E-Malt.com News article: USA, CA: Mad Fritz Brewing coming to St. Helena

Nile Zacherle of Calistoga is establishing a microbrewery in St. Helena “to produce small quantities of distinctive, high-quality beers for sale to a select group of local accounts and direct to consumers,” he wrote in a letter to the city, Napa Valley Register reported on March 19.

The Planning Commission approved a use permit for Mad Fritz Brewing Company. Commission Chair Matthew Heil said it’s good to see a local family put St. Helena back on the brewing scene, after the closing of the Silverado Brewing Company in 2012.

“We’re not talking about Miller Lite here,” Heil said. “This is primo, some of the best stuff you can get.”

Heil said the project helps diversify St. Helena’s economy and is ideal for the city’s industrial park.

Zacherle said he’s been making wine in the Napa Valley since 2000, but he worked for Anderson Valley Brewing Company in the mid-1990s.

“I want to take what I’ve learned with winemaking and make high-end beer in the Napa Valley, utilizing barrel aging and other techniques,” Zacherle told the commission.

The microbrewery will produce one batch of 65 gallons per week initially, and ramp up to as many as 325 gallons.

It will be allotted 60 gallons of city water per day. The rest will be trucked in.

Acme Fine Wines, Dean & DeLuca, Goose and Gander and Cindy’s Backstreet Kitchen have expressed interest in selling the beer, which will also be available through a mailing list, Zacherle said.

Spent grain, a byproduct of the brewing process, will be used as feed for local livestock, including at Long Meadow Ranch.

Zacherle said the brewing system was custom built by St. Helena’s Burgstahler Machine Works.

“Mad Fritz aims to offer new creative perspectives to beer making using the accents of the wine production from barrel aging of beers to infusions of wine grapes and botanicals,” Zacherle added.


21 March, 2014