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Dan Gordon, co-founder of Gordon Biersch Brewing Company, has earned a reputation as one of America's leading brewing engineers. As the director of brewing operations for Gordon Biersch, he supervises the company's state-of-the-art brewing and bottling facility in San Jose, Calif.
Gordon is the first American in more than 50 years to graduate from the prestigious five-year brewing engineering program at the world-renowned Technical University of Munich at Weihenstephan, West Germany. Before earning his brewing engineer's degree there in 1987, he interned at Spaten Brewery in Munich and served as a technical translator at Lowenbrau Consulting.
Gordon, who was born in San Jose in 1960, entered the program after earning a resource economics degree from the University of California at Berkeley in 1982 and spending a year as an exchange student at the Georg August University in Gottingen, Germany. He also worked for a year at the Anheuser Busch plant in Fairfield, Calif., to gain the brewing experience he needed to apply to the Technical University of Munich.
After completing the world's most advanced brewing program, Gordon returned to California and joined forces with restaurateur Dean Biersch to take advantage of a new state law allowing brewery restaurants. In 1988, the partners opened their first Gordon Biersch brewery restaurant in Palo Alto, Calif.
In the decade since, Gordon Biersch and the concept it pioneered have both expanded dramatically. But Gordon still makes sure his beloved lagers -- Pilsner, Golden Export, Märzen, Dunkles, and Blonde Bock plus seasonal beers -- all are brewed in strict accordance with the German purity laws governing the production of beer. He uses only the finest ingredients, including Hallertauer hops and a pure strain yeast culture from the Weihenstephan yeast bank supplied exclusively to Gordon Biersch by the Schwarz Brauerei in Zusmarshausen, Germany.
Gordon lives in Redwood Shores, Calif., with his wife, Melissa, and their three children. Although he spends most of his time brewing fine lagers for a living, he never tires of talking about his work. Gordon frequently lectures at the Stanford University School of Business, the Anderson School of Management at UCLA and the Haas School of Business at U.C. Berkeley.
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