Today's column: A new arrival and heralded return

Beer lovers will have to wait just a little longer to get Alabama brew in bottles, but in the meantime there is a suitable substitute newly available from just a little farther north.

Things are finally brewing again up in Huntsville, as Olde Towne Brewing Co. gets back in business after a fire in July 2007. Founder and brewmaster Don Alan Hankins reports the company is finally filling kegs at its new plant, and Olde Towne is now available from tap handles around the Rocket City.

Meanwhile, Nashville's Yazoo Brewing Co. made its entrance into the state this summer, with six-packs on sale in the Birmingham and Huntsville areas.

Hankins says Olde Towne is preparing for a grand re-opening party Saturday at Huntsville's Lowe Mill, complete with live music, lots of food, and of course the beer.

"This is kind of our payback to the city from us," Hankins said, in recognition of the support local beer fans lent the brewery after the fire. There were community-sponsored fundraisers including a concerts, and lots of e-mails and phone calls from folks eager to learn when Olde Towne would return.

Hankins says the company is filling keg orders through distributors in the Huntsville area first, and plans to follow that with the return of their draft product to Birmingham soon. A hefeweizen, amber ale and pale ale are already available, and a pilsner should make its return this weekend.

Olde Towne's new bottling equipment is expected to arrive by the end of the month. Hankins said the bottled brew will go to Huntsville first sometime in September, and then out to other markets where it was available before the fire, perhaps in November. That would include Calhoun County.

Meanwhile, you'll have to drive to Birmingham or Huntsville to get it, but Yazoo has a hefeweizen, a pale ale and what they bill as a Mexican-influenced version of a German altbier, basically an amber ale, labeled "Dos Perros Ale."

The pale is a bit sweeter than other versions of this style, and has a nicely bitter hops finish. Dos Perros is a hearty brown, with nice mellow malts sure to be enjoyed fans of beers like Newcastle Brown Ale and Lazy Magnolia's Southern Pecan.

As for the future, Olde Towne's Hankins says a series of seasonal brews — draft only — will follow the four standbys. That will likely start this fall with a pumpkin ale, and then something new for the winter, a coffee-and-tea-flavored stout.

For now, both these brands will require some driving for Anniston-area folks to acquire. But be sure to ask the staff at your favorite shops and haunts to stock the beers you'd like to try.

Olde Towne's back, at least in its hometown

Looks like Huntsville's Olde Towne Brewing Co. is back in business. The brewery's Web site says they produced the first keg in their brand-new facility at the end of July. The company is in the midst of a series of Huntsville-area celebrations now. Here's a list from the site:

• Olde Towne Tasting at 801 Franklin, Wednesday 6-8 p.m.
  801 Franklin, Huntsville, AL; $20 per person. For more details and reservations call 256-519-8019.
• Olde Towne Brewing Company's Grand Re-Opening Party, Aug. 23 5-11 p.m.
  Lowe Mill, corner of Seminole & 9th Avenue, Huntsville, AL
  Live music & more. Admission is free, donations to be split between the Lowe Mill's Art Endeavors and Free the Hops.
  
• Olde Towne Pint Night at the Brick, Aug. 29
  112 Moulton Street East, Decatur, AL
  The Brick Deli is proud to welcome back Olde Towne Brewing Company to Decatur! Join us at the Brick for great food, Rollin' in the Hay on stage and Olde Towne Beer.
  

Old Towne's original facility burned in a fire last July. They've spent the last year or so finding a site, desigining the new building, buying equipment and getting things rolling. Congrats to 'em, I say!

The Web site lists a number of Huntsville-area restaurants and bars where you can get Olde Towne's stuff. Looks like the retail selection is limited so far. Here's hoping they'll be available statewide soon.

At last, good things are brewing in Bama again

Pitcher This: At last, good things are brewing in Bama again

06-11-2008

After a long, thirsty year, Alabamans can again wet their whistles with beer brewed in their home state.

Just in time for the Magic City Brewfest a week and a half ago, Birmingham's Good People Brewing Co. started filling kegs and brought some of its brand-new brown ale to the festival.

This came just shy of a year since Alabama's previous lone brewery, Huntsville's Olde Towne, burned last July. The company is rebuilding in an all-new facility in South Huntsville. Before the festival, Olde Towne founder Don Alan Hankins said if everything remains on track the new plant could be shipping out bottles by mid-July.

That would make this a good summer indeed for beer in Alabama, especially after last year's blaze and the flaming defeat for a bill in the Legislature that would have made legal beer with more alcohol, and thus more of the beer styles brewers across the country are crafting for a public that apparently is thirsty for diversity. This year's version of the bill didn't become law either, but it did pass the House before stalling, along with everything else in the Senate. Count that a moving in the right direction.

