By the Numbers

FALCONS ON TAP

Alumni with a Flair for Brewing Craft Beer

The production of craft beer in the U.S. doubled between 2011-16, with brewpubs and beer farms gaining immense popularity. Several alumni are involved in the brewing of craft beers, some right down the road from Our Lady of Good Counsel High School in Olney.

Kevin Hilton ’01 is the brew master at Lone Oak Farm Brewing Company in Olney. After having worked as a brewer in D.C. and in Georgia at the beginning of his career, Hilton started looking for an opportunity closer to home.

“At first there weren’t a lot of craft breweries in Maryland, but in the two-and-a-half years I was gone, the industry exploded,” he says.

“I heard about Lone Oak opening and it just happened to be in Olney where Good Counsel is, and everything ended up working out,” Hilton says. “I got to come home and brew beer.”

One of the owners of Lone Oak, Chris Miller, attended GC for two years, but he and Hilton had never met. “We discussed the vision of Lone Oak and what they were looking for,” Hilton says. Soon, he was hired on as brew master. “I enjoy the artistic and scientific nature of brewing. It’s a bit of both worlds. You get to be creative, but you have to go about it scientifically,” he says. “It’s really fulfilling to be able to create something and have people enjoy it.”

Lone Oak has 24 total taps, with six regular beers. Another 18 change with the seasons. “There’s a lot of room to play around,” Hilton says.

In addition to craft beer, the brewery produces and offers hard seltzers, alcoholic sodas and frozen alcoholic drinks that are popular in the summer. The brewery runs from the farm and is geared toward families.

“We are using a lot more local ingredients this year,” Hilton says, including fruit from nearby Butler’s Orchard. its annual “Oaktoberfest” featuring a traditionally-made Oktoberfest beer that takes three months to make. The event will include activities for kids, German food specials and an Oom-pah band. “We’ll get very festive,” Hilton says.

His nephew, Brady Campbell ’22, plays football at GC and works at Lone Oak with about six other GC students and some alumni, in the kitchen and in other capacities, says Hilton, who coached GC’s junior varsity golf team from 2005-07.

Artist Matt Corrado ’01 (see page 20) designed Lone Oak’s beer labels and created artwork for the brewery.

Hilton enjoys seeing GC alumni at the Lone Oak. “We appreciate their support,” he says.

At Natural State Beer Co. in Northwest Arkansas, Will Sonneman ’01 loves the chemical engineering involved in brewing. “The microbiology aspect of it and dealing with the yeast is fascinating,” he says. “The stainless steel, pumping systems, compressed air and use of numerous types of energy – you can lose yourself in it. The end result is delicious beer.”

For Sonneman, a typical day starts with big bags of malted barley. “Our specialty grains are sourced from Heidelberg, Germany,” he says. “We grind them down so the barley is broken open. That enables the starches inside to make contact with water and turn themselves into sugar-like solution.”

Next, water is added and then taken out, leaving a sugary substance behind. “We boil it for an hour and a half, draw it through a series of pipes and manifolds using pumps throughout the brewery to do various tasks. Then we put it in casks for fermenting with the real star, yeast. Then the sugar becomes alcohol,” Sonneman explains.

It takes about eight days to make the beer using this process, and the fermentation takes another eight weeks.

“We have 12 beers on tap at any given time, and all of them are house-made.

They rotate seasonally,” he says. Sonneman, who originally went to culinary school, is inspired by food to make new beer flavors.

“It’s much more palate dynamic than wine when paired with food. I love the process – the sights and the smells. I remember the first day of culinary school, when onion and garlic hit the pan and became fragrant. It’s the same with brewing, when grain hits the heat—it smells so good.”

Back in Olney, GC alumni from the Muth family work to create many flavors at Brookeville Beer Farm. Rachel Muth ’16 and her brothers, Philip Muth ’13, Jack Muth ’14, and Marshall Muth ’18 work there. The farm was founded by their father in the summer of 2016.

The farm’s crops go into the brewery, and an adjacent tasting room and outdoor space provide ample gathering space. The brewery houses a ten-barrel system with four bright tanks and eight conical fermenters. The excess brewing ingredients are turned into compost for the farm.

Rachel Muth loves working at her family’s business. “It doesn’t feel like work,” she says. “At the end of the day, someone’s always going to be there to make you laugh, so it’s very fun.”

Muth makes pizza at Brookeville in a large brick oven, and is the resident artist. She painted the outdoor shed where bands play and recently designed labels for a new can size.

Brookeville Beer can labels designed by Rachel Muth

Several other alumni work at Brookeville, including Ronald “Gavin” Rickert ’16, pizza cook, and Natalie Martinez ’17, server. Other alumni work there periodically.

Many customers are Rachel’s old classmates and teachers. She loves reconnecting with the GC community. “A lot of people in the area want to support us, which is really nice,” she says.

Joe Hospital ’72, founded the Dogfish Head Alehouse in cooperation with the Delaware brewery of the same name in 2005. Today, it has three locations. Under an exclusive license agreement with Dogfish Head Ale, the Alehouse serves up its brews along with food.

“At one point the Rehoboth Dogfish Head Brewpub was the smallest brewery in the country,” Hospital says. “I thought the beer was pretty fantastic.” So Hospital approached Dogfish about a working relationship so he could help sell the beer in restaurants.

The Alehouse does frequent fundraisers for local charities, including serving beer and lunch at the Steve Dean Golf Tournament in the past.

“The core of our customer base is very aware of the craft beer movement,” Hospital says. “They appreciate that Dogfish has a lot of variety in their styles, so we can offer a lot of types of beer.”

The restaurants are family friendly, he says. “It’s a dining experience augmented with great craft beer. The kitchens are all scratch cooking. We think that complements the brewer’s mentality. It has been a great success for us.”

From Schoolteacher to Sommelier

Photo credit: Tom Hilton ’64

Olney Winery

Joe McCall ’79, former GC history teacher and boys’ varsity basketball coach, is president and owner of Olney Winery. The unique, nationally recognized wine producer sources its grapes from around the world. Named the Olney Business Partner of the Year in 2014 by the chamber of commerce, it is a small, family-owned business.

McCall says his sister came up with the idea in 2012.

“It was great timing, when the craft wine and alcohol industry was really starting to take off,” he says. At first, Olney Winery was a simple tasting room where the wine was made on site. “We started attending festivals around the state, and then started wholesaling.”

The winery’s 10th anniversary is this year. Its wines are sold in about 800 stores.

“We’re a different concept because we’re a winery but not a vineyard. In some ways it’s an advantage because we can make any wine we want; we’re not limited by what we grow,” McCall says.

To commemorate GC, he says, he added “X Bros” to the Pinot Noir label in honor of the Xaverian Brothers.