E-Malt.com News article: USA, TX: Radium City Brewing begins production in La Salle County, Texas

La Salle County has been a desert for locally produced beer in recent years, possibly dating as far back as 1966 when the Star Union Brewery in Peru shut its doors. But that all changed on May 9 when Radium City Brewing brewed their first batch of commercial beer, MyWebTimes.com reported on May 12.

The brewery's owners received their permits from state and federal government agencies this month.

"We're really excited about the opportunity to bring local craft beer to Starved Rock Country," said co-founder Brian Jones.

Radium City's co-founders and brewers Dennis Warren, Adam Chapman, Alex Jenkins and Jones all started as homebrewers but decided to open a commercial brewery because they wanted to bring locals the kind of beers they like to drink.

"Even in 2010 and 2011 it was hard to get good craft beer around here," said Jones, who has been a homebrewer since 2010. "There's still not as much as you'd like to see. So I think we all felt that we'd like to bring what we like to drink into the area. If we couldn't buy it then why not make it."

"We'd been doing it for a while and people liked (the beer) and it was fun, so why not?" Warren said.

The four brewers initially met through work, which forced them to travel to other states together. The traveling led to bonding over craft beers that weren't available in Illinois.

Little did they know that those trips would eventually lead to opening a brewery of their own.

"Maybe that was research and development for this brewery," Chapman said with a laugh.

Radium City, located about eight miles north of Ottawa, will be operating on a one barrel brew system, which is the equivalent of 31 gallons per batch. As they begin to sell their beer, they expect to reinvest the profits into a bigger system with the first step being larger fermentation tanks.

"Every penny and dime that we make we're going to reinvest right into the business to increase our ability to make beer," Chapman said.

“They expect to produce 50 to 120 barrels per year depending on demand for the beer and how much they can grow,” Jones said.

The process for opening the brewery took about a year and included making renovations to the facility, petitioning the county zoning board of appeals to add a special use permit for nanobreweries and approve rezoning the property, and obtaining state and federal permits for beer production.

Though they have obtained all of their permits and began production, Radium City cannot begin distributing beer until June because of a 45-day waiting period.

"We want to make sure we can get it out there efficiently and not over-promise. Also, we want to make sure the quality is there," Jones said. "So we're going to hunker down with those guys, see how things go and then feel out other places."

Another motivating factor for starting small was the lower initial cost, which allowed them to start the brewery without seeking additional investors.

"It's important for us that we're in control of the product we put out and that we're not beholden to anybody but ourselves and what we like," Jones said. "We want to make beer that we would drink."


13 May, 2015