My Beer Journey: Patrick Combs

We sat down with Master Cicerone® Patrick Combs to hear how his beer journey started, what he's learned along the way, and what advice he’d give to others in the industry.

Let’s start at the beginning, what was your gateway beer or moment that first pulled you into the world of craft beer?

Much like many people, Sierra Nevada Pale Ale was the first time the lightning hit me. I had plenty of random beers here and there, but that was the first sort of eureka moment. I remember thinking, wow, I didn’t know beer could taste this way. And that’s true for a lot of people. You have something that’s really well made and has very carefully selected hops, and it’s that first thing that really makes you realize that beer can be beyond the American light lagers that we tend to drink in our earlier years. Sierra Nevada Pale Ale was absolutely that lightning strike moment for me.

Can you walk us through your career path in the beer industry?

I knew early on, when I was in undergrad, that I really wanted to work in the beer industry. I didn’t know how I was necessarily going to get there. When you talk to people in the industry, a lot of them say, oh, I started in packaging and worked my way up, and now I’m a brewer. I had applied for jobs in packaging and didn’t get very good response. I didn’t get a lot of interviews. That was back in the day when you kind of had to volunteer your time at a brewery just to get your foot in the door. So, I took a different path.

I knew that really good beer was really good, and I wanted to know what made good beer good, and I wanted to know what made bad beer bad. I was studying for the Advanced Cicerone at the time and decided to start a sensory training company to train breweries on off-flavors. I was living in Kansas City at the time. Sometimes the beer was absolutely incredible, and other times it just fell short. My whole idea was, if I can help people understand what makes good beer good and bad beer bad, maybe I can help improve the scene around me.

That eventually led to a career with Avery Brewing Company as a sensory scientist. I had a significant amount of sensory training at that point and a very good understanding of all the potential positive and negative flavor attributes that you find in beer. I took the job at Avery and really loved my time there. The time I spent there was incredible. Getting to work with some world-class people was a life-changing thing for me.

That eventually rolled into a career on the production side, more than the quality side. I was a production manager for a small brewery called Cerebral for a couple of years, and then I kind of graduated back to the quality world. I discovered I missed that aspect of brewing. I really like to get down to the nitty gritty of what is the flavor profile of our beers and are we hitting that. So, I took a role with WeldWerks Brewing in Greeley, Colorado, as their quality manager. I did that for a number of years. I learned a ton about using very unusual adjuncts and making beers that, on paper, seem absolutely insane, but then you pull it off, and it absolutely delivers on what’s on the front of the package.

From there, I took a job with Stem Ciders. I kind of moved over to the cider side of things. They had a beer called Howdy at the time that they were co-packaging, so I still got to kind of play in both realms. It was really interesting to see another side of the beverage industry.  Stem has turned into Wilding Brands where I’m now the Vice President of Liquids. We’ve got just over nine different breweries in the portfolio. It’s been an incredible honor to take the reins on some of these legacy brands like Great Divide, Funkwerks, and now Station 26, and really start to shape the portfolio in a way that’s impactful and meaningful as a whole to the craft beer sector.

Are there any other categories you are starting to pursue?

The non-alcoholic space is another area that we’re very interested in. It’s kind of suffering through the same shortfalls the early craft beer movement did. There’s quite a bit of bad non-alcoholic beverages out there. We actually just packaged our first non-alcoholic beer the other day. It turned out great. We used a maltose-negative yeast. It was pretty exact to the flagship that we modeled it after. I’m really excited to play in that space.

I think brewers and world-class craft breweries are also going to bring a lot to the table in sectors like THC beverages. Eventually, we’ll probably have things like psilocybin and other intoxicants that we can apply the same methodology and passion to, to really create a beverage that’s incredibly well-rounded and delivers a full flavor experience without the shortfalls of the process.

I do think it will be interesting as people begin to understand what those consumers are looking for. I might not be trying to drink an alcoholic beverage. I might be fine with the calorie count, or maybe I want five milligrams of THC or something else added. Adaptogens are something people are moving into now. So it will be interesting to see what the differentiating factors are between them.

Right now, the lagers are either really good or they’re really bad. I feel like we’re going to find ourselves in a similar situation with NA and functional beverages. Someone tries one poorly made non-alcoholic beer and says, this isn’t for me. Then they don’t give that category another shot until they’re at a tasting or something like that. And then they have that eureka moment. I don’t normally drink cider, but this is really good. I don’t normally drink lagers, but this one’s nice. That’s kind of the unknown and scary part right now.

What role has formal beer education played in your journey, Cicerone, BJCP, brewing courses, or otherwise?

Formal beer education really allowed me to get my foot in the door. It’s still a very competitive market. Whatever you can do to differentiate your resume and make yourself more attractive on paper is at least going to get you the conversation. Until I started getting certifications and participating in the industry before I had a job, most people didn’t take me seriously.

I get a lot of resumes from people who are passionate about beer but have never worked in the industry. They’re asking us to take a chance. At the end of the day, there are steps like the Cicerone certification that you can take early on to prove that you're not just passionate, you're knowledgeable. And not only are you knowledgeable, but you've created your knowledge, you have a good palate, and you understand the good, the bad, and the ugly of the industry.

That was my leg up. I wanted to differentiate myself in the most positive way possible and prove to the world that my passion was legitimate and that my educational foundation was well-rounded and exactly what that brewery needed.

