“I started working in a beer distributorship in high school, and I soon discovered that I could steal all the dust-covered Chimay bottles from the dark recesses of the warehouse, and absolutely nobody noticed,” says Melvin Brewing Cofounder Jeremy Tofte.
“I was young, drinking Chimay, not even knowing what I had. I was just thinking, ‘This is my jam right here.’ ” Then a couple of extended trips to Belgium in my twenties and thirties made it sink in even deeper.”
Tofte doesn’t pull punches, and as a self-proclaimed “recovering bartender,” he doesn’t order samplers. But this fan of the Wu-Tang Clan who lives to surf, mountain bike, and snowboard is introspective about how his own taste in beer has developed over time. Despite the formative role Belgian beers played in his (very) early life, today he’s drawn more to other flavors.