The Fall and Rise of Nano
Three years ago Nano 108 Brewing was riding the craft beer wave and for many of us, it seemed like the East-side brewery had truly hit its stride. With 18 beers on tap, standing room only in the tasting room and a killer staff—the sky was the limit—or, so we thought. The signs were there, but did we notice? Even the BEER sign planted in the old truck, which has become a landmark for the brewery, is showing its age, with paint peeling and rust creeping in every direction.
The next three tumultuous years could have spelled the end for many a brewery, but thanks to the determination and downright reluctance to fail by the staff and majority owners, Nano is rising from the ashes.
There’s been a considerable amount of people asking us what we knew, so I needed to get to the bottom of it. I recently sat down with Zachary Weller, the GM/head brewer of Nano to learn what caused all the issues. I reached out to Keith, but haven’t had any response.
‘We’ll handle it later…’
As with any workplace, arguments and differences are bound to arise, but in Nano’s case, part-owner and head brewer, Keith Altemose’s plan of action to confront these issues became a “handle it later” type of stance. In-fighting bubbled to the surface, and favoritism took hold, with longtime staff quitting or getting fired for little to no reason. Bringing in new staff, the training was expedited, so buy-in was at an all-time low. With inexperienced staff training new staff members, things were spiraling downwards.
“It was ‘Blind leading the blind’ with the previous crew’s bad habits making their way into the processes for the new staff.”
Mismanagement ran rampant in the front of house, but it took a toll on the brewhouse staff as well. The trend continued into May of this year, and with sales dipping and morale at an all-time low, disenfranchised employees waited until Keith left on vacation to put in their notice, so as not to “poke the bear.” That left Zach to do all the brewing, cellaring, kegging and cleaning—in addition to social media, paperwork and scheduling.
Zach wanted to leave, and had multiple jobs lined up, but the problem of Nano kept him from leaving. With that much work put in, leaving was admitting failure, and he wasn’t ready to do that.
You felt it.
According to Zach, he could feel the direction this all was going. To help with family members in the hospital for half of this year, Weller routinely traveled to Kansas to help out—as is completely understandable and necessary. Not Keith though. Keith referred to Weller’s trips as “vacations” and that he was out “gallivanting around” instead of being at work. Weller described the nature of the trips as taking a red-eye Friday night and coming back Monday and going straight to work without showering or seeing his kids and wife. Not fun, but necessary for someone who has poured their blood, sweat and tears into a business.
For those worried about the future of Nano, we’ll get there, but don’t worry. Starting January 2017, Zach was responsible for 99% of the brewing, albeit all but one recipe were Keith’s.
If you had been drinking Nano’s beer from the beginning, you may have noticed the beers had become sort of “blah.” According to Weller, Keith routinely short-cutted his recipes, he wasn’t creating anything new or exciting—and constantly complained about the breweries in town who were.
“Why would you fucking put raspberry in a kölsch??”
Weller’s one recipe, which he hoped to release for his 5-year anniversary with the company was effectively sabotaged from the start. Making sure he had the inventory for his recipe, Weller scheduled it for a certain date. Keith, at the last moment, moved the brew day to the next week, and used up the remaining Amarillo hops (the star of Weller’s recipe) on a random dry-hop addition. Trudging through his brew day, Weller had to constantly adjust things and make substitutions on the fly only to find out the yeast was ordered late and wouldn’t arrive until the next day. The icing on the cake is the beer ended up getting tapped two weeks late, and even though customers and Keith liked the beer—it just wasn’t right.
“All those things bottled up, just really got me going. I hated being here because he didn’t let me do anything. ”
Then September came
A new staff member joined the team to fill a manager position in September, and despite Zach’s pleading, Keith took the lead for training. His training methodology and constant “negging” towards Weller hung a tension over the entire business every day. By Thursday, fed up with the state of affairs, but needing to accomplish something, Zach was ready to get back to square one and tackle things in a new light. He wanted to take the new manager and actually show her the tricks and tools to make her life easier—and better at Nano.
That day, Keith arrived, as Zach described, to spend the first hour laying into the new manager-trainee—complaining about the world. When she finally makes it back to Zach, for the actual training of that day, he made a small comment about Nano being a work in progress and that they’ll get things figured out. This comment catches Keith’s ear—and it was like all the air in the brewery exploded instantly. The belittling negativity ramps up towards Zach, and to his credit, he ignores it and continues about his day. Realizing the first tactic wasn’t working, Keith came back to Zach and acted all “buddy-buddy.”
