Rebirth of Staten Island beer! Two breweries set to open in January

Two beer-loving Staten Islanders are trying to turn their home borough into Milwaukee-on-the-Kill Van Kull.

Jonathan Schulman and Jay Sykes are each laying plans to open commercial breweries in January on an island that hasn’t had a large-scale suds-making operation since the 1960’s.

Mark Bonifacio/New York Daily News

Jonathan Schulman,owner of Staten Island Brewing  Co. in his Staten Island basement Brewery. 

“I have that dream that all home brewers dream — of having all their beer consumed by everybody in the entire world,” Schulman, 67, told the Daily News.

Starting, of course, with Staten Island.

Mark Bonifacio/New York Daily News

Two brewers on Staten Island think suds brewed on New York City’s lesser-known island borough could soon be big business.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

“There’s been a void here since 1962, when Piels left,” said Schulman. “Business-wise, I think it’s a fantastic opportunity to produce a Staten Island beer.”

Schulman, who has been home-brewing ale, stout and wheat beers for nearly two decades, is calling his fledgling operation the Staten Island Brewing Company. He is currently in talks for a commercial space near Mariners Harbor.

Mark Bonifacio/New York Daily News

Each brewer is planning to open a commercial operation in January. Early in the 1900s, two rival breweries on Staten Island did a brisk business.

 

 

 

 

 

Sykes, co-owner of the Flagship Brewing Company, has already leased a space in the St. George section where they intend to brew, bottle and market three different kinds of beer.

And Sykes vowed his beers will be flavored with hops he planted himself on — Where else? — Staten Island.

Mark Bonifacio/New York Daily News

Staten Island has been without a major brewery since 1962.

 

 

 

 

 

“We want to grow this on Staten Island,” Sykes told DNAinfo, referring to both the hops and his hopes. “We think it’s the right way to grow it.”

Beer brewing used to be big business on Staten Island.

Mark Bonifacio/New York Daily News

 

Jonathan Schulman,owner of Staten Island Brewing  Co. in his Staten Island basement Brewery. 

 

 

 

Schulman, who has been home-brewing ale, stout and wheat beers for nearly two decades, is calling his fledgling operation the Staten Island Brewing Company.

 

 

 

Two rival breweries on the island, Atlantic and Bachmann and Bechtel, once employed hundreds of people and sold millions of dollars worth of beer.

But Bachman and Bechtel died out shortly after they merged in 1911. Atlantic continued making beer and was bought by Piels Brothers in 1953.

A decade later, Piels pulled out and most of the brewery buildings of the island were demolished.

csiemaszko@nydailynews.com

Brewing A Beer That’s Colorado Through And Through

How does a new craft brewer stand apart from the pack? A few have hitched their brewery onto the local food bandwagon. Sourcing the ingredients that form beer’s DNA straight from the fields around them.

Last year, more than 400 breweries opened nationwide. It shouldn’t surprise that the craft beer industry is growing at a tremendous rate. In Colorado, there are so many craft breweries they’re starting to blend together.

Kyle Carbaugh’s Wiley Brewing Company is half-finished. Right now it’s just bare floors, a framed bar, and four industrial size brew tanks in a former cinderblock factory in Greeley. The area is already home to numerous microbreweries – familiar names like New Belgium Brewing and Odell Brewing in Fort Collins. So Carbaugh says it became very clear that he needed to be different.

“At the end of the day, beer is an agricultural commodity through and through,” said Carbaugh. “There’s a huge thing going on with the local food movement and farmer’s markets and ‘know your farmer,’ that kind of thing. And the question came up to us, why isn’t anybody doing this?”

To answer Carbaugh’s question, breweries in the Pacific Northwest have perfected the art of a “farm to glass” beer. Few have sprouted elsewhere though. In southern Colorado, the idea is starting to take root.

Water, malt, hops, and yeast are the basic ingredients of beer. While breweries focus on the art of brewing, Jason Cody is perfecting the art of craft malt. Since 2008 Cody’s Colorado Malting Company has been malting barley and wheat from his own fields. He works with specialty grains too, like millet and quinoa. He then sells bags of malt to craft brewers throughout Colorado, like Kyle Carbaugh.

And business is booming.

