Meet Your Maker: Kenny Terry of LogOff Brewing
On any Tuesday afternoon at LogOff Brewing in Rancho Cordova, Kenny Terry is likely doing three things at once: planning his brewing schedule, keeping an eye on his four year-old weaving between barstools, and making a mental note about the Grodziskie, a Polish-style smoked wheat beer, that's currently sitting on tap doing exactly what he knew it would do: sell slowly, and start conversations.
"I'm the only person I have to answer to when I brew something like that," he says with the easy confidence of someone who's made peace with that particular freedom. "It'll sell slow. That's okay. We have 21 taps, so having a few slow movers is fine. And it's a conversation starter."
Kenny has always balanced practicality with playfulness, running a business while also running a place you'd actually want to spend time in. That's the throughline of everything he's built at LogOff. He became the brewery's owner on January 1, 2024, at an age most people are still figuring out their career path. He was, by his own telling, not supposed to do it this soon.
"I always knew I was going to own a business," he says. "But I thought maybe this is something I could do in my 50s or something."
Instead, life had a faster itinerary.
Kenny Terry, Owner and Brewmaster at LogOff Brewing, an award-winning brewery located in the City of Rancho Cordova’s Barrel District.
From Sacramento to San Diego, and Back Again
Kenny grew up in Shingle Springs, went to Ponderosa High School, and then headed south to San Diego State for a mechanical engineering degree. He lived there for 12 years. San Diego, for anyone who's spent time in its taproom circuit, is about as good a classroom as craft beer offers: dozens of world-class breweries, a culture of experimentation and a deep devotion to the craft.
When he moved back to the Sacramento area in 2018, “[I was] just kind of in shock over how good the beer up here was,” he remembers. “Not quite the amount [of San Diego’s breweries], but the quality was incredible."
He'd been home brewing since he was 19, admittedly for the reason most 19-year-olds would, though his motivation evolved considerably after he met his wife at 25. "She's like, 'You need a hobby other than video games,'" he says with a grin. "So I was like, well, the beer thing is kind of cool." He got more technical with it and started entering, and winning, competitions in San Diego.
The move back to Sacramento was about family. But the pull toward beer never left.
From Bartender to Owner in Under Two Years
He landed at LogOff as a bartender. It's not an uncommon entry point for someone who would eventually own the place, but the speed of what followed was remarkable. He came back from paternity leave in January 2022, his son just weeks old, and almost immediately started helping on brew days. By that summer, the head brewer left, and Kenny, a bartender turned assistant brewer, became the head brewer within six months of starting.
"Lots of imposter syndrome," he says. "Which I still feel. But it was a quick transition."
A year and a half later, he bought the business.
His first call as owner was to hire his general manager, Nicole Scott, who'd been part of LogOff before and who Kenny knew was the missing piece of what he wanted to build.
"It was me back of house, Nicole front of house. We would tag team projects and everything in the brewery even before I took over ownership," he says. "So we just kind of kept that going. What's kind of unique about my situation is that I started as an employee. So it's very much like an employee-owned business."
The transition itself, he says, was smoother than people assume. "All I really added on in the beginning was writing the checks and doing the quarterly tax stuff. The previous owner was super helpful. I was probably contacting him almost daily at first. But the work itself? I was already doing it."
A Place for Community, by Design
Walk into LogOff on any given week, and there's always something happening: Industry Night on Monday, Trivia on Wednesday, Music Bingo on Saturday, and live music spilling onto the patio on Thursday, the moment the weather cooperates. It is, deliberately and by design, a place built for all of it. The birthday parties, the work happy hours, and the random Tuesdays.
"I want this to be like the pub," Kenny says. "Just the place where you go, if you have a good day, if you have a bad day, to celebrate things, to be with the community."
That philosophy runs through LogOff’s tap list as clearly as it runs through their event calendar. LogOff has 21 taps, and Kenny is intentional about every one of them: a low-ABV option, a high-ABV option, a fruit beer, a blonde, a seltzer, and yes, occasionally something like a smoked wheat beer that exists more to delight the right person than to move quickly.
"One of my favorite things is when somebody walks in and they're like, 'I don't like beer,'" he says. "And then you have them try something, and their eyes get big and they're like, 'Oh my god, I didn't realize I like beer.' They thought beer was either Coors Light or a crazy high-hop IPA, and actually there's, you know, tons of variability in that."
Among the consistent crowd favorites: LogOff Light, a clean American light lager; Turbo Tango, an orange-tangerine-vanilla wheat beer with a name as fun as it tastes; and whatever IPA happens to be on at the moment. But the board changes. That's the whole point.
