Ambitious Ales – 4019 Atlantic Ave, Long Beach, CA 90807
We sat down with co-owner Juan Carrillo at Ambitious Ales to discuss how their microbrewery is more than the beer itself.
Q: How do you stay connected to your local community of Long Beach?
A: It’s not just about drinking. One of the foundations of the business is to be a community asset. One of the ways we do that is engaging with the community and giving back by opening up this space. We have a range of demographics in here, older couples, young couples playing a board game, we have families with their young kids and dogs and so there are different reasons that people connect to a brewery. We want you to enjoy this space without feeling like you have to drink.
Q: What efforts do you make to be environmentally friendly?
A: We recycle our water in our brewing system and recirculate it. We also look at what type of impact we are making and with that excess grain that gets used in the brewing process we donate it to a local farmer that picks up all the grain and uses it for compost and feed.
Q: What is unique about Ambitious Ales compared to other breweries?
A: Two things, so first it’s our brand and what we represent. We always want to push ourselves and our name speaks for itself, Ambitious is a value as individuals, and as a business, it’s one of our goals. We are always pushing the boundaries when regarding our beer. If you look at our beer selection it is all very unique. We have a blonde with coffee vanilla, we have a Belgian Table Beer with lavender camel and then we add 600 pounds of fresh strawberries, and we have our Imperial Stout brewed with chilies, coffee, and vanilla beans. It’s all very different but we still have our classic style of beers and we do our own interpretation of them. Secondly as a company, in regards to being a community asset, most people don’t challenge themselves in asking what else they can do to give back, we’re not always looking at it for the money, we’re looking at how do we measure our success in regards to how we give back to the community.
Q: We heard you guys are dog-friendly?
A: Yes we are! That’s our owner’s dog, our other partners had dogs as well. Part of it is why not? Dogs are such a big part in a lot of people’s lives, sometimes they are almost like our babies so we want to make sure people can still go out and enjoy themselves.
Q: Can you tell us a bit more about the space?
A: One of the biggest things for us is that we wanted to make this place very welcoming. Our aesthetic is very clean, and our brand is very simple with black and white and some pops of color. We love the window and we really wanted to have them big and open, and if you notice there is a long communal table in the center and that was done on purpose to help bridge that gap between people and that ties into being a community asset. Most places don’t have communal tables, everything is separate, we wanted to get away from that so people would be forced to sit next to each other and engage in conversations.
Q: Who had the vision behind Ambitious Ales?
A: It was our whole team. So myself and my four other partners. We have been working on this project for nine years since we have been in our early 20’s and we were homebrewing and then three years later we decided to get more serious and develop a business plan and researched a lot of stuff that took us about a year and a half to two years. We needed to raise money but no bank would give it to us, we had no assets and no collateral, we had to raise the money privately ourselves and that took us another two and a half years. Then we got this building in Sept. 2017 and built it all ourselves. We put a lot of what we call sweat equity, the equity that we put into the company that is just our labor and love for years. It got tough, there were some years where we were like ‘Is this even going to happen? We’ve been talking about it for five years already, six years.’ We all stuck it out and we all proved it to each other that we really wanted this and this is really going to happen, and nine years later here we are.
Q: Why did you want to get into the brewing business?
A: I think everyone had their own reasons, it started off just as homebrewing and it was an excuse to hang out. We were going to brew some beer together, it takes about four or five hours, we were all just hanging out ordering some food, listening to music. We all play soccer so we would go kick the ball around while we waited. It really was an excuse to all hang out together. We did a wedding and someone from the wedding heard about us tasted our beer and after that, we did about four or five weddings and then private events. After that, we knew we had something going on.
Q: Can the customers skip the beer and get some caffeine instead?
A: We have our own
Q: What makes this environment a great place for college students?
A: It’s a very laid backspace, you can use this space for multiple things. You could come in and pull out your laptop and get to work and handle your stuff, and then right after put your laptop away and engage with people and hang out without the need to get drunk or do anything else. It’s very casual and the lighting is great it’s a nice and welcoming environment where you’re not forced to drink.