In spring 2013, three local longtime friends interested in brewing beer had dreams of leading their own company. To achieve this, they considered different routes, from a publicly funded Kickstarter campaign to the traditional form of pitching private investors.
Then, the trio — Tom Foster, Francis Smith and Colin Marshall — realized starting small, and on their own, made more sense. They could focus on a single product and, if it were successful, the rest could eventually come.
"Let's start with a beer first," Marshall recalled on Thursday morning.
Last week, sans outside support, Baltimore's Diamondback Brewing Company debuted its first keg of beer, 3:30 Amber Ale, at Canton Crossing Wine & Spirits as a part of the store's growler program. Five days later, all of the beer had been sold, according to the store's general manager Aaron Lubliner-Walters.
Not bad for 23-year-olds who began brewing as students at the University of Maryland, College Park. (Foster and Smith are alumni, while Marshall attended Saint Michael's College in Vermont. All three Diamondback co-founders graduated from Loyola Blakefield prep school in 2009.)
Reached by phone before Diamondback's first Pint Night at Smaltimore tonight in Canton, Marshall said the company's initial offering should satisfy a wide range of beer drinkers.
"Our amber ale is especially drinkable because its got a great malt body to it, with that citrus hop on the finish. It's kind of distinct in that way," Marshall, a Baldwin native, said. "The hop profile is what everybody wants nowadays, because everybody is on that IPA craze."
Easy drinkability has always been a major consideration for 3:30 Amber Ale, and that won't change going forward, Marshall said. Currently, Diamondback contract brews 15 barrels of beer per month at Eastern Shore Brewing in St. Michaels. In the spring, in addition to begin bottling, the microbrewery plans to release a still-to-be-determined second beer.
Until then, curious beer drinkers can try the 3:30 Amber Ale at the Nickel Taphouse, Wiley Gunters, Birroteca, Wells Discount Liquors, Towson's Kent House Pub, Liam Flynn's Ale House and Smaltimore.
Diamondback has more ambitious plans coming down the line, Marshall said. Within two years, the goal is to have its own warehouse and full brew system operating, he said. What began as college students brewing on a stove (and then in a garage) could blossom into something larger, and Marshall said they are ready.
"We love the community, but we'd like to set ourselves apart from the rest of the craft-beer market in Baltimore," he said. "We want to be our own entity."