Zack Frasher clung to a secret the first time he shared his homebrew with Dan and Karen Powell in 2015. The Powells had invited Frasher to the warehouse in Auburn, California, where they were planning to open Moonraker Brewing Co. They wanted Frasher to see their homebrew system while they sized up his potential as a brewer. Frasher—who was working part-time at Mraz Brewing Company and at the homebrew store where the Powells shopped—regularly traded beers with friends and family across the country. He was especially fond of the hazy IPAs popular in New England, and he was dialing in his own recipes at home, where he often had four or five hazy IPAs on tap.
But on that first visit with the Powells, Frasher poured a classic West Coast double IPA and never uttered a word about those hazy, New England–style IPAs.
“The hazy IPA, I was kind of holding in my back pocket because I didn’t know them too well yet, and I didn’t want to reveal any crazy secrets,” Frasher says. “It was like, ‘Oh, I’ll share this hazy IPA, and then you guys don’t hire me.’ ”