Carbondale celebrates second microbrew festival

Advertising a microbrewery can be a challenge, but several breweries got a personal chance Saturday to promote their beer.

Hangar 9 joined with Carbondale Main Street to host the second-annual CarbondALE Microbrew and Music Festival, where small breweries got the opportunity to promote their products. Each of the eight breweries brought in a few of their choice beers to stands outside of Hangar 9 and allowed the public to taste and purchase them.

Microbreweries differ from normal breweries as they have a smaller operation and only sell their products in a select number of locations, and they can have a hard time becoming well known.

Kevin Flinn, a bartender for Von Jakob Vineyard and Brewery in Pomona, said the festival is a good way to promote microbreweries.

“It’s a good way to get our face out there,” he said. “We’re mainly known as a winery/ brewery on the wine trail, so it’s another way to get our name out there and let people know we have good beer and not just good wine.”

Flinn said breweries create more types of beer than people would think possible and are always working on new styles of brewing. He said one such example is a chocolate-milk stout, which uses cacao nibs, and will be available at the Big Muddy Monster Brew Fest on Oct. 26 at Murphysboro’s Riverside Park.

Saturday’s microbrew festival is not about who has a better beer, but a celebration of making beer, Flinn said.

“There’s a lot of good breweries here, and I think good beer is just good beer,” he said. “I’m really just glad that we could get local breweries together and see that we have a growing community of beer makers.”

Kelly Lohrmeyar, a member of Tall Grass Brewing Company in Manhattan, Kan., said her brewery opened because of a passion to brew and unique presentation.

“We’re six years old as a brewery, so we really like to have fun,” she said. “We like to bring beer to the community and share all the delicious stuff we make.”

Lohrmeyar said Tall Grass Brewing Company uses different designs on its cans—including retro videogames— to help with their marketing across the 13 states where they sell beer. She said the cans have gotten people interested in the beer and have resulted in online purchases from around the world, including in Africa.

Jake Kressig, a member of Excel Brewing based in Breese, said brewing festivals help smaller operations get together and stay in touch.

Kressig said Excel Brewing started about a year ago, branching off from making SKI soda. He also said it is hard to start up in the beer industry, because there are so many different companies out there.

Matt Daray can be reached at [email protected]

or 536-3311 ext. 255.