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Otter Creek is brewing better beer the second time around.
Craft beer is a tough business. There are so many great breweries out there that it’s easy to get lost in the fray.
Sometimes you’re on top, but in trying to stay there, things get rushed, growth comes too quick and the business end gets the best of you. Unfortunately, the business aspect of craft beer is as important as any. It would be ideal to imagine craft beer being solely about making great beer and then everything running itself, but sadly it’s not. Good beer will sell itself, but that’s a wave you can only ride for so long before you need a legitimate plan of attack. There are times however, where things don’t always work out for the best and you start on a sad, downward spiral of events that lead to your potential demise. Thankfully, it doesn’t always have to be New Year’s Day to start over. Sometimes it can be out of nowhere and unexpected at 8:30 in the evening on January 8th; a day like any other.
Just over twenty years ago, in March of 1991, in the little town of Middlebury, Vermont, Otter Creek Brewery was started by Lawrence Miller. Having the most breweries per capita in the country, Vermont was very open to the brewing industry and grabbed on quick to what was coming out of the tanks at Otter Creek. Less than four years after starting, relocation was necessary, as they had outgrown their facility. They stayed in Middlebury, moving just down the road to a much bigger, state-of-the-art facility (at the time). After moving, things didn’t slow down and there seemed to be a constant rise in supply and demand. With their altbier Otter Creek Copper Ale, leading the way, the brewery was sweeping the Northeast and gaining a following in more and more states. In 1997, they even started producing a second line of beers. Wolaver’s was created as the desire for organic beers increased, and was the first certified organic brewery in the country.
Together with both lines, Otter Creek and Wolaver’s continued growing and expanding. The consistent growth and expansion became problematic though, and the beers showed quite noticeable lows in quality. Bad, out-of-date beer was hitting further markets and the consistency was not there. The glory days of Otter Creek had begun to dissipate and a void was left in the hearts of those who had loved their beers. The brewery grew to the point where they were in twenty-one states around the country and they were even shipping beer to Japan. The growth was impressive, but it wasn’t supported on the business end and things were starting to collapse. Cash concerns began to take their toll and the beers weren’t being created with consistent ingredients. Sub-par products were subbed in and out to make due, but beer is something that needs consistency and shouldn’t be tweaked in such ways. Drinkers took notice and Otter Creek seemed to be nearing the end of the road.
In October of 2009, seeing the struggles they were going through, neighboring brewery Long Trail, under the lead of President Brian Walsh, stepped in to offer assistance. “We knew what the Vermont brand stood for,” Brian says. This was one of the major reasons, along with knowing the quality of the beer that had come out of the brewery in the past, behind taking the risk of financially backing Otter Creek. The payroll was funded and Long Trail took over managing the brewery. The recent acquisition of their new brewmaster Mike Gerhart, also served as a glimmer of light and was more of a reason to take a chance. About four months later, Long Trail officially took over the brewery. On January 8th 2010, at 8:30PM in downtown Burlington, VT, the purchase became official and Otter Creek received its much need second chance.
“I say brewing is like grandma’s baking; you don’t mess with the recipe! If it says a pinch of salt, than you use a pinch of salt. They couldn’t do that, but now we’re back to doing that.” With this mindset, Brian quickly invested into the brewery. Shockingly, there was still a group of Vermont natives who were hesitant about the buyout, meaning there would need to be changes on multiple levels. As Brain says, “There were two things — we had to change the culture and the people to buy into this new culture and we had to take the long-term approach. We said, ‘don’t just listen to what we say, see what we do.’” Showing what they do, Brian invested over $1.5 million into the brewery to fix consistency issues. Improvements were made in everything from water filtration to the bottling line. The ingredients were key changes as well, and they invested in making sure higher quality ingredients were used at all times. With everything in place to make the beer they wanted, they had to make sure it was fresh when it was served. Getting beer across the country (and to Japan especially) isn’t easy if you take pride in freshness. So, Brian pulled Otter Creek out of Japan and seven states, bringing them down to a much more manageable fourteen states. All of this would be pointless though, if there wasn’t someone to entrust the new brew house to, someone who could run the day-to-day operations and knew how to make a good, consistent beer.
