Kathy Ireland was 25 when I met and interviewed her for a Zymurgy magazine cover story in 1988. At the time she was a model and appearing on the covers of Sports Illustrated annual Swimsuit Edition; something she did a record three times. Since then she has become a wife and mom of three kids with a household including four dogs. With her entrepreneurial skills she has built a $350 million business. As featured once again as a cover girl on the recent February 27 issue of Forbes magazine, the cover story, “Super Model Super Mogul: How Sports Illustrated Swimsuit Model Kathy Ireland Became a $350 Million Mogul” reports on her current success as a business woman. Her focus seems to feature products and accessibility especially for moms.
Here’s a reprint of the interview I had with Kathy at her then bachelorette bungalow in Santa Barbara, California. The story published in the 1988 Special “Brewers and their Gadgets” issue of the American Homebrewers Association’s Zymurgy magazine.
1988
"After making my first batch of [homebrewed] beer I told my mom I was going to start a brewery. She said, 'Oh no. I know you will, too. Every time you say you're going to do something you do it. Why can't my daughter be a teacher or a nurse? Why do you have to be a brewmaster?'"
To millions of Americans, Kathy Ireland is just a cover girl, a photograph and a model recognized throughout the world, who for years has graced the pages of the Sports Illustrated swimsuit edition and calendars. To a small but growing number, she is a beer enthusiast and homebrewer with the same fantasies and fabrications that inspire most brewers.
Traveling from her Santa Barbara, Calif., home to locations around the world virtually every other week, Kathy's modeling career is filled with jet planes and long trips, lights, cameras, designers, movie sets, big cities and desert islands. Vogue, Mademoiselle, Bazaar, Stern, Italian Vogue, and French Vogue are a few of the magazines she's appeared in besides Sports Illustrated.
She's recently finished playing the lead role in the movie "Alien from L.A." "It's a kid's movie, kind of like 'Journey to the Center of the Earth,' " she explained while unrolling a large movie poster: "Kathy Ireland is The Alien from L.A.' " She smiled then laughed as she rolled the poster back up, more interested in talking about the dark beer she had while filming on location. She described a delicious German-style beer on tap brewed by a microbrewery in the town of Swakopmund, Namibia, located on the southwestern coast of Africa. [I followed in Kathy’s footsteps years later. You can read about that brewery, which I too visited in my book, Microbrewed Adventures, “The Last Beer in Swakapmund.”]
There is no lifestyle that typifies the American Homebrewer
As the interview progressed I thought to myself, "This was hardly the lifestyle that typifies your American homebrewer." But I should know better than to entertain such thoughts. All of these years of traveling and meeting homebrewers throughout the world has taught me by now there is no lifestyle that typifies the American homebrewer. A look through this issue of zymurgy and others of years past would illustrate the point.
There is something that does typify the homebrewer: It is the unabashed enthusiasm for beer appreciation and the art of brewing. Kathy is no exception. Fiji, Tahiti, the Seychelles, Namibia, Australia, Thailand, France, Curacao, Italy, New Zealand are but a very few of the locations she's had the pleasure of working. ... and drinking the local beer. "Every place I've been has its own beer and whenever I travel I always try to find the local beer. I'd like to visit the breweries there but when I'm working on location, there's just not enough time."
She was quick to add, "My preference is for the stronger, more bitter beers. With my homebrewing I usually brew dark ales and bitters." Her enthusiasm for beer was no less than that of the brewer I met three weeks earlier two thousand miles away who had a sophisticated all-grain brewery set up in his garage.
As any beer enthusiast does, Kathy has adapted her home-brewing interests to her lifestyle, mostly brewing with kits. "The batch I liked the best I didn't use sugar," she added with confidence, though she has recently been experimenting with plain malt extracts and hops.
Underneath her kitchen table there are two batches of beer bubbling and fermenting, one in a carboy, the other in a closed plastic fermenter. A small box in the corner of another room stored her bottle brush, siphon tubes, thermometer, wooden spoon, hydrometer and bottle capper.
