The Devil\u2019s Club is on fire in downtown Juneau. Last Wednesday, three \u201clocal boys with a dream\u201d launched a campaign on the crowd funding website Kickstarter. Their goal: opening a \u201ctaproom-focused brewery\u201d on Franklin street.<\/p>\n
Within a week, Devil\u2019s Club Brewery has amassed $18,386 of their $20,000 goal from purchases of T-shirts and growlers.<\/p>\n
The upstart \u201cnano-brewery\u201d isn\u2019t alone in its aspiration. Devil\u2019s Club Brewery joins Amalga Distillery \u2014 a craft whiskey, gin and vodka startup \u2014 in signing leases on Franklin street. The businesses \u2014 collaborators within spitting distance \u2014 are slated to open within a year. Both are working feverishly to meet licensing requirements.<\/p>\n
Three \u201cJuneau boys with a dream\u201d<\/strong><\/p>\n The founders of Devil\u2019s Club Brewery \u2014 Jacob Ridle, Evan Wood and Ryan Lindsay \u2014 have been tinkering with recipes, navigating licensing and developing business plans for three years.<\/p>\n \u201cWe\u2019re three Juneau boys who have no money and a big dream. We\u2019re finding a way to make it work,\u201d Ridle said. \u201cIt takes a long time but it\u2019s our dream and we want to share it with everyone and have the community involved.\u201d<\/p>\n The dream is now within reach as Devil\u2019s Club Brewery begins work on the historic Hellenthal building on Franklin Street<\/a>. The space has housed two different theaters and a bookshop over the years but has been shuttered since 2000<\/a>. Amalga Distillery will be located on second and Franklin in the old Capital City Weekly offices.<\/p>\n \u201cIt will be more like an English or European pub style where we encourage people to come in after work and have a pint and some food,\u201d Ridle said. \u201cWe are not going to focus on distribution, which wouldn\u2019t make sense as a nano-brewery.\u201d<\/p>\n The boys have been brewing together for three years.<\/p>\n \u201cI think the \u2018aha\u2019 moment came when we started winning awards at brewing festivals,\u201d Lindsay said, referring to best in show awards they won at festivals in Anchorage, Haines and Juneau last summer.<\/p>\n Devil\u2019s Club plans on running a four-or-eight-barrel brewing system. They would be able to produce 300 to 600 barrels a year, a tiny amount compared to Alaskan Brewing Company\u2019s roughly 150,000 barrel yearly output.<\/p>\n \u201cThe amount of beer we\u2019d be able to make in a year, Alaskan Brewing Company can make in a day, which is why we need to focus on the taproom and bringing people in. It\u2019s a completely different business model,\u201d said Wood, who described Devil\u2019s Club\u2019s beer as \u201cadventurous\u201d.<\/p>\n \u201cWe\u2019re going to do some beers similar to what Anchorage Brewing company does with Brettanomyces, barrel aging and wood smoking,\u201d said Wood, referring to the strain of bacteria used to make so-called \u201csour\u201d beers. \u201cWe\u2019re also going to be doing some beers similar to Alaskan Brewing Company, American style beers and ales; also, beers like (Anchorage\u2019s) Midnight Sun Brewing with Belgian beers.\u201d<\/p>\n Hellenthal building owner Dale Whitney has been encouraged by the excitement people have shown in his new tenants\u2019 business.<\/p>\n \u201cThe response is just amazing,\u201d Whitney said. \u201cPeople are just saying, \u2018Wow, there\u2019s a brewery coming into the building? That\u2019s so cool.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n Devil\u2019s Club Brewery\u2019s Kickstarter campaign<\/a> is live for the next 22 days, Wood said, but it isn\u2019t the answer to all their financial needs.<\/p>\n \u201cKickstarter is definitely not going to create the funds for the entire brewery, but we wanted to let everyone know what we\u2019re doing, so Kickstarter is a great way of doing that while raising funds for our taproom. We\u2019re doing traditional funding as well,\u201d Wood said. <\/p>\n Single malts under Mt. Roberts<\/strong><\/p>\n Brandon Howard and Maura Selenak \u2014 cofounders of Amalga Distillery \u2014 have seen the promise Juneau\u2019s market holds for craft spirits. Howard and Selenak have leased a space on the corner of Franklin and second street in the old Capital City Weekly offices.