That education continues to impact my day to day. For me, the style education aspect was probably the most important. When I started studying for Cicerone exams, I didn’t have a great appreciation for lager as a category. I was seeking the most flavorful and intense beers and well-crafted hoppy beers. I’d drink a really well-crafted German lager and just find it boring. But studying changed that. It opened my eyes to what the beer world could be and why these beers were to be appreciated, whether or not you liked the profile. Now, as I manage the Wilding portfolio, I have a really good appreciation for every single beer style. Prior to this program, I didn’t necessarily have that. Passing those exams puts you in a place where you understand what a beer is supposed to taste like, why it’s supposed to taste that way, the history behind it, how it evolved, and what to look for or avoid. It gives me a clear vision when taking a product to market.

Have you had any mentors or peers that played a big role in your growth? What did they teach you?

As for mentors, it’s really a laundry list. The beer industry is one where everybody gives very freely of the knowledge they have. If you encounter a problem, there’s a good chance someone else has seen it.

I remember we were trying to troubleshoot an off-aroma in a barrel-aged sour at Avery. It was a mix of tuna fish and epoxy. I couldn’t figure it out. I took the sample to Lauren Woods Limbach at New Belgium. We worked the problem together. We weren’t able to get a positive ID, but she had sensed it before, mostly in foreign beers. She said it presents as tuna fish and epoxy, then becomes something more intriguing, and eventually usually cleans up.

That was a real head-scratcher. But with her insight, we decided to wait it out. And it did clean up. We ended up with a very clean product.

People like Lauren have been incredibly impactful. Now I get to do the same. I get to help others troubleshoot complex issues. I’ve gathered so much information over the years, and now I can pass it on to others in the industry. That’s incredibly rewarding.

When you’re teaching others about beer now, what’s one concept you think everyone should really understand better?

When I talk to people about off-flavors, the first thing I usually hear is, I have a terrible palate. And that’s the funniest thing to me because no one has a terrible palate. We just have palates that need a little training.

I always tell my teams, you might be blind to diacetyl, but maybe you’re really sensitive to sulfur. You have elements of your palate that are powerful and unique. What matters is understanding what you’re good at and what you’re not. If you can map that out, you can focus on strengths and improve where possible.

Once people understand they’re not bad at tasting beer, they just need to be more thoughtful and analytical, that’s when it gets exciting. I love seeing that light come on. Someone says, I don’t get aldehydes, and then they realize they do get the dryness. Now they have a new way to spot acetaldehyde. That’s a huge moment.

If you could go back and give yourself advice when you were just starting in beer, what would it be?

If I could give my younger self advice, it would be to not be afraid to ask questions. I assumed people around me knew way more than I did. Sometimes they did. But the industry is built on specialization. In larger breweries especially, you have focused teams. One person may know everything about fermentation but not much about packaging. Everyone is learning.

Hop creep is a good example. A few years ago it started becoming a thing in hazy IPAs. People were trying to figure out what was happening. There were lots of theories, but no clear answers. Then I found a brewing text from the 1800s. Hop creep was well documented. Brewers would add hops to a barrel of cask ale and get hop creep from that. It was the hops.

If you’re having a problem, it’s almost certainly been encountered before. Don’t be afraid to dig into historical texts or reach out to people who have been doing this for a long time. That’s when you get those clarifying moments. You find the MBAA article or the ASBC article, and now you’re on your way to becoming a subject matter expert. You have the tools to fix what’s going on.

What was your studying process? Any tips for those working towards advancing further in the program?

My study process for Cicerone was every spare moment I had. I drove my wife nuts. We’d go to breweries, and I’d order a flight of everything. I’d taste and smell it all, then hand it to her and say, taste this. What do you get? I’d explain the flaw, how it’s made, and why it shouldn’t be there.

I carried flashcards everywhere. I had flashcard apps on my phone. I studied 20 to 40 hours a week. For Master Cicerone, you kind of have to. Unless you take ten years, you have to learn a huge amount in a condensed timeframe.

Every free moment became a study opportunity. Podcasts in the car, books at home, tastings at every stop. I never turned it off. And honestly, I still haven’t. I still listen to those same podcasts. The Master Brewers Association podcast is incredible. They’ve had some of the best guests breaking down really complex topics.

This industry evolves constantly. If you want to be a subject matter expert, you can’t stop learning. I still buy the new books. I still listen. It never stopped, and I’m glad. It became a healthy obsession, and I still love it.

When you’re studying for Cicerone exams, you may not pass. But it’s still a win. You’re going to come out a better industry professional. You’ll have more knowledge and better tools than you did before. It’s not just about the certification. It’s about becoming sharper, more informed, and better equipped for whatever comes next.

Where were you at / what were you doing when you got the Master Cicerone phone call?

When I got the Master Cicerone phone call, I was sitting in my office, waiting for Chris to call. I had fully prepared myself for anything. Just sitting for the exam is an accomplishment. Two days of testing, nearly 20 hours of writing, tasting, and interviews. You have to make peace with whatever the outcome is going to be.

Chris started reading me my section scores. I was adding it up in my head and thinking, I might be close. Then he said, that happens to be an 85. Congratulations. You passed.

It was surreal. Ten years of studying. Every free moment. I had started back at Certified Beer Server, looking at the Master Cicerone requirements and thinking, there’s no way. Maybe I’ll just get Certified. But once you start climbing, it’s hard to stop. It became an obsession. I wanted that credential. I wanted to get to the top of the mountain. And when I got there, I couldn’t believe it.

It hasn’t stopped. I had a moment where I thought, now what? What do I do with all this time? But the answer was clear. I need to keep learning. I need to keep going. This is what I love. And I don’t really see myself doing anything else.