Craft beer scene expands in Lodi

September 2, 2016

Central Valley Business Journal

LODI — Lodi’s reputation for wine has been growing, and now craft beer makers are joining the town’s beverage scene.

Grant Hamilton, who owns Woodbridge’s Flight Lounge with his wife, Angela, is working to open his new venture, Idol Beer Works, in the former Giant Discount Tires building on Sacramento Street.  He has a target date for opening some time in November.

Hamilton says American craft brewing is coming into its own.

“A lot of it is because of these small breweries popping up,” Hamilton said. “The public wants it.”

Hamilton is bringing some interesting ideas to Idol Beer Works. He is putting in an outdoor patio area that will include giant hops spread around the garden. Some of those hops will eventually be harvested and included in the beer production.

The patio will also include a stage for live music. There will also be indoor seating as well as a tap room.

Idol, which is “Lodi” spelled backward, is also offering what it’s calling The Founders’ Wall. The first 400 people who invest $500 will get their names on The Founders’ Wall, discounts on swag and a custom beer growler that they can fill up 52 times, which comes out to about $700 worth of beer.

Additionally, members of The Founders’ Wall will get a share of profits. According to Hamilton, 5 cents from every pint sold will go into a kitty that will be distributed among the founding members. So far, about 200 people have signed up.

“Those first 400 people, they haven’t tasted the beer yet, and we’ve got hundreds of people who are willing to step up to the plate because they so desperately want this,” said Hamilton. “It’s pretty impressive that they’re doing that for us.”

Of course, none of this would be possible without the beer, which Hamilton has been producing privately with John Brunet. They’ve entered and won some competitions and are meticulously working on it so it’s ready for mass production when Idol opens to the public.

Hamilton and Brunet are setting up everything so they can brew on-site. They will have a commercial-sized mixing kettle, boil kettle and fermentation tanks. Eventually they plan to sell kegs to local restaurants and bottle the beer for distribution. Idol will be closed Mondays, Tuesdays and Wednesdays, except for special functions, to focus on beer production. The brewery will be open to the public Thursday through Sunday.

They’re producing Hefeweizens, IPAs, session beers, brown ales and stouts. Hamilton, who is from Scotland, is pairing his old world tastes with Brunet, a Californian who’s accustomed to West Coast IPAs and hops. So far, they’ve got 12 finished recipes, most of which have gone through eight versions to get where they are now.

“We’ll get the basic profile of the beer we’d like to produce down, let’s say an IPA, and then we’ll look the hop profiles. We’ll put that together. We’ll start brewing it the way we think,” said Hamilton. “Then we’ll change, depending on how that beer turns out, temperatures. We’ll change the amount of grain that we’re using. We may change the types of hops that we’re using. We’ll keep doing that until we get a balance where we want for that particular beer.”

Idol plans only to sell its own beers at the brewery. But Hamilton hopes to collaborate  with other local breweries down the road.

Jay Reese and his wife are founding members. Reese met Hamilton through Flight Lounge and liked the varieties of beers sold there, which made him want to become a founding member of Idol. He’s also had an opportunity to try some of the beers Idol is producing.

“I was your typical Lagunitas IPA guy, and he introduced me to a lot of different IPAs,” said Reese. “I’ve kind of grown a sense of a lot different types of hops out there, different types of flavors, different types of taste and you go into them, you go out of them. He’s done the same thing with this Idol stuff. He’s not afraid to try something a little different, and I think the outcome has always been wonderful. Great taste.”

Idol Beer Works is part of a boom of craft breweries in recent years. According to Forbes magazine, craft brewers saw a 13 percent increase in volume in 2015. That’s the eighth year in a row the industry has seen a double-digit increase. Craft breweries now represent 12 percent of the total beer market, up from 5.7 percent in 2011.

Lodi itself is seeing a boom in craft breweries In addition to Idol Beer Works, there’s also the Lodi Beer Company in downtown Lodi. According to Hamilton, another small brewery has proposed downtown as well.

“America’s definitely got the best beer in the world,” said Hamilton. “Those days of thinking the American palate isn’t good enough to produce good beers, that’s ridiculous. I think the big Budweisers and Coors are having a harder time now. They’ve lost a lot of their market.”

http://cvbj.biz/2016/09/02/craft-beer-scene-expands-lodi/