Yankee Brew News Archive

Microbrewery Profile: Castle Springs Brewery: A Little Heaven on Earth

Originally Published: 02/97

By: Kate Cone

In heaven there is no beer. Wrong. Another myth shattered. Not only is there beer in heaven, there's a castle.

And if there's a God, there'll be a knight in shining armor. Okay, I'm stretching the metaphor. Castle Springs Brewery is in Moultonborough, New Hampshire, high up in the Ossipee mountains overlooking Lake Winnepesaukee. Not only does it have a castle, but a full-scale resort to lure the over 100,000 visitors that come each year, and a spring from which they take pure water to make their beer. Heaven on several counts.

"We're a destination," states Executive Vice President of Operations Mark Wiggins, which in the travel industry means that you would plan to go there even if there wasn't any beer being made. The brewery is located on 5,400 unspoiled acres on the grounds of "Lucknow," a mansion-turned-resort built at the turn of the century by multi-millionaire shoe magnate Thomas Plant. How it came to be there is a story of big brains meeting "micro" business with a mind toward becoming much, much bigger.

Just as all beer begins with its water, so does the Castle Springs Brewery, literally. In fact, the water came first, when chief executive Paul Sticht visited the rundown resort in 1990 and thought it a perfect place to take and bottle the pure mountain spring water under the name "Castle Springs."

Sticht's business and managerial experience is a formidable one to match: the 78 year old has been President of Campbell's Soup International, Executive V.P. of Federated Department Stores, President and CEO of R.J. Reynolds Industries. He came out of a first retirement in 1985 to take up the reins at RJR/Nabisco until 1989.

Claiming that the thing he does best is work, Sticht has shunned shuffleboard in St. Petersburg to give his heavy-hitting bottled water opponents a run for their money, quite daring considering that meant garnering part of the $3 billion market. But Sticht's water business continues to do well since its 1992 debut, boding well for the subsequent toe-in to the microbrewed beer business this year.

Back to Mark Wiggins, former Anheuser-Busch quality assurance expert. "I wanted to move the company into microbrewed beer from the beginning, and after a lot of market research I was able to convince the investors that the time was right."

It was Wiggins, too that landed West Coast-trained Richard Young as Castle Springs' head brewer. (See the Brewer's Profile of Young in the last issue of Yankee Brew News). The Castle Springs brew crew is beginning to move their products, an IPA, American Wheat and a Porter, into the local (New Hampshire) market, with an eye to developing that niche fully and well, then moving into other states.

One big coup for the water company was being named the "official water of the Pope's visit" to New York City last year. Will their line of beers get the same endorsement? Just think, going from working for "the king of beers," Mark Wiggins could be VP of "the Pope of beers." Oh yes. In heaven there is some beer. Now about that knight in shining armor. . .

Sidebar

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Although the resort and its activities are closed until May, 1997, the Castle Springs brewery will host visitors. Call ahead. Castle Springs Brewery; P.O. Box 131, Route 171 Moultonborough, NH 03254; 603-476-8844

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Kate Cone is an author and freelance writer from Harpswell, Maine. Her book, What's Brewing in New England: A Travel Guide to Brewpubs and Micros from Maine to Rhode Island, will be published in April, 1997 by Down East Books of Camden, Maine. Contact her via e-mail at [email protected].