Now with Olde Towne's impending revival and the emergence of Good People, there are tangible successes to toast in Alabama.

The small sample of Good People's brown ale I tasted in Birmingham was a well-balanced treat.

I sipped it while talking with Jason Malone, who described himself as the company's brewer, as well as an electrician, drywall hanger and painter in the effort to complete its small Southside-Birmingham facility. Trying to keep costs down, the small company did much of the work itself, all while clearing the red tape required by various levels of government and keeping an eye on the quality of their product.

Like many small brewers (and a number of big ones, too), Malone and his partners got their start brewing at home, he said. Eventually, they had enough people asking for their creations they figured they could turn it into a business.

While he's proud of the beers Good People is bringing to market, Malone itches for the creativity making beer in one's kitchen allows, which can result in "funky, interesting things."

"But at the end of the day I have to remember I'm not a homebrewer anymore," he said.

Good People plans to roll out pale and amber ales along with its brown, plus an India pale ale or hefeweizen as it distributes kegs to Southside-area restaurants in these first few weeks. Bottling may come later, Malone said, by contract since there's little room for the equipment where they operate now.

As Malone, red-bearded and baseball-capped, spoke, a Good People T-shirt hung from the canopy behind him. Its logo, a beat-up old pickup, was a fitting choice for a hard-working company pulling itself up by its bootstraps.

It's also not a bad image for the state's tiny brewing industry as a whole. Despite long odds and tough breaks, and some even tougher laws, thing are finally beginning to pick up speed.

Today's column

Pitcher This: The South will rise … for first time

(By the way, Pitcher This is now available for free in its native habitat, our newly-free Web site. Here's a link to this week's column there. -bc )

The Anniston Star

11/7/2007

Renewal after a fall is an essential theme in Southern identity.

The image of rebirth from figurative flames is powerful in a region that still remembers actual flames, and that image is applied to everything from city seals to literature.

Of course, to get to that image of rebirth, a thing has to be born for the first time.

That may be what’s happening across the South now in craft brewing as the drive for quality, locally produced beer that’s swept much of the nation finally gathers steam here. Three Deep South breweries hope they can enjoy the rise, and maybe just skip the bit about a fall and subsequent rise from the ashes.

All three of these breweries — Mississippi’s Lazy Magnolia Brewing, Georgia’s Terrapin Beer Co. and Huntsville’s Olde Towne Brewing — have been founded in the last five years and are on the leading edge of what could become a surge in Southern brewing.

Sadly, Olde Towne will have to make a real rise from the ashes. The brewery, founded in 2004, burned in July, halting production. Don Alan Hankins, founder and brewmaster, says the company has decided to build anew and hopes to be brewing again by June.

New equipment, Hankins says, will give him more control over the quality of his bottled beer — perhaps making it taste more like the draft product — and allow the company to fill 90 bottles per minute over the previous 20. That should help Olde Towne fill more orders, putting more Alabama-made beer on store shelves throughout the region.

Lazy Magnolia also hopes to get more from its Kiln, Miss., plant on the Gulf Coast. Brewery boss Leslie Henderson says a new bottling line could have the first Mississippi-made six-packs on shelves by Christmas. Since its 2004 founding, the company has produced only kegs and 2.25-gallon jugs of its beers, including its signature Southern Pecan, which is flavored with the staple nut.

Henderson says she believes Southern brewers are feeding off each others’ success.

“The South is about to turn into the great haven of microbrews,” she says. “Once you see one brewery achieve success in an area, it gives you courage and a model to go after.”

Athens, Ga.-based Terrapin, founded in 2002, also is counting on new equipment to build on the early success of its Rye Pale Ale. President John Cochran said the company is now moving into a brand-new brewery, Terrapin’s first. The South has lagged behind the rest of the country in beer culture, Cochran says. But that’s starting to change.

“I’d like to think beer’s finally going to be accepted in the Southeast,” he says. “This year, craft beer seems to have really turned the corner.”

Hankins, like his peers in Georgia and Mississippi, doesn’t see the other brewers as competition. The more choices there are on the shelf, the more likely consumers will be to try something new, he says.

“And eventually somebody’s going to pick up our beer,” he says. “The more beer the better.”

New Olde Towne to rise soon

The last time we mentioned Huntsville's Olde Towne Brewing Co. here, founder Don Alan Hankins said he hoped the company would be producing beer again by the holidays. The brewery was destroyed by fire in July. The bad news is that date has been pushed back to June. The good news is that work is expected to begin in January on an all-new facility being built from the ground up.

The Huntsville Times reported the news last week in this story. Hankins told the paper he continues to be overwhelmed by the support the company has received from the public. From the story:

"I think these people not only care about me," he said," but a lot of people feel Olde Towne is a good addition to the community."

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.’”

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.”