“Just quit.”
Now, according to Zach, Keith had things he said—Keith-isms if you may—to the point where he told people he had to pay people to be his friends. It made Zach feel like their friendship was purely business and not personal. Zach recalls times when Keith would be out front saying everything that he thought they wanted to hear, and then come into the back and scream at everyone, throw things across the room, punch holes in cabinets, his temper was dangerous.
For a year or more, Zach’s wife kept imploring him to quit, after coming home day after day in tears, defeated and deflated. But he had a drive to make a name for himself. Keith held so many things back, but Zach felt like leaving wouldn’t allow him to have the same effect elsewhere. Keith held that over him, and he knew it kept Zach there. Constantly, Keith paired himself and Zach against the world, offering future positions and opportunities that never materialized only to come back the next day and deride Zach and his work.
“That man was a mental abuser and an emotional terrorist.”
Zach, knowing the friendliness is fake, continued to ignore Keith—which angered him. Zach is ticking off a huge list of to-do’s and Keith starts chasing Zach around the brewery pointing out every little mistake and issue he can find. The back and forth gets heated and eventually leads to Keith asking why Zach doesn’t just leave. Bartenders and customers out front can hear the ruckus, as it’s loud enough to make it through the plate-glass windows that peer into the brewhouse.
Following Zach, screaming the whole way, Keith told Zach he’s fired, yet has two weeks to finish his work, which is confusing. So, grabbing his stuff from the office, pulling personal photos from his work laptop, Zach left the building.
In his car on the way home, Zach called the partners. Unbeknownst even to myself, Keith wasn’t the end-all-be-all when it comes to Nano. I always thought he was the main owner, and there were some silent partners. Upon informing the partners that Keith had fired him, the partners told him that wasn’t possible, but to take the weekend to cool off and come back on Monday.
On Monday, Zach came in and got to work, and when Keith arrived and found out Zach had conferred with the partners, everything devolved into madness. With only 8 beers on tap, which was a far cry from the 18 they normally had on, Zach had other things on his mind than getting into a fight with Keith.
For Zach, it was about the beer and the customers; he continually trudged through the bad attitudes and negativity for the sake of the business. But this time, it wasn’t worth putting his head down and taking it. On the way home (to get the zip drive full of photos that Keith claimed he stole), he got an assurance from the owners that he was valued for who he was and not to worry.
“You are literally the blood and life-force behind Nano right now. We would rather function without him than without you.”
Upon returning at Nano, Zach found the place locked down. The office is trashed, desks emptied on the floor and computers wiped. It was a message from Keith, so he headed home to weather the storm. After a tense few days at home, sending his resumé out to anyone and everyone, Zach heard back from the partners and agreed to come in to talk about what transpired.
What would you do?
After a lengthy process of removing Keith from the business and ensuring the safety of all parties involved, the partners sit down with Zach to ask him what he would do to get Nano back to what it was. His reply: Great beers, great service, holding bartenders accountable for the service that needs to be, take it back to what it was. All good things for a brewery that was on the up and up just a few short years ago.
Nano 108 head brewer and GM Zach Weller
The biggest thing I took away from talking to Zach, and I truly want to stress this: Nano’s partners handled this incident with the utmost professionalism, and while they’re now thrust into less of a silent role, they’re well-seasoned business people and it will be the best for Nano.
Long story short, Keith is no longer Nano and Nano is no longer Keith. If he was the reason you avoided the brewery, consider popping in again. With Keith fully removed from the business, Zach now is GM and head brewer. The partners gave him full control and almost no limits to what he can bring in ingredient wise. There was some consideration to changing the name even, though all parties involved figured they should keep it as is for the time being.
Moving forward, just from what I’ve seen recently, there’s more creativity and forward thinking than I’ve ever experienced at Nano. There may be some beers that resemble the favorites, I know Zach has the Mango Pineapple recipe memorized, but the staff now has the ability to improve on things as they see fit.
The recipes and the brewer may be gone, but there’s a new energy. It’s a new day for Nano 108.
Go show them some love.
Editor’s note: any statements in this article are based on conversations with Nano employees and are not considered FOTB’s opinion or fact.
