Ozaukee breweries come together over a beer

Six breweries in Ozaukee County are doing something that has never been done before by coming together to brew a single beer, a collaboration that began in earnest last week at Inventors Brewpub in Port Washington.

“No one has a done a collaborative effort like this in the state before, where they include every brewer in the county with so many participating,” owner of Sahale Ale Works in Grafton Matthew Hofmann said.

The beer will be called One Town Over Rhubarb Wheat Ale, so-named because the six collaborating Ozaukee County breweries are “pretty much one town over from each other,” Kyle Smith of Foxtown Brewery said, calling it an approachable beer that features local ingredients.

The ale will be available at each of the county’s six microbreweries.

The project is intended to illustrate the fact that when it comes to beer, Ozaukee County has a lot to offer, Hofmann said.

“We have a great brewing culture and history in Ozaukee,” he said. “We may get overshadowed by the plethora of breweries around Milwaukee, but hopefully people in the surrounding area will see that there is great beer worth going a little up the road to seek out.”

A recipe for One Town Over was concocted in mid-April, when representatives for all the breweries met. Hofmann said he threw out an idea and everyone ran with it.

“Everybody put a little in,” Hofmann said, noting the inclusion of rhubarb from Witte’s Vegetable Farm in Cedarburg and honey from Ozaukee resident Perry Kallas’s company, Kallas Honey Farm.

The wheat ale is being fermented with a special yeast strain that accentuates fruit flavors, he said.

Last week, representatives from each brewery met at the hosting brewer, Inventors Brewpub, to prepare for fermentation.

“It was mainly a time to hang out and drink some beer,” Hofmann said.

The idea for a county-wide collaborative brew came from Hofmann, who said he had been planing it for a long time.

Sahale Ale Works’ fifth anniversary “was a good excuse to do it,” he said. The One Town Over Ale is one of five collaborative beers he is doing for the celebration.

Collaboration is a mainstay of the micro brewing industry, Inventors Brewpub owner Adam Draeger said.

“It’s a part of everyone’s values and philosophy to collaborate,” Draeger said, noting micro-brewing evolved from home brewing, which often involves hobby brewers learning and helping each other.

He also noted that head brewers often move to different microbreweries or start their own, which builds connections across the industry.

Fans appreciate and expect collaboration between breweries, Draeger said, and often go from brewery to brewery sampling beers.

Draeger acknowledged the amount of collaboration in the industry may seem strange to people on the outside.

“We are technically in competition,” he said. “You don’t see people in other industries, like realtors, get together and say, ‘Let’s collaborate.’”

Hofmann said the culture of working together comes from the microbreweries “being the small guys in the beer industry.”

Typically only two or sometimes three breweries will collaborate on a brew, Draeger said.

Including all six breweries in Ozaukee County makes this brew “very unique,” he said.

The planned release date is mid-July, Hofmann said, adding the brewers will start tasting the fermenting beer this week.

Along with Foxtown, Sahale and Inventors, The Fermentorium Brewery and Rebellion Brewing in Cedarburg and Water Street Brewery in Grafton are participating.

The ale is being brewed at Inventors Brewpub’s new 9,000-square-foot brewery, bar and restaurant on Port Washington’s lakefront.

The two-story building also includes 9,000 square feet of office space and the 3,750-square-foot Edison Hall.

Draeger said the new building allows Inventors to participate in more collaborations.

“When we had one barrel for fermentation, it was tough to host,” he said, adding Inventors now has 10 barrels for fermentation. The brewery went from 10 storage barrels to 120.

When they were at their previous location in the Van Ells-Schanen American Legion Hall, they would do collaborations with  Milwaukee brewers and be known as “the small brewer from Ozaukee County,” Draeger said.

The opening of the new building has been “strong,” he said, with only a couple hiccups.

Inventors went from 15 to 60 employees, he said, which meant there has been extensive training.

“The difficulty was that before our employees knew our customers for a long time, but our new employees don’t yet,” Draeger said.

Overall, the hundreds of positive reviews far outweigh the few negative ones, Draeger said.