“The first full year we were in business we sold 20,000 pounds inside the state of Colorado,” said Cody. “And our projection for this year, which we’re right on target with, is about half a million.” Even half a million pounds isn’t enough to satisfy brewery owners who want to create and sell a hyper local beer.

“There are only so many guys you can take care of. With brewers it’s repeat business,” said Cody. “So they brew a beer and then when it’s time to brew again they need more malt so they’ve got to come back and buy more malt. But then it’s hard to pick up new guys sometimes when you’re in that position, because what do you do?”

Steve Kurowski with the Colorado Brewers Guild says craft malting is just starting to take off, allowing breweries to source locally. “There’s just so much beer being brewed now, and the movement to supply local hops and local grain is just getting started,” said Kurowski. That supply hasn’t caught up with the demand yet.

Kyle Carbaugh is still trying to navigate where his supplies will come from for his unfinished brewery in Greeley. His malt will be Colorado grown, but his hops will come from Washington. Eventually he hopes to pour a completely Colorado grown glass of beer.

“It’s really all about telling a story, right?,” said Carbaugh. “Through a product or through materials.” Until his brewery opens up, it’s a story Carbaugh will still be writing.

–

All week, KUNC will be looking at craft beer in Colorado for our series Craft Beer Week.

Brewing it for Ourselves A short guide to the long history of American homebrew

Brewing it for Ourselves

A short guide to the long history of American homebrew

America has a long history with home brewing beer. The pilgrims did it in Plymouth because it was considered safer than the questionable water of their adopted home. George Washington and Thomas Jefferson made beer at Mount Vernon and Monticello respectively.

Home brewing fits with the American sensibility: It’s an improvised, self-sufficient, penny-wise activity that was carried westward with the pioneers. Brewing remained an important part of American society right up until 1920, when the 18th Amendment, more commonly known as Prohibition, outlawed “the manufacture, sale, or transportation” of alcohol for “beverage purposes.”

Now, true, Prohibition couldn’t stop home brewing, but it certainly forced it underground. And even the repeal of Prohibition in 1933 couldn’t bring it back. When the hangovers lifted, it must have come as a surprise to find that while the new statutes allowed for home winemaking, they neglected to include beer brewing, an activity that continued to be illegal for the next 46 years.

Finally, in 1978, President Jimmy Carter signed H.R. 1337, which allowed for up to 200 gallons of beer for personal use per calendar year to be produced per household. Even before the law went into effect in February 1979, some former underground brewers in Colorado formed the American Homebrewers Association (AHA).

Home brewing fits with the American sensibility: It’s an improvised, self-sufficient, penny-wise activity that was carried westward with the pioneers.

America’s restrictive laws on home brewing prior to H.R. 1337 seemed to enforce some narrow tastes when it came to beer. In 1978, the year President Carter brought home brewers out of the closet, there were only 89 breweries in the U.S. Plenty of people across the country had continued making beer clandestinely since Prohibition, but few were able to pass along their experience to other would-be brewers. With the door opened and national organizations like the AHA in place, hobbyists were able to communicate with each other, repeating successes and avoiding mistakes. Odd and interesting experiments yielded both good and bad results, and the narrow range of tastes offered by Budweiser, Miller and Coors began to seem increasingly less satisfying.

In 1982 the annual Great American Beer Festival began in Colorado. In the ’80s and ’90s, driven in large part by the increasing ambitions of hobbyists, microbreweries began budding up across the country making innovative, traditional, and forgotten styles of beer that further stretched the American palate. Today there are well north of 2,000 small, medium and large-scale breweries in the U.S. According to the Brewers Association, the trade organization representing the majority of American breweries; you’d have to go back to 1887 to find a time when there were more. Though craft sales remain a small percentage of total beer sales (something like 5 percent), they command enough attention that large national brands have generated lines to appeal to the craft beer consumer—I’m looking at you, Rolling Rock and Black Rock.

As testament to how far home brewing has come, even the current President has gotten in the game, recently making a honey ale with honey from the White House beehives. Considering the number of founding fathers that have brewed, it’s amazing that the Obamas are apparently the only First Family to enjoy home brewed beer in the Oval Office.

