2) For people who are
unfamiliar with Hawcreek Brewing Company, can you give us some background about
the company? How did it start? What was the inspiration? As I mentioned above, HBC is
owned by the four of us. Josh and I
(Jacquie) are brother and sister and our spouses round out the partnership. We
initially became interested in home brewing and discovered a love for great
beer and the making of it over the course of about 18 months of experimenting
with a turkey fryer and a big ol’ cooler. We jumped straight into all grain
brewing when we started our home brew journey and really developed a passion
for crafting excellent tasting and interesting recipes.
Over
time, we realized we were spending a lot of time and, let’s be honest, money on
our beers whilst receiving a lot of positive feedback from friends and family.
The four of us began dreaming about turning our passion for brewing into
something greater – into more of an investment - and one November evening
decided we would put our hopes and dreams for the future down on paper. This
eventually turned into our business plan.
Our
inspiration is our family. Working collectively on this brewery and
brainstorming ideas for making our beer better have really drawn the four of
us, aw well as our two young children, closer. We spend a lot of time together!
Fortunately, we all get along great so you won’t hear us complaining about
pulling long hours.
3) Can you talk about the
brewing process for Hawcreek Brewing? Do you have a mission or a theme around
your beers? How does your creative process work when thinking about brewing a
new style?
Brew
day starts by getting everything organized - while the water is getting to temperature
we sanitize all of the brewing and fermentation components, crush all the
grains and weigh all of the hops. We do an all grain mash, boil the wort and
then cool. Everything is transferred via a pump system. After cooling, into the
fermenter it goes and the yeast is pitched.
We
do our best to make every batch exactly the same as the time before. We stay
true to all of our recipes and make sure that everything we can control stays
the same so it is close as possible to what we have designed.
Our
mission is to simply make really good beer that is clean, flavorful and
enjoyable to the palate as well as visually appealing. We don't really have a
theme to any of our beers other than trying to make what we would want to drink
and what we think other people will also enjoy. When trying a new style we
really do our research on how to attain the intended style. Of course, we love trying as many beers in that similar
style as possible. We try to figure out
what we like and don't like in the other beers we try and then attempt to put
our own little spin on it.
Our
main focus is making a very drinkable beer that everyone will enjoy.
4) What should people know about
Hawcreek Brewing Company?
What
a question! I suppose we want everyone to know that we are all about family,
having a good time and enjoying what life has to offer. Of course, we believe
everyone should also enjoy great beer!
5) Opening a brewery
certainly isn't easy, but can you talk about some highs and lows for Hawcreek
Brewing to this point?
Some
high points have been sharing this experience with family and friends. We have
received so much support and so much cheering on. We have been able to work on
getting this brewery going with our best friends and it has certainly brought
the four of us closer. Of course, a high point is the satisfaction of receiving
that teeny tiny piece of paper, the brewer’s permit, in the mail one Wednesday
afternoon. What a great moment!
In
all honesty, there haven’t been many lows. Building the system was sometimes
frustrating and, well, irritating, but there wasn’t any point at which we felt
we should give up. The licensing process was somewhat painful but, again, not
enough to deter us from this dream of ours.
6) What beer are you proudest
of? Which of your beers is your personal favorite? Why?
Each
of our four flagship beers (Four Founders Wheat, Doghouse Pale Ale, Chaos IPA,
Little Town Brown) is a source of pride for us. These are recipes we have
fine-tuned over the course of the last 18 months and we are really proud of
each of them. I think each of the four of us would say we are most proud of a
different beer – Josh would likely say Chaos; Abe would say Four Founders;
Jacquie would say JPA (Jac’s Pumpkin Ale – look for it next Fall) or Little
Town Brown; Nicole would say all of them. Since I, Jacquie, am writing this I
have to say my personal favorite is Little Town Brown. It is a subtle marriage
of two of my favorite flavors, beer and coffee, so naturally I could drink a
few pints.
BONUS: While we are new to the
industry, we have felt so welcomed already. We are incredibly excited about
learning more about the ins and outs of the industry, making connections and
enjoying the great beer our state has to offer. We are proud of the progress we
have made thus far and are really looking forward to growing as a brewery over
the coming months and years.
We want to thank the people behind Hawcreek Brewing Company for answering our questions, and we wish them the best in the future.
No comments:
Post a Comment