New brewery’s boss launches into parenthood – Hendersonville Times-News

From the Hendersonville Times-News
by Gary Glancy

He’s been charged with running what many in the beer industry are predicting could become the most beautiful brewery in the world when it is completed.

Brian Grossman, who will comanage Sierra Nevada’s multifaceted Mills River facility currently under construction, has logged more airline miles in the past year than most people accumulate in a lifetime. Whether it’s the back-and-forth trips to Western North Carolina from his home in Chico, Calif., or the multiple jaunts to Germany to purchase hand-crafted brewing equipment, Grossman’s life has been a whirlwind ever since the day in January when he returned from honeymooning in Costa Rica with his new bride, Gina, just in time to join Gov. Beverly Perdue at a news conference to formally announce his company’s expansion plans in Western North Carolina.

And now, Grossman faces a whole new realm of responsibility for something every bit as precious and meaningful as the 33-year-old family business. Grossman, who is about to turn 28, became a father for the first time Dec. 15 when Gina Grossman gave birth to a healthy boy named Jaxon Kenneth Grossman. The baby’s middle name is a nod to Brian’s father, Ken, who founded Sierra Nevada in 1980. “Most people are stressed enough about having a kid on the way; I’ve got the brewery and a kid,” Grossman told the Times-News during an interview in Chico in September. “You know when they say there’s never a good time to have a child, so you might as well hop into it, and when it happens, it happens? Well, I might disagree with them. If the brewery was a year later or a year earlier … but, you take it as it comes.”