Before prohibition and refrigerated rail cars, it was common to find breweries in small towns providing the local townspeople with tasty, fresh beer.
Decades later, the craft beer movement has created opportunities for small towns to enjoy a beer that they can call their own. This is the case for
Great Crescent Brewery in Aurora.
Aurora is a little town near Cincinnati. It is located on the Ohio River between two riverboat casinos. It has a beautiful historic downtown that you often find in these old river towns. Great Crescent is a business of love, not just of beer. The brewery is owned by husband and wife Dan and Lani Valas. They had met while working for the same company in San Francisco. When they had their son, they decided to move to the Midwest, which they felt was a better place to raise children.
When Gina and I first visited Great Crescent in May 2009, Dan still worked a full time job during the week and brewed on weekends. The brewery, located in a downtown storefront, was open on Saturdays for sampling and purchasing of carryout growlers and party pigs. Otherwise, their beer was available only in a few local establishments.
A year later, the brewery has moved from a small storefront that they leased to a former distillery warehouse building that they own. Dan is now dedicating all of his work time to just the brewery. The plan: to open a restaurant to go along with their brewery. They hope to be open later this summer.
They have also been receiving a lot of press. In the
May 2010 issue of Cincinnati Magazine, their Coconut Porter was featured. The creation of the Coconut Porter was a must have for Lani, a native Hawai'ian.
I've never had Maui Brewing's Coconut Porter. But HBG's Rod and Jess have. And when I brought a growler of Great Crescent's Coconut Porter to a recent event, they said that while it wasn't exactly like Maui's, it was pretty darn close. And they asked for more, please. Certainly a good sign!
Going back to the "small town brewery" point that I brought up... While visiting last year, several locals stopped in for growler refills. I'm going to ask you to visualize what a craft beer fan looks like. Are you thinking of someone wearing a Dale Earnhardt Jr. t-shirt with grease and oil on his hands and under his nails from working all day at the auto repair center? I'm betting not.
But in Aurora, a small town with its own brewery, auto technician/stock car fan is one of the many faces of craft beer consumers. I didn't ask, but I'm sure that part of his love for Great Crescent beer comes from his love of his small town. Local breweries are front and center in craft beer's push to grow its consumer base. And it appears that Great Crescent is succeeding.
You'll be able to try beers from Great Crescent at this year's Indiana Microbrewers Festival.
Great Crescent Brewery is the next Indiana brewery to take up the charge of canned craft beer. Dan and Lani Valas have been looking at canning for a while. And they are close to putting the beers out for purchase.
The biggest challenge with canning is the cost of materials. There is a minimum purchase for each can design. For multiple designs, this can be prohibitively expensive. But breweries like Great Crescent are finding ways around it. Similar to Sun King's customizable can, Great Crescent has one can design. The cans will be filled with various beers and have a small label affixed to identify them. Each label has to be individually approved, but the hassle and cost involved is much better than the cost of printing cans for each individual beer.
Dan is starting with a manual canning machine. "We are using a CASK 2-head manual filler with a motorized single seamer. The cans get filled by hand and are then moved to the seamer, go through a rinse and then get the 4-pack rings applied. We are waiting on some trays to package the 4-packs in and then we will be ready to go. I don't have an arrival date on the trays, so I can't tell you exactly when we will start getting the cans out for sale. We're not sure which beer will be first in the cans, but it will likely be several styles to out with the first deliveries."
So far, six beers have received label approval with the federal government: Blonde, IPA, Mild Ale, Dark Lager, Stout, and Coconut Porter. I know several people that will be looking forward to having cans of Coconut Porter in their beer fridge.
