Home cookin'

Around the time I started writing the Pitcher This column, Star photographer Kevin Qualls got interested in home brewing. Kevin read everything about the craft he could get his hands on, bought the best equipment he could find, and started looking for the best recipes for beginners. For starters, he settled on The Home Brewery's Yellow Dog Pale Ale.

His first batch was ready for consumption late last week, and he brought me a couple of bottles to sample. I uncorked them tonight with dinner. What he labeled "Mr. Q's Nice Try Hop Head" was better than I would have expected for anyone's first attempt at brewing beer in their kitchen. It poured a beautiful, hazy amber-orange with a nice, foamy-white head (pictured at right with Kev's "custom" label). The flavor was outstanding, with a strong hops presence that was rather tasty.

Kevin's second batch is due to be ready to drink soon, and his third is almost ready for bottling. I'll have to show up to help out with the brewing process to see how its done. I look forward to giving you more reports on Mr. Q's brews.

Also, I'm looking for Calhoun County-area homebrewers to talk to for an upcoming column on the craft. Leave a comment below, or e-mail me at bcunningham@annistonstar.com if you'd like to help me out.

Athens doesn't dry out

Voters in Athens, Ala., yesterday rejected a move back to city's dry days. A measure to outlaw alcohol sales was soundly rejected, 68 to 32 percent, according to the Associated Press. The city only voted to go wet about four years ago. City officials to the AP the sales had raised city revenue by about $250,000 annually, and others said predicted social problems stemming from alcohol had failed to materialize.

I don't know what the beer selection is like in Athens' stores, but it's a heck of a lot better than it could have been.

Cheers, Athens.

Field trip?

My editor forwarded an interesting e-mail to me the other day. It was from the Brewers' Association, a craft beer industry group. Would we like credentials to cover the Great American Beer Festival in Denver this October, the e-mail asked? Like a bear in the woods needs a roll of Quilted Northern we would.

I'm signed up to attend, but the trip is still in the air. With space reserved on a friend's couch in Denver, it all depends on the price of a plane ticket. While the paper is more than willing to indulge my love of beer with space for a column, I wouldn't expect them to fly me to Colorado to drink beer. My Mrs., thankfully, has been more indulgent. Should airfare prove affordable enough she'll be heading for the mountains with me.

B&W: Blaze & ban make July a bummer

Black & White, an independent weekly newspaper in Birmingham, notes that July stunk for Alabama beer lovers who like their stuff brewed close to home. The story, published in the paper's Aug. 9 edition, cites the July 5 fire that destroyed Huntsville's Olde Towne Brewing Co., and the disappearance of Sweetwater IPA from store shelves in the state. Sweetwater changed its recipe for the IPA after Georgia raised it alcohol-by-volume limit from the 6-percent cap in 2005, according to the story. They kept distributing in Alabama, somehow flying under the radar in a state where the 6-percent rule was still in force. Someone snitched, though, and the state's Alcoholic Beverage Control Board brought down the hammer. So who was the snitch? Sweetwater's PR guy Steve Farris told the paper:

“I don’t think that it was just a consumer sitting at home saying, ‘Hey, I drank two of these and I feel funny.’”

Sweet, No. 2

Had ribs tonight with the Mrs. and a friend at Cooter Brown's Rib Shack, and was thrilled to see Sweetwater 420 joining that Atlanta brewery's Blue on the tap row. I had long wondered how Sweetwater's signature ale would pair with the Jacksonville joint's staple dish. (My former favorite to pair with their spicy smoked ribs was Bass, but it's been temporarily removed after a distributor shuffle for the venerable British brew) The answer to my question: Beautifully.

Again, I'm happy to see this great regional brewer popping up in our neck of the woods (see my post below). I was even more pleased to see the bartender fill two pitchers with Blue for a thirsty table, but a gentleman at the table next to us ordered a big jar of the 420. Not only is Sweetwater here, their secret's out, too.

Have you seen Sweetwater anywhere else around town? Or is there another unusual brew that's popped up recently as you quaffed a few?

A little help

Olde Towne Brewing Co. is getting a little help from its friends. The brewery, destroyed by fire July 5 (as discussed in this week's column, below), will be the focus of a benefit concert Aug. 16. The event is being organized by Free The Hops, a group of Alabama beer fans who are working to get the state's laws changed to allow higher-quality brews here. The Olde Towne Revival (info at www.oldetownerevival.com) will feature live music , raffles and , naturally, beer. It's at Crossroads in Huntsville.

Olde Towne looking for new home

Here's this week's column.

Pitcher This: Olde Towne looking for new home

08-01-2007

An entire industry nearly vanished from the state of Alabama last month.

The state’s only commercial brewery, Huntsville’s Olde Towne Brewing Co., was destroyed by fire July 5.

Despite the name, Olde Towne’s not been around all that long. And despite the fire, founder and brewmaster Don Alan Hankins says the brewery will be back.

When Olde Towne opened in 2004, the microbrewer became the state’s only commercial beer bottling operation. The fire came just as the company was starting to taste success.

“We had just started to turn the corner,” Hankins said recently from the temporary office where he’s spent the last month pressing insurance claims and scouting property for a new brewery.

Olde Towne’s profile was growing to the point where Alabama beer lovers made a point to look for its products. The company brews a modest range of styles, including a pale ale and an amber that were available in Calhoun County. The amber is the biggest seller, according to Hankins, its “not too malty, not too bitter” flavor appealing to a broad range of tastes.

Hankins’s favorite is Olde Towne’s hefeweizen, the German style of unfiltered wheat beer.

“I’d put our hefeweizen up against anybody’s” he said.

If it’s not already, all the Olde Towne that was brewed by July 5 soon will be gone from store shelves. The company has identified a few sites around Huntsville and Madison County that might become its new home. Hankins hopes to close on one soon and be brewing again by December.

Until then, the only way to get Olde Towne in drinkers’ hands would be contract brewing – turning the recipe and a big chunk of revenue – over to a larger brewery. The company’s not decided yet whether to do it; while it would keep the brand in front of customers, it wouldn’t help financially.

“Contract brewing for us is not a money-making venture,” he said.

His tenure at Olde Towne isn’t the first time Hankins has worked for Alabama’s only brewer.

After graduating from the University of Alabama with a business degree and learning to hate sitting at a desk, he turned a hobby into a profession. He’d been a homebrewer since his youth and college days, and decided to hone his skills at a brewing school in London.

When he returned to the States, he went to work for Birmingham Brewing Co., then the state’s only beer bottler. By the time it closed in the late 1990s, Hankins was gone, working for a company opening a chain of brewpubs around the Southeast. The he got out of the beer business to sell medical implants. But eventually the craft lured him back. He moved back to his native Huntsville, hatched a plan and met his business partner Howard Miller. They opened Olde Towne in 2004.

Now he’ll get to open it again this December, hopefully picking up right where the company left off.

“It was really catching on, he said. “I never knew how many people knew about the brewery until this happened.”