E-Malt.com News article: USA, MA: Cambridge Brewing Co. now bottling more of its beers

Cambridge Brewing Co. has been pouring great beer in Kendall Square since 1989, but only recently did the brewpub begin bottling its beverages, Boston.com reported on February, 25.

It started last fall, when CBC put its hot-selling fall ale, the Great Pumpkin, in 22-ounce bottles. Now the brewpub is selling two year-round beers - a Belgian tripel called Tripel Threat and a Belgian IPA called the Audacity of Hops - as well as a rotation of single-batch beers, the first of which is a Scotch ale.

The main reason why the company started bottling is that CBC wanted to expand but couldn’t make the operation in Kendall Square physically any bigger. At the same time, the owners didn’t want to invest millions of dollars in a packaging brewery, CBC brewmaster Will Meyers said. “We were basically worried that we wouldn’t have a good time, that we wouldn’t enjoy ourselves and be saddled with a $5 mln debt.’’

So, as many small brewers are doing, CBC hooked up with a packaging brewery - Mercury Brewing Co., home of Ipswich Ale - and arranged to brew and bottle there. Now CBC is making enough beer for 500 to 600 cases per batch.

Selecting Tripel Threat and Audacity as the year-round brews was easy, Meyers said. For one thing, both have been extremely popular at the pub. For another, he wanted to highlight CBC’s history of using Belgian yeast. (Tripel Threat was the first Belgian-style beer made by an American brewery.)

Choosing the single-batch beers could be trickier. CBC makes between 30 and 45 different beers at its pub over the course of a year. “We’ve got a pretty huge repertoire to draw from,’’ he said.

The first single-batch beer to go into bombers is Bannatyne’s Scotch Ale. The next one is a saison called Sgt. Pepper. A gruit - an unhopped herbal beer - is due in April, and a heather ale is on tap for the summer.


29 February, 2012