regional things for here in town and we will do it in Des Moines but having a beer that goes well with that is a big deal to us.
Cindy Molchany: Yeah very cool. Awesome, so I bet that there is going to be a lot of interest in this lead brewer position in Iowa and outside of it. When someone goes to apply for this job if you can give them one piece of advice when they apply with regards to their cover letter or resume or how to approach this application and how to get you guys to pay attention to them, what would you say?
Justin Rizza: Send us samples of beer.
Greg Johnson: Liquid resume.
Justin Rizza: No I would say if your passion can come through. I assume that anybody who is going to apply is going to be somebody who knows what they are doing. You know that they have the skills on paper but we are young, we are a really young organization and we have a lot of experience so we are looking for someone who is really passionate and say that this is the beer for me is the most important thing.
We are a really interesting concept and you already said it, movies, food and beer so you have people that are passionate about all of them so we need people that are like it is all about the beer. I live, breathe and sleep beer you know so somebody who can make that come through is really important.
Greg Johnson: Yeah that is exactly where I was going to go with that and I always say brewing is the perfect mix of art and science. So I mean make me know that you understand that. I want to hire artists. I have a very artistic mind but there is also a lot of science and a lot of discipline that comes along with it too. It really is you can’t be all artist and you cannot be all science it really is like half and half.
Cindy Molchany: Right, well the position is up on the www.craftbeveragejobs.com if you are interested in looking at the job description. There are some requirements. They are hiring for a lead brewer so that person would need to come with several years experience brewing in a commercial capacity but you guys are also looking for someone who is definitely passionate about beer and there are some other cool tidbits in there that gives someone the hint of what they are looking for. So check out www.craftbeveragejobs.com and also check out their website which is www.flixbrewhouse.com and you will get a sense of their cool culture, the movies, the beer, the food and great reviews that you guys have out there as well. So any last questions for me guys?
Greg Johnson: How soon can you get somebody to send us some resumes?
Cindy Molchany: We will be working on it. So thank you very much and we will get this up on our site probably by the end of today. So thanks again and we will be chatting soon.
Greg Johnson: Awesome thank you.