“When we were doing 3,000-BBLs a year, we bought a $25,000 DO [dissolved oxygen] meter,” Constantiner says of another, similar purchase. “We weren't even bottling then. It’s things like that which go so overlooked.”

Societe also displays their stringency in terms of freshness by not bottling any beers aside from their Feral series—everything else is draft-only. They want to ensure they have maximum control over where their beer goes and who handles it.

“We self-distribute in San Diego only to have control over our beer,” Constantiner says. “I think if we were to sign with a distributor, we could grow a lot, and most people wouldn’t notice the difference in our beer. But we would know the difference. I love beer so goddamn much. This is my everything, and it kills me if there's a bad experience with my beer.”

Currently, Societe has 350 draft accounts in San Diego County managed by a sales team of four people. When planning the brewery, Smith and Constantiner chose their location to specifically fit their self-distribution, draft-only business model. They are centrally located in San Diego with five nearby highways. Based on volume, 85% of their beer now goes out the door to draft accounts.

"I don't want to make it seem like what we're doing is better than somebody else,” Constantiner says. “Two of the three breweries that I respect most in the world, one is the second-largest craft brewery, Sierra Nevada, and the other is Firestone Walker. They grow a lot, they sell their beer everywhere, but as they grow, their beer gets better. So it's not that we have to be small because that's cool or so that it's hard to get—this is just the way we like to do it. They say people come in different shapes and sizes, so do businesses.”

Even with organic growth, most successful breweries are forced to give up self-distribution at some point. If things keep escalating, at some level, the business will outgrow where its own hands can reach. But if Constantiner has it his way, that day will never come for Societe. In his eyes, in order to succeed on one of brewing’s biggest stages, Societe must maintain complete control of their beer, from brew day to the point it hits the consumer’s lips.

"I want to say forever.” Constantiner says of his plans for self-distro. “I will make this work. I'm not going to be running a logistics company. You have to be a lot smarter than I am to do it. But for our size, it's doable, and I want to make it work. I never want to give up that self-distribution."