Yuseff Cherney

Bio

Yuseff Cherney is a native Californian, born in San Francisco, and has spent most of his life in San Diego. He graduated from the University of California San Diego with a BA in Philosophy and a minor in Biological Anthropology in 1992. During his college years, he developed a passion for beer and brewing, and after home brewing for several years began teaching brewing through the UC San Diego Crafts Center. Through his brewing class, Yuseff met Chris White who was interested in brewing and worked culturing yeast at the university. Yuseff and Chris became brewing partners and went on to work together developing brewing strains of yeast and co-wrote "The Fungus Among Us," a handbook on yeast culturing. Chris went on to form White Labs, one of the world’s foremost suppliers of brewery yeast. Just out of college, Yuseff met Jack White, (no relation to Chris White) who had just started Home Brew Mart, a local home brew supply store. The day after meeting Jack, Yuseff was hired to work the store, selling equipment and ingredients to people who wanted to brew beer at home. Jack's dream was to open a micro-brewery once the home brew shop became successful, and after three years Ballast Point Brewing Company began construction in the back suite behind Home Brew Mart. After eight years Ballast Point had outgrown the building, even with the acquisition of three adjoining suites, and construction of a new production facility was underway in 2004. The new brewery was capable of producing more than four times the output of the original brewery, and bottled beer in six packs were added to production. Yuseff handed off the brewing duties so he could help build the new plant, plumbing, wiring, welding, planning and engineering designs in an effort to save costs. In 2015, Ballast Point Brewing was sold and Yuseff has since been the Head Distiller and Co-Founder of Cutwater Spirits.