Yankee Brew News Archive

Catamount Opens New Brewery: Yeast Ceremonially Transported Down River by Canoe

Originally Published: 10/97

By: Gregg Glaser

It was a warm, sunny summer's day last August 2 when a flotilla of ten canoes and kayaks met at the junction of the White and Connecticut Rivers in Vermont. We were there to accompany brewer Mike Hesik of Catamount Brewing as he paddled his canoe and a cooler of Catamount's yeast from the original brewery to the new, state-of-the art facility down river in Windsor.

Setting off on the river at 8:30 a.m., we arrived at Sumner's Falls about two-and-a-half hours later, where we had a short portage around the falls. About ten more boats joined us there, and together we paddled for another ninety minutes until we reached the edge of the Windsor Industrial park, site of Catamount's new brewery. From the water, we could hear the sound of music playing on the brewery grounds. The grand opening party had already begun. We banked our boats and hiked through the fields to the brewery, where Hesik ceremoniously handed the cooler of yeast to Steve Mason, Catamount's co-founder, brewmaster and president.

Throughout the day there was entertainment by Morris dancers, balladeers and even a local R&B band, Fry Daddy. Local service organizations sold food, and Catamount brewed up a special, commemorative beer for the occasion. Windsor Wheat, a limited edition draft beer, is a dark wheat, with wonderfully nutty and toasty flavors on top of Catamount's highly rated (see last month's YBN wheat beer tasting) American wheat beer.

Catamount's new brewery is a 25,000-square-foot facility, spacious and wide open on the main floor, with a large brewery store and tasting room off to the side. A brewpub/restaurant will be added at a later date. The facility will more than double Catamount's annual capacity, which will initially be 50,000 barrels. This breaks down into a daily use of five tons of malted barley, 200 pounds of hops, 6,000 gallons of water and 40 gallons of yeast.

The brewhouse is a 50-barrel Santa Rosa Stainless system using steam-jacketed heating and the traditional British single-step infusion mash/lauter tun. Fermentation and conditioning is accomplished with six Mueller uni-tanks, each with a 200-barrel capacity, which are housed outside the building and are well-insulated for the cold Vermont winters. Filtration is D.E. primary and "polishing" filtrations and Millipore cold/sterile filtration. Additional brewhouse equipment includes two 200-barrel Mueller bottling tanks and a Krones double-evacuation bottling and labeling machine, running at 150 bottles per minute. This units retires Catamount's 1995 bottling machine.

The $5 million project was financed by a combination of private investment and loans from Vermont National Bank, the Vermont Economic Development Agency and the Small Business Administration. Catamount expects to attract over 15,000 visitors a year to their new Windsor brewery for tours, store sales and the eventual restaurant.