A new collaboration beer is brewing in Kansas City

Santa Fe Brewing Company, a New Mexico microbrewery, is teaming up with Central States Beverage Company, a local distributor, on a beer that will be on tap only in Kansas City bars later this year. The announcement comes in the midst of American Craft Beer Week, a nationwide celebration of local and independent craft breweries.

The brewing team includes three cicerones (or certified beer experts), two or three home brewers, and a chef. At least two of the team members are from Kansas City: Home brewer Corey Wood and chef Josh Eans. Eans, the interim executive chef at The American Restaurant, was featured in Ink magazine as one of the biggest beer nerds in Kansas City.

The style of the microbrewery’s new collaboration beer hasn’t yet been determined — but Central States marketing director Jon Poteet says it will likely be a “bigger beer” with a relatively higher alcohol content, or ABV. The beer doesn’t have a release date, but Poteet says it will likely hit Kansas City taps sometime between September and November. The beer will be conceptualized in Kansas City but brewed in Santa Fe.

Santa Fe Brewing Company started distributing its beers, which include Happy Camper IPA, Imperial Java Stout, and Santa Fe Pale Ale, in Kansas and Missouri less than a year ago. Sidenote: A friend from Texas recently gave me a six-pack of Happy Camper IPA cans, and I’ve been hoarding them in my fridge. The beer has a bright floral, hoppy flavor and comes in a really cool, minimalist can (see photo).

In other beer collaboration news, Boulevard is teaming with Sierra Nevada Brewing Co. on Terra Incognita, a Smokestack Series beer that hits shelves in mid-June.

For more on Kansas City’s blossoming beer scene, check out this beer lover’s to-do list.

Banks installs new beer brewing system

Banks DIH Limited has installed a new Stromboli system as its multimillion brewery modernisation programme intensifies at Thirst Park, a release from the company said.

Matthew Kendall, Brew-master at Banks said the Stromboli system within the new Wort Kettle will provide many advantages over the present one such as higher wort quality, energy conservation, loss reduction and overall consistency of wort. Wort is the liquid extracted from the mashing process during the brewing of beer and it also contains the sugars that will be fermented by the brewing yeast to produce alcohol.

“This state-of-the-art system is presently installed in over 50 countries worldwide and having it set up here will propel Banks DIH Limited to a group of elite breweries that consider these and  …..To continue reading, login or subscribe now.

EarthTalk®: Beer Brewers & Clean Water

Dear EarthTalk: I heard that a number of beer brewing companies have banded together to support the Clean Water Act. Can you enlighten? — Mitch Jenkins, Cincinnati, OH

In April 2013 the non-profit Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC) brought together two dozen nationally respected craft beer brewers to launch the Brewers for Clean Water Campaign, which aims to leverage the economic growth of the craft brewing sector into a powerful voice for bolstering clean water protection in the United States.

“Whether brewers are creating ales, pilsners, porters, wits or stouts, one ingredient must go into every batch: clean water,” says Karen Hobbs, a senior policy analyst at NRDC. “Craft brewers need clean water to make great beer.”

While hops, malt and the brewing process itself are also clearly important, water just may be the secret ingredient that gives a specific beer its distinctive flavor. “Beer is about 90 percent water, making local water supply quality and its characteristics, such as pH and mineral content, critical to beer brewing and the flavor of many classic brews,” reports NRDC. “For example, the unusually soft water of Pilsen, from the Czech Republic, helped create what is considered the original gold standard of pilsner beers. The clarity and hoppiness of England’s finest India Pale Ales, brewed since the 1700s in Burton-on-Trent, result from relatively high levels of calcium in local water.” Brewers can replicate the flavors of beers like these and others by sourcing freshwater with similar features or by starting with neutral water and adding minerals and salts accordingly to bring out certain desired characteristics.

Of course, clean water is essential to more than great-tasting beer. “It’s critical for public health and the health of a wide range of industries,” adds NRDC. “Now our streams, wetlands and water supply need our help. Without strong legal protections, they are under threat from pollution like sewage, agricultural waste, and oil spills.”

The popularity of craft brewers’ “microbrews” in recent years is another reason why NRDC has hitched its clean water wagon to the industry. “Craft brewers are closely tied to their communities with a very real understanding of the impacts bad policy can have on regional water sources,” reports the group. “While the participants in the campaign include brewing operations large and small, all have demonstrated a commitment to sustainability in their operations and beer development.”

