Different Flavors for Different Makers NORTHERN KENTUCKY’S CRAFT BREWERIES ARE ENJOYING SUCCESS, WHETHER BIG OR SMALL BY SCOT T UNGER
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he craft beer explosion over the last decade has seen the opening of thousands of new breweries across the country, but as the market matures and growth begins to slow Northern Kentucky beer makers are taking different paths to find their niche. There are currently five breweries in the Northern Kentucky area: Braxton Brewing Company, Wooden Cask Brewing Company, Darkness Brewing, Bircus Brewery, and Alexandria Brewing Company. Each business has a different vision of success and a different path to reach their goal, but they all have one thing in common, a love of suds! Braxton is the biggest brewery in the region with hopes to become the largest craft operation in Kentucky. Alexandria changed their outlook after opening from broad distribution to a regional “community cen-
The taproom of the Alexandria Brewing Company www.BestofNKY.com
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Beer lovers enjoy the taproom at Wooden Cask Brewery.
ter” to reflect their customer’s preferences. Wooden Cask—named for the traditional style of brewing—is owned by Randy and Karen Schlitz, who recently began distributing across the river in Ohio. Darkness brews unique beers with a focus on the darker varieties, while Bircus incorporates performance into their operation located within the Ludlow Theatre. ABC owner Andy Reynolds knew he wanted to get involved in brewing while deployed in Iraq making hard cider with apple juice and yeast, but his dream was temporarily derailed by illness upon his return from service. Diagnosed with chronic pancreatitis and Post Traumatic Stress Disorder, Reynolds lost his job while he was hospitalized for the better part of a year and all but gave up on his brewing dream. After participating in nonprofit Wounded Warrior’s Project Odyssey veteran retreat, which focused on setting goals and recovering from PTSD, Reynolds was reinvigorated. “I kind of drank the Kool-Aid pretty heavy there, normally that’s something I don’t do. Normally I’m like whatever and blow stuff off,” Reynolds says. Inspired by the lessons learned, Reynolds finished brewing school and put together a business plan and two Kickstarter crowdfunding campaigns, the second of which led to the opening of ABC earlier this year. Located on Alexandria Pike near Northern Kentucky University, Reynolds originally figured his bar would be populated by college kids and he would soon distribute widely. However, upon opening he saw a different clientele and while business is booming, most of the beer stays in house as he has trouble meeting the overwhelming demand in the taproom. “It blows my mind that we’re not really
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getting that NKU crowd and we’re packed every weekend. We’ve already got this big support just from Alexandria itself,” Reynolds says. Looking at nationwide trends, Reynolds saw the market was moving toward neighborhood specialization and has embraced the community center vibe that Alexandria locals have provided. The taproom is kid friendly with free arcade games, Reynolds regularly runs fundraising specials to give back to the charities he holds dear and people young and old congregate every Thursday for a running club. “If you look at any number right now, craft beer sales are down for retail and they’re way up for tap rooms,” he says. “We originally planned to go much bigger in terms of production but everything was moving towards the neighborhood brewery and moving away from big distribution and canning and things like that. “We pulled back what we were looking at in terms of size and scope and just said we’re going to focus on providing for Alexandria and the surrounding towns and if we can do that and we grow organically then that’s great, if we don’t and we’re happy where were
at, we’re happy where we’re at.” ABC is now looking to add more brewing tanks to meet demand and discussing opening a second location in a similar neighborhood setting and Reynolds is just fine with the new long-term strategy. “We’d like to say that yes we’re moving forward with our five year goal, but we’ve got to pull back from that and say hey, this would be the better plan,” he says. Like ABC, Wooden Cask is happy to remain on the smaller scale. Although they feature a wide variety of styles, most are crafted in the traditional European “easy drinking” styles. The Schlitz’ spent a year looking for a location that was big enough to feature a taproom and production facility before settling on their building on York Street in Newport. They’ve always wanted to distribute in Kentucky and Ohio, but that’s about big enough for the family operation, which established room to grow when they opened. With capacity to put out 5,000 barrels a year, the Schlitz’ are happy they have the room to expand from their current output of approximately 1,000 barrels annually, but have little desire to become a major player.
lose your core, and our core is really giving back to the community and staying true to where we came from, then you’re really able to tell that story in any market,” Rouse says. “We’ve been working all of this year on a massive expansion and that will be announced sometime in October. “Over the next five years we would really like to be the biggest brewery in the state of Kentucky. That’s our mantra and that’s our goal. We want to be synonymous with Kentucky craft beer.” n
Braxton Brewery Co-founder and CEO Jake Rouse.
“Service your local area and make enough money to pay good employees,” Randy says. For Braxton, it’s all about growing while maintaining the core audience that brought them success, according to co-founder and CEO Jake Rouse. “It’s about really high-quality beer scaling into a large-scale brewer,” Rouse says. “We sell beer in five markets right now in three states and we’re hoping to expand.” The garage-themed taproom opened in Covington in 2015 and this year the brewery opened Braxton Labs in Bellevue to provide a space for Lead Innovation Brewer Zac Boehnke to continue to craft unique styles in a location fit for a smaller brewing operation than 120-barrel batches that roll out of the taproom. “For us to be able to continue to find really unique trends and really be on top of new products that are coming out of all breweries in America we (started) Braxton labs,” Rouse says. “We try to experiment with everything, not just really rare and unique styles but also different hops and different things like that.” The brewery has become known for its unique styles since partnering with Cincinnati favorite Graeters Ice Cream to produce the Black Raspberry Chocolate Chip Milk Stout in 2017. They have continued to collaborate with Graeters for several other brews as well, including the recently announced Pumpkin Pie Ale.
Connecting with customers at events has been another key to the success of Braxton. Events such as the Storm the Court March Madness promotion that featured the Storm Cream Ale and a chance to win NCAA basketball tournament tickets gave consumers a chance to identify with the brewery and remember that fun time when shopping for a six-pack, according to Rouse. “There are 8,000 breweries in America right now, standing out from the crowd is pretty difficult to do,” Rouse says. “We’re all about trying to take the products that we have and creating really unique experiences around them.” While he acknowledges that the increase in breweries is cutting into shelf space, Rouse says expansion is still viable by remaining tied to core values. “Craft beer is probably in a category by itself where growth is almost shunned by some. For us no, we’ve been really deeply rooted in the community and that’s something that me and my brother are really passionate about. “I think as long as you don’t
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