Nov 26, 2025
Smog City Brewing co-founder Laurie Porter is a prepper. Even
during craft’s days of double-digit growth in the middle 2010s,
Porter, who calls herself “an incurable optimist,” was eyeing a
future when that growth wouldn’t be there.
So Porter and her husband, Jonathan Porter, built Torrence,
California-based Smog City with diversified revenue streams –
distribution, exports to international markets, four taprooms with
over-the-bar sales and an intentional cap on production around
10,000 barrels – that allow the company to shore up its business if
things go sideways.
“At our level, between the 5,000 and 12,000, 13,000 barrel, a lot
of our revenue is built off the taproom, direct-to-consumer, which
has a little bit higher profit margin, it helps us float that
wholesale,” Porter says in the latest edition of the Brewbound
Podcast, recorded on location at the California Craft Beer Summit.
“So if wholesale is struggling or we’re seeing dips and changes in
seasons and customer changes, we have a little bit more
buffer.”
Porter admits that Smog City has looked at what life would be like
as a 15,000-barrel brewery but has been "apprehensive to break
that” ceiling due to the loss of the ability to pivot, flex and
manage costs.
“When you hit 15,000 barrels, you are playing so deep in the chain
world because it’s all about volume,” she explained. “Chain can be
very fickle. It can be really difficult to maintain. A beer buyer
changes and boom, you’re off the shelf. And that’s now, whatever,
450 barrels of beer for that one style of beer that you had
committed to that grocery, and it’s gone. And you can’t just
predict it.”
In the interview, Porter discusses the pressures on LA locations,
consumers heading back into taprooms, the impending closure of its
Steelcraft Long Beach facility after a decade due to being unable
to extend the lease and the launch of a new restaurant concept in
December to replace it.
Before the interview, Jess, Zoe and Justin cover the latest news,
including the Siebel Institute of Technology’s planned exit from
Chicago and move to Montreal; Athletic Brewing’s big 2025 and new
products coming in 2026; and a Gen Z take on the rumored
Anheuser-Busch InBev acquisition of BeatBox.