USA, OR: Calapooia Brewing begins to bottle its beers

Laura Bryngelson and Mark Martin, the co-owners of Calapooia Brewing Company in Albany, saw their first commercial batch come off the line for sale through outside distributors, Gazettimes.com reported on October, 15.

“For us it’s a very exciting day,” said Bryngelson. She and Martin and their 20 employees produce kegged microbrews from the small brewery. The two have been in business for five years, and on October, 13 they saw the realization of a goal.

Until now, Calapooia’s brews have been served only at restaurants and taverns. The new bottles soon will be available at stores and supermarkets.

Green Bottling, a mobile bottler out of Portland, had set up everything on October, 13, including labeling and capping. Shortly before 10 a.m., the beer began to flow. Calapooia was counting on finishing 5,400 bottles in about four hours. The first pallet of 720 bottles was destined for Point Blank Distributors of Eugene. More will be heading to Portland.

Green Bottling used its own labeling equipment and the six-head bottler for the day’s work. The equipment had been pre-calibrated so that labels would be affixed correctly. A hose from the new 30-barrel fermentation tank to the bottling equipment was the final touch.

The first bottled beer out of the $16,500 tank was Calapooia’s popular, peppery Chili Beer. Bryngelson was on the front line to receive the first bottles off the belt, and Martin popped the cap of that initial brew and poured it into tasting glasses to toast Calapooia’s new era.

Bryngelson said the chili beer has won several people’s choice awards. The next beer to be bottled, in three weeks to a month, will be India Pale Ale.

The brewery has 15 different recipes and produces about 60 barrels of beer a week.

19 October, 2011