By taking part in the campaign, New Belgium, Sierra Nevada, Allagash, Short’s, Temperance, Arbor, DryHop, Finch’s, Revolution, Flossmoor, Cranker’s, Wild Onion, Right Brain, Half Acre, Goose Island and other craft brewers are helping spread the word in a way that hits home with consumers. For its part, NRDC is urging beer lovers (and other concerned environmentalists) to use the form on its website to e-mail the White House encouraging President Obama to finalize guidelines recently created by the Army Corps of Engineers and the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency that call for greater protections for streams and wetlands in important headwaters regions from coast to coast. And consumers should be glad to know that for once drinking beer can actually be good for the environment. So bottoms up!

CONTACT: NRDC Brewers for Clean Water, www.nrdc.org/water/brewers-for-clean-water.

EarthTalk® is written and edited by Roddy Scheer and Doug Moss and is a registered trademark of E – The Environmental Magazine (www.emagazine.com). Send questions to: earthtalk@emagazine.com. Subscribe: www.emagazine.com/subscribe. Free Trial Issue: www.emagazine.com/trial.

Tap in to our beer lover’s to-do list

A new crop of restaurants and bars — including Anton’s Taproom downtown, Brewbakers in Lenexa, and Rye in Leawood — caters to craft beer nerds with tons of taps and bottles.

Grunauer, an Austrian restaurant in the Crossroads Arts District, has one of the best beer gardens in the country, according to Food Wine magazine. And Draft magazine named The Foundry, in Westport, to its list of America’s 100 Best Beer Bars.

Kansas City’s hometown brewer, Boulevard, recently doubled its weekly tours to keep up with demand. A new brewery is in the works for North Kansas City, and several local restaurants — including Julian in Brookside, Green Room Burgers Beer in Westport, Pachamama’s in Lawrence and Minsky’s Pizza in Kansas City — have been experimenting with their own brews.

In Kansas City, beer isn’t just a beverage — it’s a culture.

Tours

A year ago, if you wanted to tour Kansas City’s hometown brewery, you had to make a reservation up to three months in advance.

Not anymore: Recently Boulevard Brewing Co. doubled its number of weekly tours, from about 17 to 35 per week. The brewery, located at 2501 Southwest Blvd., also did away with reservations on most days.

“The only exception is on Saturdays, because they’re so popular,” says guest relations manager Amber Ayres.

The change makes it easier for local and visiting beer lovers to get in to the brewery’s free 45-minute tours, which provide an up-close look at the brew kettles and bottling lines that produce Unfiltered Wheat and other Boulevard beers. The tour concludes with 30 minutes in the tasting room, where visitors can sample popular Boulevard beers as well as experimental brews.

If you want an even closer look, book an Unfiltered Tour, a smaller and longer tour that includes stops in the intensely aromatic hops cooler and on the rooftop, which has a pretty incredible view of downtown Kansas City. Tickets to Boulevard’s Unfiltered Tours cost $20 each and become available at 10 a.m. the first Monday of every month. Because Boulevard only offers the Unfiltered Tours on Saturdays and Sundays, they “book up fast,” Ayres says. “We’re talking minutes.”

Bike rides

If you’re looking to cover more ground, consider airing up your bike tires and buying tickets for the third annual Tour de Brew, a rolling tour of Kansas City’s rich beer-brewing history organized by BikeWalkKC.

The May 19 event begins and ends at Knuckleheads Saloon, 2715 Rochester in the East Bottoms. There are three courses to choose from: The 15-mile Lager, the 33-mile IPA and the 63-mile Dunkel. The shorter race rolls by Boulevard Brewing Co. and dips into the West Bottoms. The longest race goes all the way to Martin City Brewing Co. in south Kansas City.

Sarah Shipley, who co-founded Tour de Brew with Laurie Chipman and Ron Puett, says the event is “like a scavenger hunt through history.” Each rider gets a course map marked with rest stops and historical points of interest, such as the original site of the George Muehlebach Brewing Co and the current site of Boulevard. Some of the rest stops offer cyclists brewer talks and free samples of beer.

