|
JUN/JUL 2006 | REGIONAL | EAST
COAST
Atlantic Ale Trail : A Legacy of Hedonism (Beer.
Pleasure. What’s Not to Like?)
By Jack Curtin
Scott Baver is laughing at me — not exactly the sort
of reaction a beer writer looks for from a brewer. "I
give ’em three weeks," he says for a second time,
and laughs again. He's quoting back at me the snide (and joking)
comment I made, obviously in front of too many people, when
he and partner Dave Gemmell appeared — or, more accurately,
reappeared — on the local beer scene in May 2003. After
renting a fermenter and brewing time at the since-closed Ortlieb's
Brewery & Grill in Pottstown, Baver and Gemmell formed
Legacy Brewing Company and once again began
making Steam Horse Lager and Duke of Ale, the best-selling
beers from their former Pretzel City Brewing Company, which
went under in 2000.
I've telephoned Baver to get the story behind the effort
Legacy is launching to raise $1.9 million from private and
commercial investors to construct a 10,000-square-foot brewery
with a 25-barrel brewhouse and large outdoor beer garden along
the banks of the Schuylkill River. And Baver has, with unseemly
delight, taken the opportunity to give me a comeuppance. No
problem. If you can't take the heat, stay out of the brewhouse,
y'know?
Legacy moved out of Ortlieb's and into a vacant brewery in
Reading in September 2004. The new location had been home
to two failed endeavors, Neversink and Fancy Pants, so they
were staring a disturbing (dare I say it?) legacy right in
the eye. Undaunted, they phased out the Pretzel City brews
to create a distinctive Legacy portfolio, which currently
includes Reading Pilsner (soon to be renamed and relaunched),
Hedonism Ale, Midnight Wit and Euphoria Golden Ale. Legacy
Brewing has rolled merrily along since, adding two part-time
brewers (and LLC corporate partners) to help Baver with the
brewing (Gemmell is the financial guy) and also a sales manager
in the past year. When the 2006 first quarter sales came in
just shy of 50 percent higher than the entire number for 2005,
it was clearly time to take the next step.
"We had this planned from the day we came back,"
Baver contends. "All most people saw were two guys doing
it part-time up in Reading, but we were deliberately staying
under the radar. Now we have a team in place. The city of
Reading is helping us find the right location and will give
us incentives to build because they want to build up the concept
that this is an ‘entertainment city’ — and
our beer garden will help do just that. And it's time."
The time seemed right back in October 1995 when Pretzel City
opened as well, but for different reasons, and those reasons
were a major factor in its demise. "Everybody was jumping
into the business back then," Baver remembers. "We
all thought the boom would continue. So, on the advice of
our lawyer, we structured things to take on a large debt and
keep all ownership to ourselves. We could do that because
the brewery was located in the basement of an old carriage
house in which the owner constructed a restaurant upstairs.
She was willing to buy beer from us at very high prices as
part of our arrangement and that meant our business plan was
designed as if we were operating at brewpub profit margins.
When her business failed, those margins were cut by more than
half, and we were in a real bind. I still think we might have
pulled through, but our loan officer left the bank and the
new guy just wasn't willing to work with us."
Pulling through might indeed have been possible. Among other
things — and amazingly, given its size and short life
— Pretzel City had two contracts in hand to brew beers
from European breweries for the U.S. market when the bank
shut them down: Blanche de Charleroi for Brasserie
du Val de Sambre in Wallonia, and Boltens Ur Alt
for Privat-Brauerei Bolten in Korschenbroich,
Germany. Baver actually brewed the Blanche over there, and
it inspired Midnight Wit, which became the second Legacy brand
to be contract brewed and bottled (12 ounces) at Appalachian
Brewing Company in Harrisburg in May.
Speaking of bottled products, it should be noted that the
release of the first one, Hedonism Ale, helped raise Legacy’s
profile earlier this year more than a little bit. The company
has obviously built its success primarily on the quality of
its beers. Sales representation on the street and a well-conceived
program of opening distribution channels have also been vital
factors. But what about all the publicity surrounding the
release of Hedonism in a controversial case that was banned
as "pornographic" by some Lancaster distributors
who later sold it in a brown paper wrapper? Heck, that was
just happenstance. Or maybe not. “Yeah, I figured there
might be a little excitement,” Baver admits, “but
nothing like what actually happened.”
It started when he was talking with Deric Hettinger, who
owns an art gallery near the brewery, about how to liven up
Legacy’s image at local events. Hettinger offered to
do “live art” at the upcoming 2005 Manayunk Brewfest.
He set up his easel next to the Legacy table and did an oil
painting of his suggestion for artwork on the soon-to-be-released
Hedonism cases. Not only did he draw an appreciative crowd
(one of whom tried to buy the painting on the spot for $500),
but what he came up with was a striking visual interpretation
of hedonism, a laugh-out-loud-inducing depiction of naked
cartoonish figures kissing and groping one another against
an attention-getting, garish red backdrop. Not only was the
artwork commissioned for the new cartons, it inspired what
is now Legacy’s corporate slogan, “We brew pure
pleasure.”
The beer was released in December to several markets, with
no particular reaction. When it shipped to the conservative
Lancaster area in January, however, cases were sent back by
a few distributors. And one outspoken distributor made an
issue of it, calling the package art “pornographic.”
Then, when her customers kept asking for Hedonism, she brought
cases back in and wrapped each in brown paper. And she called
the press.
“That was a Wednesday,” Baver recalls, “and
the story led the local TV news that night. It was the top
story on their Web site for several days after that, and the
AP picked it up that Saturday. We got 36,000 hits on our Web
site the next day and e-mails from all over the country, from
Europe, even China. I was interviewed by everybody, including
a British beer magazine. It was really wild.”
Hettinger has finished a second, not nearly as controversial,
oil painting that was used to create the Midnight Wit cases
that hit the market this spring. This one too is an attention-grabber,
a scene of outlandish bright blue figures dancing around a
campfire against a black, midnight sky.
Watching all this unfold, I’ve become convinced that
these guys get it, understand it and should make it big. Of
course, when it comes to predicting the future of Legacy Brewing,
the record indicates I’m the last person you should
ask.
Half Pints
Speaking of Appalachian Brewing Company as
we were, the brewery just celebrated its ninth anniversary
in May and will open a third location in Camp Hill, Pa., this
summer. The main site opened in Harrisburg in 1997, and the
second in Gettysburg in 2003. A fourth location is expected
to open in Lancaster next February. The original Harrisburg
pub is, at three stories and 50,000 square feet, one of the
largest — maybe the largest — in the country.
The second-floor bar was revamped into the Belgian-themed
Abbey Bar last year; Brewmaster and Director of Operations
Artie Tafoya says that’s been a smashing success.
Twin Lakes Brewery, whose opening was originally
scheduled for roughly a year ago, finally got the deed done
in April, followed by a grand opening party in May. Located
on a historic 252-acre farm along Route 52 in Greenville,
Del., Twin Lakes debuted with Route 52 Pilsner, Greenville
Pale Ale and Tweeds Tavern Stout (the last named for Delaware’s
first tavern). Brewer Mark Fesche is making his beers in a
gravity-fed brewery with a 26-barrel steam-fired brewhouse,
using only fresh hop flowers and water from a deep rock well
that has operated on the property for over 200 years. Sounds
bucolic, don’t it?
Jack Curtin suffers now and then from Olfrygt,
which is Dutch for “the fear of being unable to find
a beer.” How he copes with the pain is recounted in
often excruciating detail at jackcurtin.com/liquiddiet.
|
