By Jordan Nutting
Northside News
When you walk into the ALT Brew taproom, you’re greeted with the nutty, spicy aromas of toasted grains and “happy” fermentations. Sipping on a crisp blonde ale or a cloudy, bitter IPA at the stainless-steel bar, you’d never realize that next door in the brewhouse, big changes are underway.
ALT Brew, a local brewery specializing in gluten-free beers, is in the midst of a major expansion. The expansion, according to owner Trevor Easton, should be completed in November and will increase the brewhouse’s beer output from two barrels of beer per day to nearly 200 barrels. “I’m very, very excited for the system to come online,” said Easton.
In the meantime, ALT Brew is working around the clock to brew enough of their most popular beers to meet demand from taproom patrons and other sellers. Their taproom is located at 1808 Wright St., next door to the Madison College campus.
Business of beer
Easton began brewing beer in college. Around 2010, he began experimenting with gluten-free beers for the benefit of his wife, Maureen. At the time, he was participating in an MBA program in Chicago. For his capstone project, he wrote a business plan for a brewery that exclusively produced gluten-free beers.
Some of the feedback he received about the plan was to open a brewery that produced only one gluten-free beer in addition to other beers. “I was like ‘no, you don’t get it.’ It needs to be a dedicated gluten-free facility. That’s what takes all the worry out for the customer,” said Easton.
In 2012, the couple moved to Madison, but Easton struggled to find work. After what he calls a “horrendous” job interview, he took a leap. With Maureen’s support, he decided to pursue his gluten-free brewery full-time for six months.
He attended meetings of the Madison Homebrewers and Tasters Guild, which gave him a venue to see what others thought of his brewing experiments. “I dumped so much beer down the drain. I think I was trying to appease the beer gods, but I wasn’t giving them a very good product. But it got better. We had what I call happy accidents,” said Easton.
The breakthrough came during a party at their home. Easton had prepared a keg of one of his gluten-free beers. Guests kept going back to that beer even though other beers were available.
“Maureen came into the party a little late, and everyone was excited for her to try this beer,” said Easton. But when she tried to fill her glass, the keg was empty. “Ever since that day, she was like ‘yes, get bigger equipment, make more beer.’”
In 2014 Easton got the opportunity brew in a “very small, very hot” 9×13-foot room at House of Brews, where he was able to start producing beers commercially. He opened the current taproom and brewhouse on Wright Street two years later.
How do you make beer gluten-free?
On paper, beer making is relatively simple: soak a blend of wheat, barley, rye and other grains in hot water. Filter out the grains, bring the resulting “wort” to a boil and mix in additives like hops. Then cool the wort, add yeast, and wait. Over time, the yeast will turn sugars extracted from the grains into alcohol in a process called fermentation. Finally, the beer is bottled and gets its carbonated fizziness. By making small changes to this process, brewers can discover and craft a huge variety of beers.
For Easton, making a gluten-free beer comes down to getting the right grains. He uses a blend of oats, buckwheat and millet for his beers. None of these grains contain gluten, and Easton buys grains that are certified to have no wheat (or gluten) contamination. “Just by varying different ratios of these grains, you can get different flavor profiles and different beers,” said Easton. He also takes extra care to make sure the yeast he uses is not grown using barley or other gluten-containing ingredients.
Gluten-free beer is different from what is called gluten-removed beer. In gluten-removed beers, brewers prepare a normal beer using wheat and other gluten-containing grains. When the beer is done brewing, they add an enzyme that can chew up strands of gluten. Afterward, the beer technically no longer contains gluten. Gluten-sensitive people, however, can sometimes react to the gluten fragments left behind.
Though there are many similarities between brewing typical beers and gluten-free beers, the different grains can introduce specific challenges. For example, Easton has found buckwheat particularly challenging to work with. It can make the hot slurry of grains and water, called a mash, seize up like “concrete.”
It’s a major problem for Easton’s favorite ALT Brew beer, “Ripped Jeans and Wolf Shirts,” a double dry-hopped hazy IPA that took home the bronze medal in the gluten-free beer category for the 2023 World Beer Cup. Brewers have to babysit the mash to make sure they’re following the recipe exactly. Easton, who trained as an engineer before earning his MBA, approaches these brewing challenges with a systematic persistence.
Expanding capacity
When you exit the ALT Brew taproom, you walk into a small grain storage area. Plastic bins and paper bags line the wall, filled with millet toasted to the color of coffee and caramel, oats and black-colored buckwheat.
Stepping through another door, you enter the brewhouse. To the left is an alcove containing ALT Brew’s previous brewing setup: a few 3 to 5-foot tanks. Turn right and you’ll find another, dimly lit room filled with amber-colored glass kettles where the latest brews are fermenting. It smells like fennel or licorice.
But it’s the main room where all the action is happening. Massive metal drums line one wall of this bright warehouse space. Pipework and plumbing run in tidy parallel lines overhead. For now, everything is empty, but in a few months, these drums will hold hundreds and thousands of gallons of mash and fermenting beer.
Easton can easily point out his favorite part of the updates — a recirculating plate chiller. Boiled wort must be cooled down before yeast is added. In ALT Brew’s new system, piped water draws heat away from the wort. The warm water is then transferred to the mash tank where it can be mixed with grains and used in the next batch of beer. This system reduces the energy needed to brew the beer, saving money.
Brewing capacity has been limited during the expansion, so ALT Brew has had to prioritize brewing their most popular beers. Once the expansion is complete, Easton is looking forward to getting back to making a larger variety of beers. Stay tuned for the release of a special edition Octoberfest beer in the coming months.
In the meantime, ALT Brew’s taproom and patio at 1808 Wright St. are still open. Stop by for a great beer that happens to be gluten-free.
