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June 10, 2009 New Glarus Brewing to celebrate grand opening of Hilltop Brewery this weekend
Dan and Deb Carey, founders of New Glarus Brewing Co.,
are welcoming visitors to the new $20 million Hilltop Brewery.
- Mike DeVries/The Capital Times  |
Spotted Cow, Wisconsin's most popular craft beer, has an astonishing new home.
Open just a week, the New Glarus Brewing Co.'s new Hilltop Brewery is up and running, and eager beer fans have already begun exploring the state-of-the-art brewing plant and the new gift shop.
With both exterior and interior spaces that invite comparisons to famous destination breweries like the Guinness headquarters in Dublin, the Hilltop Brewery is poised to burnish the Badger State's growing reputation as the Napa of the North when it comes to craft brewing.
Deb and Dan Carey -- founders, owners and operators of the brewery -- are hosting a grand opening on Saturday, June 13, from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. Tours of the $20 million expansion are free, and there will be music in the afternoon featuring the Jimmys. Dancing is encouraged.
The Careys said even they are a little dazzled by the project, which has basically doubled the brewery's output from about 65,000 barrels to around 130,000 barrels per year. They anticipate sales of more than 80,000 barrels in 2009, sold exclusively in Wisconsin.
"It's been a pretty exhausting project, but we knew it would be from the beginning," Deb Carey admitted.
Trained as an artist, her vision is stamped indelibly over the look and feel of the entire project, which is sited on 30 acres just outside of the village of New Glarus in northern Green County.
She's been the marketing whiz behind its meteoric rise, with sales growth in double digits every year. The brewery's flagship beer, Spotted Cow, has become the state's most popular craft beer, according to Steve Frank of Frank Beer Distributors Inc.
Dan Carey is the brewery's innovative and highly regarded brewmaster, with a slew of international awards contributing to his world-class reputation.
The design of the new buildings on the hill pays tribute both to the barns and farm buildings of the surrounding countryside as well as to the classic architecture of Northern European communities, where many of the finest brewing traditions arose.
Casual visitors will love the views; the impressive limestone rock work, including a small waterfall and pocket gardens; and a quiet, formal garden that feels more like a monastic retreat than a rollicking, traditional beer garden.
But the real fun is for brewing fans at all levels of interest and experience.
One spacious room is outfitted with Spanish slate floors and four large copper-clad kettles purchased from two now-defunct breweries in Germany. Under lighting that wouldn't be out of place at a gallery, the kettles glow like art objects, and each serves a different purpose at the beginning of the brewing process. Glass portals allow visitors, as well as the brewing team, to see right inside the kettles at work.
Each kettle was re-engineered with state-of-the-art stainless interior fittings and multiple mechanisms to ensure flawless operation as well as energy savings.
Visitors are also likely to enjoy what's known in brewing circles as "a stairway to heaven." The steps lead toward the top of the plant to a landing area, where visitors can peer through a large window into a sterile room and watch yeast busy at work in an open fermentation tank.
And then there's the bottling site, where the smell of the beer is delicious and the orchestrated movement of the bottles shuttling along the conveyor belts has the kind of zany but relentless pace that might remind some of a Saturday morning cartoon.
"We designed it (the brewery) so people can see what we do here. It's very transparent, and it's fun to share," Deb Carey said.
Although she has dozens of future plans for things like art on the walls, an audio tour for Hilltop visitors and displays to chronicle the brewery's history, she said she's ready to open the doors, even if every detail isn't complete.
Meanwhile, the original New Glarus Brewing Co. Riverside Brewery just outside of the village will remain open, and visitors can tour that facility with an audio tour.
"For anyone who really wants to learn about brewing, I'd probably suggest going to the Riverside Brewery first and taking the self-guided audio tour there, and then coming up to the Hilltop to see what we're doing up here," she said.
Together, both tours should take an hour to 90 minutes. While the tours are free, there is a charge of $3 for beer tastings that cover a sample glass and a coupon good for beer at several nearby New Glarus eating spots.
As for Dan Carey, he and fellow brewmaster Randy Thiel (who is also the brewery's quality control director) are busy fine-tuning the production end of the new plant so that the beer being produced meets their lofty standards.
But both remain committed to exploring new flavor profiles and intriguing ideas, pushing the envelope on their craft.
"We call it the R & D part of the business," Deb Carey laughed. "It might be research and development, but it's also Randy and Dan. Some of what they come up with will only be brewed in small batches, and only available at the brewery," she added.
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