My name is Thomas 'Tom' Cizauskas. I am a salesman for Select Wines, Inc. of northern Virginia. Despite the name of the company, I sell both wine and beer.
Among my interests, one which holds my profound attention is beer.
I might say that I have a love affair with beer: not simply its tastes - as delicious, complex, and varied as they may be - but its history, science, lore, and evolving creation.
In the beer trade since the early 1990s, I have been a brewer, a brewery manager, a brewery consultant, a brewpub owner, a beer writer, and a beer and wine salesman.
Beer may be my profession, but cask ale —the beauty of beer at its freshest— is my mission.
From 2004 through July 2008, I was southeastern US Territory Manager for the Clipper City Brewing Company of Baltimore Maryland.
From 2001 through 2004, I was a representative for Legends, Limited, an importer of Scottish and British ales, and a distributor of beer and wine in Maryland.
In early November 2000, I purchased Sisson's, a venerable brewpub in Baltimore, Maryland, as part of a quartet of investors.
As sometimes occurs, disagreements occurred. The brewpub no longer exists.
In a grand reach, from 1997/1998, I was the brewmaster (that is, the lead brewer and plant foreman) for Local Brewing Company, a brewing and bottling beer production facility in Westlake, OH, with a potential of twenty thousand barrels per year.
In 1996/1997, I was the original head brewer for the Manayunk Brewing Company, a brewpub in Philadelphia, PA.
From 1993 through November 1995, I directed operations at the Oxford Brewing Company as its brewery manager. Founded in 1988 - then the British Brewing Company - it was the first post-Prohibition (and for a brief time - only) micro-brewery in Maryland.