“We like to save most of the beer sampling for the end” for safety reasons, Shipley says. Riders also are encouraged to wear helmets and use hand signals when turning. The heavily marked courses will have marshals on hand to guide traffic.

After the ride, there’s a bash at Knuckleheads, with beer, food trucks and vendors offering everything from massages to T-shirts and bike gear.

Tickets to Tour de Brew, which Shipley expects to attract around 1,200 cyclists this year, cost $50 in advance or $60 the day of the event and include a T-shirt, food and (of course) two free beers.

Beer and biking, Shipley says, “is like Mom and apple pie. It just goes hand and hand.”

For more information, go to tourdebrewkc.com.

Festivals

This month, Waldo celebrates American Craft Beer Week (May 13-19) with the annual HopFest Craft Beer Festival. The May 18 event at The Well and Lew’s Grill Bar features beer from more than 50 breweries, food trucks, live music and a competition for home brewers. Professional brewers from Boulevard, Free State, Samuel Adams and other breweries will be on hand to taste and talk beer.

Tickets cost $35, or $55 if you want VIP access, which gets you early admittance and tastes of special release beers. For more info, check out The Well’s website, waldowell.com.

Beer festivals are becoming increasingly popular across the region. In April, more than 3,000 people poured into downtown Parkville for the 10th annual Parkville Microbrew Fest. And In March, downtown Lawrence hosted its second annual Kansas Craft Beer Expo. Tickets to that event, which featured beer from 29 brewers, sold out in less than three hours. The organizers are already looking for ways to expand next year’s Expo.

Westport has a beer festival, too, on June 15: Check Beer KC’s blog for the latest info on the Westport Summer Beer Festival.

Tappings

The beer selection at Flying Saucer Draught Emporium, 101 E. 13th St. in the Power Light District, is borderline absurd.

The Texas-based chain’s Kansas City location has 76 brews on tap and hundreds more in bottles. Regular customers, known as Beerknurds, are inducted into the Ring of Honor after downing their 200th pint.

Every Thursday at 7 p.m., the Flying Saucer’s bartenders tap into a limited edition beer and pour it til it’s gone. Last week, the rare brew was Winter Warmer, an English strong ale brewed with Belgian candy sugar by Wild Onion Brewing Co. in Barrington, Ill.

If you live up north or out south, mark your calendar for every First Friday — that’s when Mother’s Brewing Co. from Springfield taps firkins of its beer at Rusty Horse Tavern, 6325 Lewis St. in Parkville, and Lew’s Grill Bar, 7539 Wornall Road in Waldo.

Mother’s marketing director Jeremy Wicks says the firkins — 10.8-gallon casks of beer — are often spiked with crazy ingredients, such as bacon, pomegranate or kumquat. So the flavor of the beer is vastly different than anything you’ll try in a bottle.

Tastings

Craft beer can be intimidating. Don’t know the difference between an English and India Pale Ale? Don’t sweat it — lots of local bars offer tastings and employ enthusiastic bartenders who are more than willing to help you find your new favorite brew.

At Bier Station, a new beer bar in Waldo, owner John Couture has hired a staff of beer enthusiasts — not to be confused with beer snobs — who allow customers to taste samples of beers before committing to a pint. Brad Isch, who curates Bier Station’s extensive selection, is full of helpful information. Did you know Goose Island’s Sofie beer is aged in white wine barrels, or what American lagers tasted like before Prohibition? You will after tasting a few brews with Isch.

The best part: Bier Station sells beer to go, in big bottles or six-packs, so if you find a beer you love, you won’t have to make an extra trip to the liquor store.

The tasting bar concept is coming soon to North Kansas City: Big Rip Brewing Co. is scheduled to open at 216 E. Ninth Ave. later this month. The microbrewery is a joint venture between friends Josh Collins and Kipp Feldt, a longtime homebrewer.

Collins says Big Rip will make beers for nerds and casual beer drinkers. He and Feldt are working on brewing batches of Banana Cream Ale, Cherry Hefeweizen, and a gluten-free beer. They’re also building a beer garden and a 50-seat taproom where customers can taste the freshest Big Rip brews.

Beer-loving cyclists take note: Big Rip is located off a bike trail that connects to the River Market.

