E-Malt.com News article: USA, Al: Back Forty Brewing officially launches in Alabama

Back Forty Beer Co., Alabama's largest brewery, had their official launch at the great craft beer joint Craft Brewed, examiner.com reported on October, 8.

The Gadsden, Ala. based brewery was founded in 2009 by Jason Wilson.

Somewhat new to homebrewing, he approached multiple award winning brewer Jamie Ray. He sent him some of his homebrew, which Jamie quickly advised was awful, then said “but I can fix it.”

They immediately began perfecting the recipe for their first beer, Naked Pig Pale Ale. Unfortunately, they didn't have the many hundreds of thousands of dollars to build a brewery, so they reached out to a Kiln, Miss. microbrewery, and asked if they could brew on their system. As Jason tells it, “they left the key under the doormat for us,” and they started brewing on weekends.

Their first beer was released in June, 2009 in north-central Alabama with immediate success. Their second beer, Truck Stop Honey was released in March, 2010. That beer went on to win a silver at the Great American Beer Festival that same year, and the distributor offers came pouring in.

With that success, and with distribution now into all of Alabama, they were able to get the funding for their own brewery. They acquired a 27,000 square foot warehouse and began renovation which lasted eleven months. Finally, in January of 2012, they brewed their first batch of beer in house, which included the launch of two new beers, the great Freckle Belly IPA, and the Kudzu Porter.

Back Forty, in a controlled growth, began distributing into Mississippi, Florida, and Georgia, with Tennessee the next logical step. Kentucky is likely next, but that is down the line.

They started with a thirty barrel brewhouse, and a series of thirty barrel fermenters. Over the course of the past year, with only about four more to go, they have been changing out the thirties for sixty barrel fermenters, doubling their capacity from about fifteen to 30,000 barrels. There is thought of adding another brewing shift to keep them full.

Another cool thing Back Forty has done is pay forward the break they had to get started by brewing in another brewhouse. They have allowed about five Alabama start up breweries to use their system to get their beer onto the market. They are given a little over two years to see if they can get it going, which, really, is quite sufficient, and generous, frankly.

Jason Wilson is also the President of the Alabama Brewers Guild. One of the main goals of the organization moving forward is brilliant and could potentially change the world of craft beer. They are looking for craft brewers to be specifically licensed as such, legally defining what that entails.



10 October, 2014