That is where Mike Gerhart came in. Mike was probably the most important component in the changing of hands. With Mike, they had a proven brewer with experience at all levels and types of brewing. Most notably, Mike spent four years down in Rehoboth Beach, brewing under Sam Calagione at the renowned Dogfish Head Brewery. One would think going from Dogfish Head to Otter Creek would be a drastic change, but not to Mike. “It didn’t seem like a big thing to me. Before my four years at Dogfish, I was at Coors,” he states. Mike has run the gamut in brewing, spending years working on mass-produced beers at the Coors brewing plant and even getting two masters degrees in brewing over the years. He started brewing at the age of eighteen, giving him sixteen years of experience in the industry. Between it all, Otter Creek and Brian were more than comfortable with his technical skills and ability to brew all kinds of styles. Going to school in Vermont, Mike had been around in the days when Otter Creek was producing quality beers. Leaving Dogfish Head and without a job, he moved back to Vermont. “It’s the state with the most breweries per capita. It’s the state I wanted to live in! It’s not what it was when I left Vermont,” Mike says. But remembering the possibilities, Mike took a job at Otter Creek shortly before Long Trail took over.
Upon his arrival at Otter Creek, Mike spent weeks working at each position in the brewery in an attempt to learn everything and know the ins and outs of the whole operation. Now, under his helm, Otter Creek has already taken giant strides. “We’re working towards hitting perfection every day,” he proclaims. Mike is constantly reworking the recipes, getting them back to improved versions of what they once were and even introducing new ones from time to time. And, having all new packaging also helps give way to the redevelopement of the brand. It has become a whole new beer now from the hop to the label. “We’re continuing to improve. Continuing to innovate and try to stay ahead. We’re always thinking about what equipment we can upgrade, where we can get better efficiencies, where we can improve the quality,” Mike states. Production has also hit a huge jump as the brewery went from a four times a week, four brews a day schedule to brewing around the clock six days out of the week. They only shut down the brewery for one hour a day for maintenance needs.
Along with improving the beer itself, Long Trail, has bestowed their eco friendly ways upon Otter Creek as well. As one of the leaders of the eco friendly brewery movement, Long Trail has ensured every change made to Otter Creek was made in ways that would go along with the “green” initiatives. All efforts were made to conserve water, save energy, condense shipping and leave as little of a carbon footprint as possible. Being able to ship Long Trail along with Otter Creek and Wolaver’s has allowed them to never leave the state with anything less than a full container load, cutting back significantly on their footprint. This passion for conserving the environment has also led them to put a greater focus on the Wolaver’s line. Being the first 100% Certified Organic brewery in the country (as well as claiming to soon be the only one with the upcoming change in organic regulations) is something they take great pride in. Extra precautions were made to ensure that high quality organic products were readily available, to the point where they have contracts worked out with farmers to specially grow things for them over the next few years.
Being able to work together has also proven beneficial for everyone, as they can now share a mutual, central storage facility and lean on each other. With Otter Creek being a smaller facility, sharing a facility leaves the brewery room to operate at a higher level. Recent months have led to record production of 50,000+ cases. “[Those are] Big numbers for this brewery and from where we came from. We’ve built that much inventory, but with how our growth is, we are running on fumes by the end of the month. We’re running on full tilt,” mentions Mike. This growth has come as no surprise to Mike either, as the staff along with himself is dedicated 100% to building the company. The business motto of the company is to promote everyone from within and not hire any higher up positions from the outside, giving a sense of pride and added motivation to the staff. Mike also instructed the staff from day one: “You’re going to be expected to perform in the next year in a half what takes most breweries five or seven years to figure out. If you’re up for that, we need you. If it’s not something you’re willing to put 150% into, maybe we can put in some phone calls and get you in at another brewery.” Everyone at Otter Creek is on board for the long-run and takes great pride in what they do, which in the end, helps produce better, more consistent beer.
With classics like Copper Ale seeing a whole new life and new brews like Alpine Black IPA, Otter Creek is taking full advantage of its second chance in the brewing world. Going from near closure to having capacity issues and needing to expand in the first year and half, Otter Creek seems to be moving in the right direction under the leadership of Mike Gerhart and the support of Long Trail. Timing was perfect as well, as you’d hate to see a brewery go down a year shy of such a monumental anniversary as twenty years. If the past year and a half was any indication, they are well on their way to celebrating another twenty even more successful years.