Gardens

Last month, Food Wine magazine named Grunauer to its list of America’s best beer gardens.

The Zagat-rated Austrian restaurant, at 101 W. 22nd St. in the Freight House, has a south-facing patio with beautiful scenery. Imagine lush potted plants and chic wooden tables with a clear view of Union Station. A slatted pergola filters sunlight, and the menu overflows with Austrian and German beer, warm pretzels and an assortment of sausages.

About a mile away, leafy vines lend shade to the secluded beer garden at The Westside Local, 1663 Summit St. on Kansas City’s Westside, where locally brewed beer accompanies cheese and charcuterie plates.

Further south, a wall of bamboo secludes the drinking patio at Haus, 3044 Gillham Road, where you can wash down poutine and handmade sausages from Local Pig with a wide assortment of European beer. Big windows and rows of wooden picnic tables (inside and out) give the bar the communal feeling of a beer garden, even when it’s too rainy to sit on the patio.

Bier Station’s upstairs beer garden has sliding glass doors that roll up on warm days. Covering one wall is a black-and-white photo of Heim Brewing Co.’s bustling beer garden in the East Bottoms area. The photo dates back to around 1900, and depicts a crowd of nattily dressed men and women socializing over beer on a sunny patio.

Owner John Couture wants to replicate that simpler time. So there are no TVs in his beer garden. Just good beer and people who bond over it.

U Bottle It teaches beer brewing and winemaking for beginners

Too intimidated to dive face-first into the intricate world of home brewing? Want to dip your toe in and test the hoppy waters?

U Bottle It

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Enter U Bottle It.

The Henderson business, first opened strictly as a home brew supply store in November 2011, recently started catering to wary winos and cautious hop heads with its home-brewing and winemaking classes.

“It’s a fun thing,” says owner Gary Hails, adding that he sees a lot of customers come in with friends and spouses. Some have even bottled wine for their weddings.

Classes cost $60 (beer or wine) and include personal instruction and the use of U Bottle It’s equipment and storage space throughout the process. Students also must buy beer or wine kits for the class, which cost $23 to $54 (beer) and $75 to $195 (wine), depending on which beer or wine you want to make. And you won’t be disappointed in U Bottle It’s selection—the store boasts 30 wine kits, 50 beer kits and 60 types of hops.

Hails says beers take two to three class sessions (around a month) and wines take four to five class sessions (around two months). In the end, you’ll take home either 30 bottles of wine or 50 to 64 12-ounce bottles of beer.

Do the math and you just might reconsider your next trip to the booze aisle. Hails says he can make a nice Napa merlot for just $7.

“It’s one of the few hobbies that will actually save you money,” Hails says. “It pays for itself.”

2 fraternities shut down after investigation into beer brewing, drinking party

Posted: Tuesday, May 7, 2013 3:47 pm
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Updated: 4:01 pm, Tue May 7, 2013.

2 fraternities shut down after investigation into beer brewing, drinking party

Pedro Quintana • Nicholas Carr

The Orion

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Chico State officials put one sorority chapter on probation and suspended two fraternities after investigations confirmed violations of university policies.

Pi Kappa Alpha is suspended for three years after hosting a social event April 13 called “Around the World,” a themed drinking event in which participants went to three different private homes in Chico, according to a Chico State public affairs and publications press release. Sigma Chi is suspended for two years after one of its officers brewed beer inside the chapter house.

Sorority Gamma Phi Beta is on probation for a year, said Connie Huyck, student life and leadership coordinator. The probation restricts the sorority so that it cannot participate in social events and mixers with other Greeks.

The sorority must get approval by Greek life coordinators for all internal events, including sisterhood and alumni events, Huyck said. Gamma Phi Beta will be on probation until the end of spring 2014.

Gamma Phi Beta members must complete educational requirements including risk management workshops by the end of next semester and the chapter president must meet with Greek life coordinators on a monthly basis, she said.

More than 150 fraternity members and pledges will have to wait and see if their organizations remain unrecognized by the student life and leadership office, she said. The fraternities have until May 20 to appeal the sanctions, which will go to the office of the vice president for student affairs.

The suspensions mean that the fraternities cannot participate in any Greek-related activities and must take their letters down from chapter houses, according to the release. Greek members who currently live in the houses will not be asked to move.

