Firey succeeds Larry Horwitz, who left Manayunk to become head brewer at the new Iron Hill Brewery and Restaurant site in North Wales, which is scheduled to open the first week in March.

"I'm finishing up my last two weeks at Victory," Firey said today at Manayunk, "and since we work three 12-hour shifts out there, I've been able to arrange my schedule to free up a couple of days a week to come here and become familiar with things. We're putting in our first malt order today and I expect to start brewing right away on February 9. I miss doing my own recipes, especially a big IPA that I created at Cap City. That'll definitely be an early addition here."

Firey started his career working in a homebrew shop and then started one of his own. When he sold that, he learned his trade professionally at the American Brewers Guild school in California, being part of the last resident class there before they moved their program online. He was at Cap City for four years before joining Victory for the last two years.

"We're in good shape here," Firey said, evaluating his new situation. "Larry's a good guy and he left everything set up for the next guy in. He was here with me last night showing me around teaching me some of the idiosyncrasies of the system.