<\/p>\n \u201cI think the first \u2018aha\u2019 moment for me came a long time ago,\u201d Howard said. \u201cI was thinking why is there not a craft distillery in Juneau? That would be so cool. Then seeing Port Chilkoot on the shelf and thinking, \u2018Haines has a distillery and we don\u2019t?\u2019 We need to do this, but we also need to do it well, hence the two-and-a-half years of planning.\u201d<\/p>\n They plan on opening in six months, and will start making gin and vodka immediately. Whiskey, because it needs to be barrel-aged for at least two years, will come later.<\/p>\n Howard, who\u2019s distilling experience comes from years of homebrewing and an internship at Westland Distillery in Seattle, says his process is inspired by craft brewing.<\/p>\n \u201cI used to homebrew, love beer, love whiskey, and there\u2019s this fact that a lot of people don\u2019t realize that single malt whiskey is just beer unhopped, distilled,\u201d Howard said. \u201cYou look at what craft brewers are doing, they\u2019re doing so many cool things using so many different ingredients, so many different cool malts and different yeasts. \u2026 I thought, \u2018Man, nobody is doing that with whiskey,\u2019 so that was kind of our big idea, that was the idea we started cultivating because if you\u2019re entering this market, you have to do something unique.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cA lot of the licensing was on hold until we figured out our space, which is why we were so excited to get this space nailed down,\u201d Selenak said.<\/p>\n In their new space, the partners plan on highlighting the distilling process, something Howard says people aren\u2019t familiar with.<\/p>\n \u201cThe still is a 250-gallon still from Vendome. It will go right in the window there,\u201d Howard said, pointing to the curved window on the corner of Franklin and Second Streets. \u201cPeople know what brewing equipment looks like, but with stills, there is some mystery there; they\u2019re really beautiful. It is the crown jewel of any distillery and we really wanted to make that the crown jewel of the space.\u201d<\/p>\n Howard said there will be a brewery in the basement below the tasting room and shop where he and Selenak will make the \u201cmash\u201d \u2014 the unhopped beer \u2014 that they will distill into whiskey.<\/p>\n The pair will start with gin and flavored vodkas before their single malt whiskey will be ready for sale.<\/p>\n \u201cThe gin is called \u2018Juneau-per\u2019 because Juniper is the main ingredient by law in gin, and that will have some rhubarb and spruce tip and locally-foraged things,\u201d Howard said. \u201cThe vodka we\u2019re calling foraged vodka because we\u2019re planning on picking things for it. … We want to elevate flavored vodka, so things that are interesting and beautiful and not \u2018party time\u2019 vodkas.\u201d <\/p>\n From brew to barrel and back<\/strong><\/p>\n Amalga Distillery plans to collaborate with Devil\u2019s Club Brewery on a whiskey and a beer. Devil\u2019s Club Brewery will brew a mash that Amalga Distillery will turn into a whiskey. Once the whiskey is barrel-aged, Devil\u2019s Club Brewery will take the used barrels and age a beer in them, a technique Howard says other breweries and distilleries aren\u2019t approaching directly.<\/p>\n \u201cIt\u2019s great to sit down with Jacob Rydle and just nerd out and talk about here\u2019s some flavor profiles we\u2019d like to see,\u201d Howard said. \u201cThere\u2019s a long wait, a two year wait to it, but getting to collaborate is really exciting.\u201d<\/p>\n —<\/p>\n Related stories:<\/p>\n ‘A love sonnet’ by a former city manager: Kim Kiefer honored for LGBTQ leadership<\/a><\/p>\n