University officials notified the national organizations of Pi Kappa Alpha and Sigma Chi about the suspensions, according to the release.

The fraternities will not be able to use any funds gained through revenue sharing, Huyck said.

The two fraternities received a combined $1,847 in revenue sharing, according to the Associated Students election results.

Alexander Salciccia, who was active as the president of Sigma Chi as of last week, said he no longer held the position when contacted by The Orion. He declined to comment on the suspensions.

The Orion attempted to contact representatives from Pi Kappa Alpha and Gamma Phi Beta, but a response was not received by deadline.

The Orion can be reached at editorinchief@theorion.com

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Triangle Brewing Co. owners eye expansion

The Herald-Sun | Patrick McLaurin
Triangle Brewing Company’s head brewer Rick Tufts, left, and co-owner Andy Miller are pictured inside their current location at 918 Pearl Street on Thursday, May 2, 2013.

The Herald-Sun| Patrick Mclaurin
The new warehouse space that will soon be home to the Traingle Brewing Company just around the corner at 812 Mallard Avenue.

The owners of Triangle Brewing Co., a production brewery in Durham that makes beer to sell in grocery stores, restaurants and at other venues, are planning to move the brewery to a location where they could open a taproom.

Rick Tufts, 39, and Andy Miller, 40, launched the brewery in 2007. The two first met in high school and became business partners. They lease 10,000 square feet of former warehouse space on Pearl Street for the brewery, Tufts said, and plan to buy a 22,000-square foot-building nearby at 812 Mallard St.

They have the building under contract, Tufts said, and are looking to close on the purchase this month. They plan to buy new equipment to increase their production capacity by four times. Tufts said they’d be able to brew up to 8,000 barrels a year.

They plan to decommission their Pearl Street operation and to sell most of their equipment. They hope to be brewing beer in the new location by the fall, and to have the taproom open about a month later.

“It gives us the opportunity to grow and double in size, and it’s going to allow us to have a taproom, and to continue to excel at what we do, which is making beer,” Tufts said of the plan.

As a production brewery, Triangle Brewing Co. doesn’t have a taproom on location, Tufts said. They do hold tours on Saturdays, however.

“We get well over 100 people on some weekends, and we’re still in the misunderstood part of Durham,” he said.  “We just wanted to make beer and make quality beer, and the need for the taproom has developed itself,” he added.

In the brewery’s first year, it produced 150 barrels of beer, Tufts said. This year, they plan on producing more than 4,000 barrels.

Their beer is sold in grocery stores and by independent stores. They’ve started selling in Greensboro, Winston-Salem and Wilmington.

They can their beer in Durham, Tufts said. They use cans because that increases the beer’s shelf-life, he said, and caters to people who are “on the go.”

“Here in North Carolina, which is a great state, we’ve got the ocean, and we’ve got the mountains,” Tufts said. “You can’t take glassware to the beach, you can’t take it hiking very easily; you can’t take it to the pool. So we make beer for people on the go…”

Tufts said he went into the beer brewing business when he needed a change. He’s a developmental psychologist by training who worked for several years with the TEACCH Autism Program at UNC Hospitals.

He said his business partner, Miller, studied hotel restaurant and institutional management at East Carolina University in Greenville, and had restaurant experience.

 “I loved working with families, the only issue was that every family I dealt with, I was dealing with them at a very sad moment,” Tufts said. “I was trying to help them above that, and it became emotionally draining.”

He said he went to brewing school at the American Brewers Guild in Vermont, and worked as an apprentice at Flying Fish Brewing Co. in New Jersey. He said he saw beer production as a means to bring people pleasure.

 “I would do that again in a heartbeat…but to be able to make something that other people could enjoy on a social level, as opposed to … dealing with people at their most vulnerable moments – it was time for me to change,” he said.

Tufts said they see the planned investment as part of the development of Durham. Their targeted location is empty, but previously housed a feed mill for Southern States, an agricultural products supplier, said Al Frega, an officer in the company that owns the building.

“We’re not in the best location, but Durham is changing significantly, and renovations and downtown revitalization is coming our direction, and we’ve made an investment to be in this part of Durham,” Tufts said.