E-Malt.com News article: USA, TX: Hudson Bend based Infamous Brewing Company has big aspirations

A Hudson Bend-based brewing company is looking to expand the suds in its own backyard.
Infamous Brewing Company was started in June 2012 when marketing professional Josh Horowitz and Wall Street banker Zack Perry were introduced by a mutual friend at a bar in New York. The pair bonded over their love of beer and their penchant for business and decided on Austin as the site of their first frothy endeavor. Eventually, welder Matt Bitsche joined the team as head brewer, helping repurpose old food manufacturing equipment and a dairy tank into something that could brew beer, reports Statesman.com.

“There’s 10 hours in a brew day, and that doesn’t include setup and cleanup. The first brew day we had was literally sun up to sun up, and by the end of it we didn’t even want to speak to each other … brewing is really hard,” Horowitz said. “But I love it; it’s the best thing I’ve ever done.”

The Infamous brand, stamped with gun chambers and riddled with bullet holes, is a throwback to Prohibition days, when it was “cool to be bad,” Horowitz said. The beer itself, Horowitz said, is similarly old-fashioned rebellious.

“Infamous beers are traditional-style beers with a slightly aggressive twist,” he said. “We’re not into trends like sours or barrel aging. All of our beers have unique characteristics, and they’re all brewed very well. People often comment on how clean and bright they are.”

This past week, Infamous Brewing Company released Pumpkin Massacre, its pumpkin pecan porter fall seasonal. Horowitz said they didn’t want to just jump on the Oktoberfest-brew bandwagon but took some consideration when brewing pilot batches.

“It has a porter base, and then we put in all things pumpkin pie,” Perry said. “We might run it through Thanksgiving, if people still want something with pecan and nutmeg around then.”

The partners are especially proud of Hijack, their cream ale, which is an ale that mimics a lager and has a rich history in the U.S., Horowitz said.

“Cream ales are almost nonexistent in Texas, but it’s big up north where we’re both from,” Horowitz said. “This is a gateway beer – something everybody can drink, a session beer.”

Infamous distributes in several locations in Dallas, San Antonio and Houston and sells its beer at approximately 50 bars and restaurants in Austin. Perry said that while they are looking to expand their distribution, they aren’t interested in wandering their beers too far from home.

“In the immediate term, we’ll build our presence in Austin,” Perry said. “We have the ability to produce more beer, and there’s a lot of craft capacity in the Austin market. I mean, we chose Austin as our backyard.”

In order to reach the full potential of their Hudson Bend brew house, which has six 15-barrel fermenters, the partners are looking for a distributor, someone to help get more of their beer out the door. After all, the demand is there, as demonstrated by the pre-sales of Pumpkin Massacre.
“That was the first time that we sold almost all of it before it was even in kegs,” Horowitz said. “It was pretty cool.”

Once they can sell more beer and max out their current facility, then the brewers will start acquiring equipment with more capacity, they said. For now, though, the focus is on getting their name out there.

“If we can drive a beer like Hijack into the hearts of people who drink Budweiser, that’s a bigger victory than getting the beer nerds who already like quality craft beer,” Horowitz said.

In addition to brew connoisseurs and those more brand loyal, the partners emphasized that their beer has no target audience.

“Whether it’s a doctor or lawyer or someone more blue-collar, anyone can relate to beer,” Perry added. “It’s a great equalizer.”


18 October, 2013