UnCapped: Third Hill Brewing opens in Silver Spring

Sep. 20—In this episode of the UnCapped podcast, host Chris Sands talks with Jason Sliter, owner of Third Hill Brewing Co. in Silver Spring, about his path to becoming a brewery owner and where the name Third Hill came from, as well as the experience of taking over a former brewery location (Third Hill is located where Astro Lab used to be). Here is an excerpt of their talk.

UnCapped: You're still Montgomery County's newest brewery, aren't you?

Jason Sliter: I think so, yeah. We had our grand opening celebration about a week ago.

UnCapped: Congratulations. What is your background? What have you done with your life so far?

Sliter: Well, I went to school for engineering, gave that up to work with youth as a volunteer, which was super not lucrative, hence the volunteer part. Just somehow found out I like business, and 20 years ago, I always wanted to own my own business, but I never knew what that would be. We moved down to Rockville about 12 years ago, kind of got into the craft beer scene, checking out the Dogfish Head Beer, and I was secretly thinking how can I break into the craft beer world? Checking Dogfish Head's LinkedIn kind of stuff. Then I got a home brew for Christmas one year ...

UnCapped: What brand?

Sliter: It was Northern brewer, one gallon.

UnCapped: Damn. So many people have started with Mr. Beer kits.

Sliter: No, thankfully I missed that. ... When [my wife] finished her post-doc, we ended up landing here, and it was like, "Let's really make a go at this."

UnCapped: Were you actively considering opening a brewery, or was this opportunity presenting itself ... because another brewery was closing?

Sliter: That was just timing for us. We were huge Astro Lab fans, great people.

UnCapped: They were definitely one of the most under-the-radar breweries of Maryland. They didn't get the hype that their beer deserved.

Sliter: I would hold their hazies to any hazy I've had anywhere.

We'd been looking for years and were in final negotiations on a lease somewhere when they reached out to us and said they saw we were a brewery in planning, and maybe the timing lines up. Turns out, the timing lined up real well. Just complete luck. I think it turned out pretty well, so far.

UnCapped: What kind of changes did you make to the brewery? Did you do much of your own build out?

Sliter: Mostly cosmetic. That was part of the benefit. It's a rectangular box, so there's not a whole lot you can do with it. A lot of repainting. You're gonna walk in and stare right at our logo now. We added some new tables and brought in some arcade games — give that a whirl, see how that works.

UnCapped: I'm sure there's a balancing act of you wanting to put your stamp on it but not needlessly changing things that didn't need to be changed.

Sliter: Exactly. But there's a different vibe. We've had some good faithfuls come in and say it feels different. It looks like the same space a bit, but it looks different enough and the feel is definitely different, which is good, because we have our own personality.

UnCapped: Had you stuck with home brewing throughout the years? In your envisioning of opening a brewery, did you think you'd do the brewing, or did you always like the business aspect of it?

Sliter: Kind of both. I always wanted to be involved with it. I didn't want to end up in a spot of having the head brewer leave and then I'm looking at this thing like, "How do I drive this?"

UnCapped: I've recently had conversations with people about that. That can be the biggest downfall of a brewery, when one of the owners doesn't have a strong brewing background, for that exact reason. Your head brewer leaves; what are you gonna do? Hope that your assistant can instantly do everything they were doing?

Sliter: That's a tough ask, I think, especially if they're part-time, or whatever their situation is. Our goal was that I would start and be the head brewer, and hiring a head brewer was always part of the plan, down the road a little bit. Depending on the situation, you get a chance to grind out your business and feel it out and work and get the rhythm, the cadence of how everything's gonna go. Taking over that space, it felt like I'd just gotten my driver's license, and then the first car I get to drive is some souped up Dodge Charger that's just way more car than you should be driving with your first license.

This excerpt has been edited for space and clarity. Listen to the full podcast at fnppodcasts.com/uncapped. Got UnCapped news? Email csands@newspost.com.

Third Hill Brewing Co.

8216 Georgia Ave., Silver Spring thirdhillbrewing.com 301-755-2090