E-Malt.com News article: USA, AK: First month of activity better than expected for HooDoo Brewing Co. in Fairbanks

In his first month as a brewery owner, Bobby Wilken is sticking with the basics. Wilken, who launched HooDoo Brewing Company on Halloween, has gone with a bare-bones formula so far, newsminner.com reported on November, 18.

There’s no bottled beer available at HooDoo — Wilken said he isn’t ready for the complications caused by a bottling line — and only a few varieties.

The beers that do exist don’t even have names. The Kolsch, a light German-style beer, is known simply as HooDoo Kolsch. The India pale ale is called IPA.

“It’s simple,” Wilken said. “People are so barraged by marketing nowadays — we just wanted to have a nice place where people could come in and have a beer.”

Wilken has vowed to keep his launch simple until he has a firm grasp of the supply and demand for his product. HooDoo has been selling more beer than projected, which is a mixed blessing. Since beer requires lead time to brew, a shortage can’t be immediately remedied.

“We’ve tried to guess how much beer we need,” Wilken said. “We’re not out, but we’re behind, I guess you’d say.”

To conform with state laws for tasting rooms, customers are only allowed to drink 36 ounces of beer on site. Sixty-four ounce growlers are available for takeout.

HooDoo won’t sell to restaurants until Wilken gets a better feel for how much beer to brew to provide a fresh supply. But when it does, he said HooDoo will personally clean tap lines to make sure the brew isn’t tainted by off flavors.

“We don’t want to sacrifice quality,” he said.

Wilken said he’s been happy with the beers resulting from that philosophy. His latest, a Belgian Saison, is a good example of what he wanted to do as a brewer — a light, citrusy fresh-tasting beer.

In its first month of business, he said the experience has been everything he hoped it would be.

“It’s been a long ride, but it really is what we expected,” he said, before pausing to correct himself. “It’s better than I expected.”


21 November, 2012