USA, IL: Ten Ninety Beer Company opening own facility in Glenview

Ten Ninety Beer Company, which contract brewed in Zion is now opening its own facility in Glenview where it will launch a taproom sometime within the next month, possibly before St. Patrick's Day, co-owner Brian Schafer was quoted as saying by Chicago Daily Herald on February 25.

The Ten Ninety Beer Company, founded in June 2012, is now making its beer at the new facility at 1025 Waukegan Road in the former Card & Party Giant space.

The 11,000-square-foot home in Glenview will feature an 89-seat taproom with an outdoor patio with an initial capacity of 5,000 barrels for production, said Urban Innovations, serving as contractor for the project.

Schafer and his co-founders Andy Smith, a patent attorney, and Jamie Hoban, a banker, named the brewery Ten Ninety or "1.090" because that is the approximate measurement of original gravity for each of the four flagship beers. This measurement, taken early in the brewing process, denotes a beer with a higher amount of fermentable sugars than most common beers. For comparison, a Budweiser is a comparatively watery 1.045 starting gravity. Water itself is 1.0.

"We launched with the high-gravity beers," Schafer said, adding that they have released 17 beers since starting nearly three years ago.

The play on numbers seems appropriate for Schafer, who left his career as a corporate CFO to launch the craft beer company. He says he enjoys his new role. "I wish I would have done this a long time ago," said Schafer, 41.

He added that he is looking forward to the opening of the tap room. "It's going to be a fantastic avenue for us to interact with customers and get feedback," the Glenview resident said. He noted that it will be a way to try out their experimental beers. "People will vote with their wallets," he said, adding that the best way to know if a beer is popular is based on sales.

The company rotates its four core beers with seasonal releases. Many of the high-end recipes get their inspiration from food, he said. For example ingredients include pomegranate, cinnamon or jaggery. The beer will range from $6 to $9 at the new taproom. "We are positioned as a high-end luxury beer," Schafer said.

Ten Ninety's beers can be found mostly in six packs of bottles at Trader Joe's, Mariano's, Whole Foods, Heinen's and Binny's.

26 February, 2016