Experienced brewer opens micro in Washington state

Modern Brewery Age, Feb 14, 2005

AP--A small sign hanging in the new Iron Horse Brewery in Ellensburg, WA, carries the words of Benjamin Franklin: "Beer is proof that God loves us and wants us to be happy."

Jim Quilter, brewmaster and owner of the new microbrewery, couldn't agree more.

After a 25-year career that started as a hobby in Chico, Calif., and included turns at the mash tun for the well-known Sierra Nevada Brewing Company and Winthrop Brewing Company most recently, Quilter has stepped out on his own.

It's a welcome development for Kittitas Valley beer drinkers who have noticed the lack of breweries in the local market.

"I've been wanting a brewery in town," said Ken Titus, a retired letter carrier and avid microbrew drinker. "I'm hoping it will make it."

The new brewery is off to a good start in the nurturing environs of the Ellensburg Business Incubator on Prospect Street.

Quilter's original vision included a brewery and pub in the old railroad depot on Third Avenue. But to get the space, he faced a 20-year, nontransferable lease. Not to mention the rent was more than he could afford.

He was steered toward the incubator, a temporary home for startup or expanding businesses. The rent is on a sliding scale based on production, and there's readily available business expertise in the form of Economic Development Group of Kittitas County executive director Debbie Strand. She's helped Quilter, a first-time business owner, rewrite his business plan and secure an additional loan when startup costs ran over budget.

"It's become very difficult for a small entrepreneur starting up to understand the myriad of permits and licenses ... that they might need to be able to operate a business," Strand said. "One of the things that the incubator provides for them is help in navigating that trail."

Quilter faced a mountain of additional federal and state permits to produce and sell alcohol.

"They did help me in getting this together," he said.

A stout man with a long, graying beard that reaches down from his ruddy face to touch the words "Hop Union" emblazoned on his sweat shirt, Quilter certainly looks the part of a veteran brewmaster.

More convincing than his appearance are the ales he's cranking out.

At The Tav, a local watering hole popular with college students and Ellensburg locals and where Quilter unveiled his beers Dec. 30, customers have had good things to say, according to manager Kelly "Smet" Smethurst.

"I think Jim's got a very good chance to do really well here," he said. "He's got some really good beers on and if the word gets out, I think they're some beers that the local people in Ellensburg can stand behind."

Quilter is starting with four varieties, all from his own recipes, which he hopes will appeal to a wide range of tastes. There's a classic India Pale Ale; a Rodeo Extra Pale Ale, named for the Ellensburg Rodeo; a brown ale; and a dark-red Loco-Motive Ale.

He offers tastes and sells half-gallon jugs of beer, a variety of keg sizes and home-brewing equipment out of a 2,000-squarefoot space in the incubator building.

But the business incubator doesn't want him "selling pints and getting people buzzed here," Quilter said.

It took him five months, more than $200,000 and help from friends, family and outside contractors to install a brewing system capable of producing 15 barrels of beer in each batch.

Brewing that much beer is a daylong, labor-intensive process that Quilter plans to undertake four days a week.

He starts by cracking barley malts in a mill and combining them with hot water in a large copper-clad kettle to form a mash. He transfers the mixture to a lauter tun, where the grain is separated from the wort, essentially unfermented beer. He boils the wort and adds Yakima Valley hops. The beer is cooled, transferred again into tall, silver fermenting tanks and combined with yeast, which creates alcohol. Quilter clarifies the beer and ages it for at least two weeks before putting it in kegs or bottles, the latter with help from a mobile bottling business based in Snohomish, Wash.

Quilter has a distributor lined up to serve north Central Washington and is looking for another to expand to the rest of the state.

He hopes to increase production to the brewery's maximum capacity, 3,000 barrels annually, during the next three years.

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