Brewing up good for the city he loves!
Peter Kiley is addicted to creation. “It’s this idea of taking an abstract thought and creating a concrete product,” says Kiley, brewmaster of Upper Westside’s Monday Night Brewing. “That is my drug of choice.”
His field of choice provides endless opportunities.
The Atlanta native and graduate of Sandy Springs’ Holy Innocents’ Episcopal School studied chemistry at the University of Georgia. But instead of medical school, he followed an aunt and uncle to northern California’s Anderson Valley and learned winemaking at their vineyard.
“A piece of me was missing” far from Atlanta, Kiley says, so he moved back and made wine at Chateau Elan. He then studied to be a sommelier and managed events but missed creation.
Monday Night Brewing was working toward opening a taproom in 2013 when Kiley applied to be its manager to get a start there. He soon was tapped instead to fold boxes part time in return for beer. He became an assistant brewer in May 2013.
By that time he was dating the sales director. He and Rachel, now the chief operating officer, married in 2017 and have two children, ages 6 and 3.
“Beer was really a thing of love, and I think it found me at the right time when I needed an outlet,” Kiley says.
After winemaking’s secrecy, Kiley appreciates the collaboration between brewers. Brewing offers experimentation with ingredients and flavors, though not always successfully. “I have dumped more beer down the drain than a UGA fraternity could consume in a lifetime,” he says.
The elevated “winification” of beer with techniques such as barrel aging has helped Monday Night Brewing win awards and fueled growth, he says. The company added a tasting room, The Garage, dedicated to barrel-aged beer, then expanded to Alabama, Tennessee and North Carolina. Now it is launching a wine program.
Meanwhile, Kiley and his wife started Sneaky Pete Spirits, which includes a variety of spirits. They launched Pedro Furtivo (Spanish for Sneaky Pete) tequila and Yacht Water, a tequila-based, ready-todrink canned cocktail. As with wine, Kiley says, the soil is crucial for tequila; as with beer, he plans such creative touches as barrel aging.
“I’ve kind of felt like I fell in love again,” he says. “With beer, I respected it so much that it wasn’t as lustful and invigorating.”
Launching Sneaky Pete forces Kiley to tap into his Atlanta relationship capital. “I mainly do depositing. I haven’t really done many withdrawals.”
Those deposits include serving on the board of Grove Park’s PAWKids community hub, raising money for anti-hunger initiatives and this spring starting The 404 Fund with Brandon Butler of media company Butter.ATL.
Kiley says he and Butler acted from a shared frustration that people take from Atlanta without giving back. Working with the Community Foundation for Greater Atlanta and benefiting from 4.04% of the proceeds from Monday Night’s 404 Lager, their fund raises money for nonprofits working on education, housing, food and mental health.
“I love the work I do in beer. I love the work I’ve done in wine. I like the work I’m going to do in liquor. But I’m not curing cancer,” Kiley says. “If Atlanta is going to make my dreams possible, then it is absolutely my responsibility to give back to the city.”
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