The year was 1994. Arlington, Texas was home, and I was working for Greyhound Bus Lines when a co-worker named Sonny introduced me to home brewing. I didn’t know much about beer at the time, but his home-brewed Rattlesnake Ale was excellent compared to what I’d been drinking. The fact that I can’t recall any of those brands tells you everything — none of them really stood out. What did stand out was that ale. It was the first home brew I’d ever been offered, and it changed the way I thought about beer entirely.
In early 1995 I moved back to California and was working in Los Angeles, sharing an apartment with a good friend — a fellow private pilot and United Airlines co-worker. It wasn’t long before I found a home brew store in Torrance and stopped in one day. Remembering the taste and complexity of Sonny’s Rattlesnake Ale, I wanted to try my hand at it. After some conversation about ingredients and the process, I walked out loaded down with brewing gear and a cherry wheat beer kit — chosen because I was chasing something with a Samuel Adams kind of flavor.
The Internet existed, but I was still an AOL user and rarely ventured beyond it. I set up in the kitchen, following the instructions as best I could through what turned out to be a long, complex and messy process. I bottled two cases and waited. When I finally popped the cap on the first bottle, I wasn’t impressed. The second batch I can barely remember — I couldn’t even tell you what kit I bought — and it was still sitting bottled when I eventually moved back to San Diego. My home brewing ambitions quietly died with that second batch.
Years passed with craft beer readily available and no shortage of home brew stores nearby. Eventually I started researching brewing again. It seems like an odd impulse in a state with such a strong craft beer culture, but there’s something that hits differently when you hand someone a glass and say “I brewed this” — and you watch them enjoy it.
Between 2018 and 2019 I brewed five beers, each part of a themed series. You can read about all of them under Beer. The first series was inspired by my employer at the time, Bay Area Rapid Transit (BART), with beers named after various aspects of the company. The second series had a Fantasy Premier League theme — fantasy soccer, for the uninitiated — and only made it two beers deep. I was lucky enough to share both with the community, shipping bottles to New York and across Europe for members of the FPL Beer Club.
Now it’s 2026. I’m retired and living full time in Paso Robles, and a member at California Coast Beer Company. I get to watch the brew house in action, see the equipment up close, and taste the wide range of beers that brewers Frank and Blake put out. It’s rekindled something. I need to get back into this hobby — not because I think I can do better, but for the pure enjoyment of crafting something of my own.
The name Contributing Factor came about because, at BART, whenever there was an incident or accident, management and the union would always point to my position as a “contributing factor.” I thought it was a fitting name for a home brewery, since my tagline is: “Every ingredient. A Contributing Factor.”