Style Weekly profiles The Answer Brewpub’s Brandon Tolbert

Sometimes a side hobby has a way of turning itself into a full-fledged career.

July 30, 2015; 9:05 AM • by Trevor Dickerson

If you’re the Answer Brewpub’s Brandon Tolbert, you’re marveling that a beer-making hobby led to a career: “I had no idea it would turn into this.”

After graduating from Virginia Commonwealth University with a degree in painting and printmaking, Tolbert took a job as a technician with a printing company, brewing beer and comparing notes with fellow home brewers during off hours. In 2013, after a friend in the James River Homebrewers Association suggested Tolbert for consideration, Extra Billy’s BBQ in Midlothian offered him a job as head brewer.

“I don’t know why anyone would do that,” Tolbert says, looking back. “It’s a risk. There are a lot of differences between home brewing and commercial brewing. When you do it at home, it’s for yourself. I’m now in the position of making beer people want to buy.”