Pulling Levers in a Brewing Partnership
Last July, Kenny brought on David Walsh as his brewer. It was a reunion of a long friendship, and the addition that elevated the beer in ways that are hard to articulate but easy to taste. David had brewed at Mraz Brewing, then at Movement Brewing, followed by a detour into another aspect of the beverage industry for a few years. Coming to LogOff felt, he says, like everything falling into place.
"I've known Kenny for years," David says. "It's been a really nice fit."
For Kenny, having David in the brewhouse solved something he'd felt since taking over: the absence of someone to think out loud with.
"Just having somebody to bounce ideas off of [is great]," he says. "We'll bring up, like, what if we tried this process, go back and forth, try something out. We pull a lever, as we would say – our hazies are this, we want them to be more like this, so let's try these two different new things."
Earlier this year, the two made the trip to Yakima together for hop selection. Kenny made the pilgrimage alone once before and found it a far richer experience with a second palate alongside him.
"The first time I went by myself, it was an awesome experience," Kenny recalls. "But having David there, being able to say, 'Hey, what are you getting from this?' That was really, really eye-opening."
Because LogOff isn't built around rigid flagship recipes, they also have freedom most breweries don't. They can chase the best hop in the room; not the one that matches last year's batch.
"We just try to pick the best thing possible, not try to mimic what we've had in the past," Kenny says. "Some breweries have a flagship [so] you have to match what that tastes like. But yeah, we get to play."
Quietly Making Beer More Accessible
There's something else Kenny has been doing since the day he took over as head brewer that he quietly kept to himself for over a year. Nearly every beer on LogOff's tap list, all except the Hazy IPAs for now, is gluten-reduced by 99.9%.
"I started doing it right away and just didn't promote it," he says. "Then I thought that after using it for two years, it's probably okay to be like, ‘By the way, they've been gluten-reduced. They have been for a long time.’"
The process involves adding an enzyme at the start of fermentation. No effect on taste. It does act as a mild clarifying agent, which is why the hazies are the holdout for now. But for anyone with gluten sensitivity who's basically written off craft beer, it's a meaningful change.
"You think 'gluten-free beer' and you think bad beer," Kenny says. "So I was hesitant, very hesitant, to promote that. But we've been doing it for two years, everybody still likes the beers, and we're still winning awards." He shrugs with a smile. "It's probably okay."
His brewer David adds jokingly: "We've tricked you!"
The proof is in the pour. LogOff entered its first competition in 2023 and hasn't slowed down since, accumulating medals across some of the most competitive stages in the country. Highlights include gold at the California State Fair for its Hazy IPA, Hazy Lazy Days; gold at the US Beer Open for its Italian Pilsner, Birra San Vincenzo; gold and best in IPA division at the San Diego International Beer Competition for its Cold IPA, 1887; and a silver for Birra Stallone at the Brewers Cup of California, the largest beer competition in the state. This year, Turbo Tango took gold at the California State Fair, proving the customer favorite holds its own in the judging room, too.
A Rising Tide
Ask Kenny what he loves about Sacramento's beer scene and he'll point to the community: the collaborative network of brewers who treat each other more like neighbors than competitors. He compares ingredient sharing with nearby breweries to asking your neighbor for a cup of sugar.
"People will drive from downtown Sacramento not for Movement, not for LogOff, not for Burning Barrel,” he says of the three neighboring breweries off of Rancho Cordova’s Sunrise Boulevard. “But because they can hit all three.”
That collaborative spirit pushes everyone to get better, Kenny says. "You're just trying to elevate your beer game as much as you can."
The Barrel District's neutral water profile helps too. Starting with essentially blank water means Kenny and David can build exactly the mineral composition they want depending on the style – a pilsner profile one week, something more IPA-forward the next. It's a brewer's luxury. And the City of Rancho Cordova, Kenny notes, has been a strong partner throughout. "They're awesome, super helpful," he says. "It's great."
The Best Decision He Never Planned
On that particular Tuesday afternoon, the brewhouse is quiet and filled with natural light. Through the door, the taproom hums at its own easy pace, with a steady trickle of familiar faces grabbing beers to go and a few regulars settled at the bar. Kenny reflects on what his favorite part of all of this is: the ownership, the brewing, the managing, the building.
"Every day is different," he says. "We could be brewing one day, doing deliveries another day, bartending another day. It's always something different, it's not the same thing over and over. That's really fulfilling. And honestly, I just really liked my job. I had the opportunity to buy it. I bought it."
He says it simply, without flourish. But behind it is the clarity of a person who knows exactly where he's supposed to be, doing exactly what he's supposed to be doing, a few decades ahead of schedule.
He looks toward the door to the taproom, where a smoked wheat beer sits on tap.
It's selling slowly.
And that's just fine.
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LogOff Brewing Company is located in Rancho Cordova's Barrel District. Visit barreldistrict.com for more information and upcoming events.
