From Baker to brewer Brewing Co.

By Farrah Madanay     3/29/12 7:00pm

There is a new kid on the craft beer block, and although he grew up in rural Maine, he is a true Houstonian at heart. Rassul Zarinfar (Baker '04), owner of Buffalo Bayou Brewing Co., asserted his unapologetic zeal for Houston by labeling his first beer "1836." It is the year of Texas' declaration of independence from Mexico, which Zarinfar commemorated by designing the tap handle as a replica of Davy Crockett's beloved rifle, "Old Betsy."

"It's the most famous gun in Texas history," Zarinfar said of Old Betsy. "It's a little tongue-in-cheek, but people get a kick out of it."

Zarinfar delivered his first keg of 1836 to Houston's Flying Saucer bar in January. Since then, his personal delivery route has expanded to 20 establishments, including Valhalla and Willy's Pub. Although he has been out of Rice for nine years, his long journey into the craft beer world began here on campus.

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A gentleman and scholar (of beer)

What do Buffalo Bayou Brewery and Baker College Prom Party have in common? Zarinfar founded both.

"Baker hosted the Kicker Party before, and it was never really a hit. So my senior year, I came up with Prom Party," Zarinfar said.

Zarinfar laughed at the thought of Prom Party being his legacy, but said he enjoyed his years at Rice. Zarinfar lived on campus all four years, served as the Baker vice president his junior year and was a bartender at Willy's Pub all eight semesters.

"I definitely double-majored in English and beer," Zarinfar said.

Though he entered Rice intending to become an engineer, after taking a Shakespeare class in his first semester, Zarinfar said he knew he would rather engage in conversations about the human condition than return to calculus equations and physics problem sets.

As much as Zarinfar appreciated his English classes, he said his real passion was always beer. In addition to immersing himself in Rice's on-campus beer culture at Willy's Pub, Zarinfar home-brewed beer in his on-campus housing and slowly picked up beer habits online.

"It's almost like you should do [as a vocation] whatever you do when you've got 10 minutes off from work and you're farting around on the Internet," Zarinfar explained. "I read beer blogs."

For Zarinfar, the Rice experience and living on the doorstep of Houston broadened his cultural outlook. Zarinfar especially cited the Baker Gentleman's Hedonist Society as an integral part of his maturation through college.

"During O-Week, we went into the Baker Library, and Greg Marshall, who was the RA at the time and is still a very dear friend, said 'Okay guys, it's been nice, but it's time you learn how to be men,' and he gave us a quick lecture on etiquette," said Zarinfar. "It was that first overwhelming moment where you're just like, 'This is going to be a transformative experience.'"

Zarinfar said he also appreciated the final Baker Gentleman's meeting, Parting Glass, during which every senior gave a toast over champagne.

After graduating with a degree in English, Zarinfar remained in Houston without a definitive job plan. Little did he know that a meal at Buffalo Wild Wings would lead him down the golden brew road.

From buffalo wings to Buff Brew

Zarinfar unwittingly began networking in the beer industry as a bartender at Willy's Pub. He became well-acquainted with the beer representatives dealing with Pub, and his particular friendship with the Budweiser agents proved invaluable post-Rice. In a fortuitous turn of events, the jobless Zarinfar ran into these Budweiser representatives at Buffalo Wild Wings, and they offered him a job.

"I was their promotions guy for Rice Village and later became a data analyst for them," Zarinfar said.

Zarinfar briefly returned to the East Coast to attend Harvard Business School and become a c o n s u l tant. Just as his plan of becoming an engineer was derailed at Rice, Zarinfar's intent to become a consultant quickly washed away to the Florida shore. Enamored by the entrepreneurial business atmosphere, Zarinfar worked for a stint at a startup craft distributor in Florida. However, his experience in the Sunshine State was as dark and bitter as a Guinness Stout.

"I fell flat on my ass in Florida," Zarinfar said. "So I bought a one-way ticket to Houston."

While Zarinfar explored his job prospects in Houston, his friends planted the first seed of barley into his mind by insisting he launch his own company.

"Everyone told me along the way, 'You should start your own brewery,'" Zarinfar said. "I'm like, 'That's foolish. It's the most highly regulated, most competitive industry to get into. You sink a ton of money in, and if your beer sucks, you're dead on arrival. That doesn't sound like my cup of tea.'"

Zarinfar said that along the way, he began to reconsider the feasibility of establishing a brewery. Fifty investors and a successful global search for a master brewer later, Buffalo Bayou Brewing Co. was realized.

The company is currently a two-man operation, with Zarinfar as the businessman and Ryan Perra as the brewmaster. Zarinfar chose Perra for his bold creativity after he tasted Perra's beer at the brewpub he was working at in Dallas, Texas.

"He was doing really cool things, considering it was a brew pub and a chain one at that," Zarinfar said. "He was using Brettanomyces, a spontaneously fermenting yeast strain, which is a really hard yeast strain to master. I had never seen anything like that before."

Zarinfar said he does not plan to bottle his beer any time soon but hopes to open the brewery to tours starting in April. Currently his webpage says, "Drown ideology in beer," which to him means keeping beer as unpretentious as the city of Houston: not worrying about style guidelines and differentiations between types of beers.

"Whenever someone fixates on whether our beer is a porter or a stout I just want to say, 'Shut up and drink your beer. Now do you like it or not?'" Zarinfar said.

Zarinfar, who said his favorite Rice tradition is Willy Week, has sponsored a few residential colleges and the GSA for Beer Bike tomorrow. He also donated kegs to Rice's inaugural celebrateART festival earlier this month.

"We can't donate as much as I'd like to this year, but it's cool to help out a little bit at least," Zarinfar said of his fledgling brewery.

 

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