The Virtual Beer Garden

The Idea

The Virtual Beer Garden was conceived when two friends, Ryan Dunn and Eli Marcus, attended the Berkeley Beer Festival in September of 1996. That evening, while contemplating a fine porter, they realized that although they were sure that detailed information on the brewery existed, they had no idea where to find it. Being resourceful guys, they searched the internet and found that only a handful of sites gave quality information on beer. Realizing the demand for quality designed sites on breweries and brewpubs, they decided to gather as much information on beer as they could, and make it available to the world.

The People

Ryan Dunn was born and raised in San Diego, California. In 1991, bored with school, Ryan left college to pursue a career as a luthier. As the sole employee of Dunn Custom Guitars, he quickly came to the understanding that the extra hours he worked had cut into his "beer appreciation" time. In the summer of 1994 he left his love for wood on the workbench to pursue a carreer in the computer industry. After one excruciating year as the night operator at GERS Retail Systems, he followed a friend's advice and relocated to the Bay Area.

Ryan currently resides in San Francisco, where he is employed as the Network Administrator at Studio Archetype (formerly Clement Mok designs).

Eli Marcus recently moved to the city of San Francisco, and is attending the University Of California, Hastings College of the Law. Prior to this move, Eli lived in Los Angeles where he completed a Masters of Business Administration. Entrenched in the educational system and fearful of a nine to five job, Eli saw opportunity in the Virtual Beer Garden. Finally a setting where he could use the skills that his education had most prepared him for, combining business with beer.

After receiving her BA in English from San Diego State University, Jennifer Breese followed her dream of

a bohemian lifestyle. Several weeks and two bad hair days later, Jennifer landed a position with a faceless corporate entity based in San Francisco.

In between poetry sessions at Golden Gate park and caring for her reptilian menagerie, Jennifer works diligently at keeping the Virtual Beer Garden's information pages current.

Jennifer's work has been featured in Backstreet, a college 'zine and We'Moon, an internationally distributed collection of work by women artists.

The Vision

The vision of the Virtual Beer Garden is to provide the most up to date beer related information available on the Web. Our commitment is to produce beautifully designed web pages while providing quality information on the American Beer Renaissance, and the tradition that the art of brewing is built on.