COMPANY MISSION
The Brewer Behind MasterDraft
It Started With a Homebrew Kit and a Dream
My name is John Maino, and I started brewing beer in my apartment while attending UC San Diego. Like a lot of homebrewers, I fell in love with the process, the science, the creativity, and the satisfaction of handing someone a beer you made from scratch and watching their face light up. By the time I graduated, I knew I wanted to open my own brewery. But I also knew I wasn't ready. So instead of jumping in blind, I did it the right way; I got a job as a keg washer at Ballast Point Brewing Company in San Diego. Six months later, I was promoted to the brewing team. And that's where everything changed.
Ballast Point Made Me the Brewer I Am
I spent the next six-plus years at Ballast Point learning everything: brewing, cellaring, filtering, and packaging. Brewers at Ballast did it all. Our boss used to say he paid us for our time, not the job we do, so nobody was too good for any task in the building. That culture killed any arrogance and built a work ethic that stuck with me for life. I always say: "I knew how to make beer before Ballast Point. But Ballast Point taught me how to make good beer."
From Brewer to Brewery Owner
At a certain point, my wife told me to either open my own brewery or shut up about it. So I teamed up with Greg Webb, my fellow brewer from Ballast Point, and we opened Ironfire Brewing Company in Temecula, California. For the next 13 years, we built Ironfire into a respected name in Southern California craft beer. We brewed everything from crisp lagers and every style of IPA imaginable to barrel-aged beasts pushing 16%+ ABV, and even pioneered a line of Tiki Ales that nobody had seen before. Toward the end of our run, we expanded into wine, sangria, and cider. But we were best known for two things: aggressive West Coast IPAs and a barrel-aged program that stood up against anyone's in the state. The beer was what people came for. But the part I loved most was the people: the camaraderie with our crew, the relationships with our wholesale accounts, and the regulars who showed up every day and made Ironfire feel like home.
Why Draft Line Cleaning? Because I've Seen What Dirty Lines Do to Good Beer.
After Ironfire, I knew two things: I wanted to stay in the beer industry, and I never wanted to work for someone else again. Once you’ve had that freedom, you can’t go back. But I also knew I didn’t want the headaches that come with running a brewery: the overhead, the equipment, the staffing, and the razor-thin margins. I wanted something beer-related that I could build smart from day one, using all the business lessons I learned the hard way at Ironfire. Then I thought about all those years sending kegs out to bars and restaurants and watching our beer get destroyed by dirty draft systems. Lines that hadn't been cleaned in months. Lines that hadn't been replaced in years; dark, stiff, and caked with buildup instead of clear and flexible. CO2 tanks that were empty or had the valve shut off. We'd get calls that our beer was "pouring bad," and 99% of the time, it had nothing to do with the beer. And the cleaning companies? Most of them just don't care. It's just a job to them. I'll never forget watching a draft tech at a new restaurant installation use his mouth and teeth to loosen a hose to fit it onto a coupler connection easier! I thought, first: that's disgusting. And second: if that's how you treat a brand-new system, how much do you really care about doing a thorough cleaning job on an existing one? That was the moment. If I want draft lines cleaned the way a brewer would clean them, I have to do it myself. That's why I started MasterDraft.
This Time, I'm Doing It Right
MasterDraft isn't my first business; it's my best one. I'm bringing 20+ years of brewing expertise, 13 years of hard-earned business lessons, and a genuine obsession with beer quality to an industry that desperately needs someone who actually gives a damn. I live in Fallbrook and my kids go to school in Temecula. This is my community. The breweries, bars, and restaurants in North County San Diego and Southwest Riverside County aren't just potential clients; they're my neighbors. Many of them are people I've known for years. I'm not building a cleaning company. I'm building the draft line service I wished existed when I was a brewery owner watching my beer get ruined at dirty accounts across town.
Great beer deserves a brewer's touch. That's not just a tagline; it's why MasterDraft exists.