An admitted beer enthusiast for years, Kathy’s friends knew of her interest in trying her own hand at brewing. Not knowing where to go to get started, a friend obliged her by handing her a copy of the book, The Complete Joy of Home Brewing, found at a local bookstore. Soon she had her first batch going with the assistance of Rafael Maldonado, owner of the Homebrew Supply Shop in Isla Vista.
I curiously listened to Kathy’s account of how she became involved with beer and brewing. As the story unraveled I could see a similarity to the development of her modeling career. There seemed to be a style to her pursuits. "When I was 17 years old and in my junior year in high school a [talent] scout wanted me to go to New York for the summer and try out modeling. I didn't really want to go," she explained. New York City seemed like an awful place for a 17-year-old to spend her summer, but she finally decided to give it a try.
She remembers her similarly aged roommates being somewhat more enthusiastic: "I love NY" posters decorated their room. Now she laughs as she recalls the poster her sympathetic California schoolmates sent her: "NY Sucks."
She persisted and survived the summer, returning to California to finish high school. At 18 she pursued her interest in modeling and was off at 6 a.m. the morning after high school graduation to work on location in Rome, Paris and Milan. As a young woman, she soon found herself on a plane every week, traveling back and forth to Europe, "all the time wondering whether I wanted to do modeling . .. but soon it began to take more and more of my time."
…wanting to stop modeling someday…
Now 25 years old, Kathy has been brewing for two years, modeling for seven and talking of wanting to stop modeling someday. "When I settle down and don't travel so much, then I can try brewing with grains and using different kinds of ingredients. I like to experiment a lot and invent things." At this point I recalled what she had said a few minutes earlier, "... but soon it began to take more and more of my time." Where have I heard that before?
"I'm not really a good cook and I didn't know anyone who made their own beer. I was intimidated at first, but when I made my first batch I was really surprised how easy it was. It seemed complicated at first with all the different steps and using strange equipment I'd never heard of before. But the instructions were simple and afterwards I thought that it was pretty easy to make ... and it was fun.
"I got really excited when I first tasted it. I think I liked it better than anyone else did. My dad told me it was much better than his used to be."
One glass of homebrew and Kathy was quickly thinking, "I did some research and found out how much it cost to make: 16 cents a glass to make and then you could sell it for S2 a glass. I began figuring out the profits on that and thought, “If I can put Budweiser out of business ...” Her story trailed off into a knowing smile as she realized it takes a lot more research to become a brewmaster.
Her pursuit of having her own brewpub led her from her first batch of beer to the yellow pages. Looking under "brewing schools," she was led to Professor Michael Lewis at the University of California, Davis, and soon thereafter to the world of microbrewers.
Being a career model with a desire to start her own brewpub brought quite a few propositions, including one from an Italian businessman who had her brewing career all figured out: "He had this idea of putting me in a bathing suit on the label of an already established beer," Kathy dryly explained. "It didn't really work out with him. We had altogether different views on beer and brewing."
Her pursuit led her to a small group of investors in the soon-to-open San Luis Obispo Brewing Co. When her modeling career winds down she plans to spend as much time at the brewery as she can, learning the art and science of brewing. For now she muses, "I realized how much work was involved with a brewpub and feel lucky to be involved the way I am [as an investor]." Her goal is to someday open her own brewpub as time, experience and education permit.
For now, she’ll be content with brewing her own homebrew. Her friends think that maybe her pursuits are a little unusual, but she is quick to admit that they like to drink her beer.
For anyone contemplating trying their first batch of beer she had these words of encouragement: "Relax. Don't worry. It's not that difficult. You’ll have fun and once you see the finished product and you're happy with it, it'll give you more encouragement. You’ll want to make more and want to make it better.
"Most people like my beer. I've had a batch or two that could have used a little improvement, but you know, you learn and you keep brewing."
This writer couldn't have said it better.
Charlie Papazian, Summer of 1988
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