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Interviews Interview with Dave Richardson, Brewmaster at Gardner Ale House
Interviews Interview with Dave Richardson, Brewmaster at Gardner Ale House | Interview with Dave Richardson, Brewmaster at Gardner Ale House |
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 Above: Dave Richardson, Brewmaster at Gardner Ale House Dave: My first job after school was for Redhook in New Hampshire. In my whole scheme of things, I knew Rick and I wanted to eventually start a brewery the first job I had I wanted to be a big brewery. I was pretty green and I loved brewing and I knew a bunch about brewing on a small scale. I learned a bunch of theory in school but I knew that some day down the road I wanted to have a big brewery so I wanted that experience and it was invaluable. So then after about 3 years working there I get a call from Rick saying, “Hey do you still want to brew beer? Do you still want to start a brewpub in Gardner?? And I was like, “Yeah!” So I moved here (to Gardner) and spent the next 5-6 months renovating this whole place (Gardner Ale House), putting a brewery together. After Redhook, when I came here and had to put this whole brewery together I was like, “OK, I know how to do this.” So I’m so glad I did that. DCB: So how did you choose Gardner? Dave: We thought Gardner would a good place; we didn’t want to go too far. We both lived in Phillipston. They whole idea was the area has no places to go. We wanted to provide the people with something that they needed. When this place went up for sale, Rick was like, “That’s it, this is the place!” This building had a lot of issues, it’s a really old building, its’ really old as far and wiring and piping go. It’s a perfect location, though, with lots of parking and everything. It used to be 3 separate buildings but, for as long as people in Gardner can remember, it’s always been some kind of restaurant. One thing we did keep, which we really love, is the brick oven. People rave about our pizza. It’s just amazing, I just find it amazing how Rick and I started and he gave me the passion for brewing. I went this way and he want that way. He did the business plan and I got the education and then we got back together. Our main theme really, the central theme of this in the beginning is that it was the third place. Our deal being that these days with internet and TV, people they go to work and they come home and they get a beer out of the fridge and plop in front of the TV. They don’t go to a place where they can communicate with their neighbors and their friends. So that’s what we really wanted this to be. That was the central vision. The whole beer restaurant thing went around that. Me and Rick were like well when we get together with our friends we like to drink beer. So you can come here sit around with you friends and just talk. DCB: What beers did you start with when you opened?  Gardner Ale House Naked Stout and Pale Ale Dave: I’d say Rick he had quite a few recipes that he thought were great. And, on a small scale, I helped him tweak a bunch of recipes. We started here with 5 recipes that we had in our business plan that we had already made on his system. The Summers End, which is a Kolsch, but it’s a Kolsch without the wheat. The Facelift IPA which, back then was the Rick Chafey IPA, was named after a neighbor that really liked IPAs so we kept making IPAs until we got one that he loved. So we called it Rick Chafey. When we started Gardner we changed it to Facelift, but he still knows it’s his recipe. When we were first starting off here, I tweaked Summers End very little. That was the first beer we ever made here and it came out almost perfect. It was amazing. We were like “thank God!” The next one I attempted was the Facelift IPA. We ended up making what people now try to get us to brew again which is called the X IPA. It was 7.5% abv. It was super malty… and just not hoppy enough. People loved it! People got so drunk in this area. It was like, the second beer we introduced to our lineup and we ended up calling it the X IPA. Rick and I were like… this isn’t the face of Gardner Ale House. But we served it, and people still ask, “When are you gonna bring the X back?!” As if we did it on purpose! I think I want to do a one-off double IPA sometime, where I’ll take the backbone of that and add a lot more hops. I ended up using just too much grain and not enough hops in the finish. It ended up being almost a British old ale. DCB: Your brewing system is completely open to the restaurant, do you brew during business hours?  Dave: During the summer I don’t, but during the other 9 months we brew during the day. Its fun to brew during hours and people come up and ask you questions. DCB: So what new beers are in the works? Dave: Alright well, the next beer besides the Oktoberfest is…have you ever heard of FOAM? They’re the Fitchburg Order of Ale Makers. It’s cool; they’re a cool local group. I met with the president and I propositioned him and said you should all get together and brew a Belgian wit. And we’ll get together and have a taste test, and whatever is the best we’ll brew here. So they’re working on that right now. Every winter I do a doppel bock that people go crazy about. It turned out to be about 7% abv this year. I’ll probably shoot for 7.5% this coming winter. People loved it! The Oktoberfest, when I come out with that beer, that’ll be the next big beer we put out. It’s tough to keep 6 on, as I only have 3 fermenters. DCB: Wow that’s like a home brewer’s dream, to have your beer on tap at a bar. Dave: Yeah, they should be finishing that up in a week or so and then we’ll be choosing the recipe. DCB: The first thing we noticed when we came in was, wow, the highest thing is 6.3% that’s awesome.  Above: Gardner Ale House Summer's End Kolsch Dave: That’s America for you. I mean, I like to mess around too… the Summers End, it’s a kolsch really, but we don’t use any wheat…it’s a kolsch with its own flavor. We want to do neat things but we also want things to be signature. I find that at these festivals, because there’s so many hop bombs, by the time people get to our IPA or APA, people can’t taste the hops anymore. But the stout, they come by and they’re always like “this is so good! It’s only 4% abv?!” DCB: We heard something about a cask of Raspberry Summers end? Dave: We already did. Well what we do, every Friday for the summer we call it the Fruit Infusion series. For most of the year we have Firkin Fridays and put a gravity pour cask out at 5pm every Friday. Most of the year it’s the IPA super dry hopped with Amarillo or something like that. Whatever I have, I’ll cask and dry hop it. For the summer we came up with the idea for the fruit infusion series. I’m going to take fresh fruit, and infuse the juice into the beer. The first we picked was the Summer with strawberries. I take a certain amount of the fruit and I food process it. Then put it in a fine mesh bag and squeeze out all the juice. Then I put the juice in the cask and fill it. It’s about 13.5 gallons. Normally a cask will last through Friday, most of Saturday and almost always have some left on Sunday… by Sunday it’s undrinkable and flat. The Strawberry Summer cask sold out in 3 hours. I’m not really a fruit guy, but it’s fresh fruit and it’s experimental. I’m not going to make a full batch, but I’m going to experiment on the cask thing. I did a few weeks of that… then last week I did a Ginger IPA. I took fresh ginger and put it in there. It was a spicy… like the ginger with your sushi… It’s a flavor as an aftertaste and a smell at the beginning. As an aftertaste you get that spiciness. The IPA is so bitter and hoppy anyway, it went great. A lot of people loved it, a lot couldn’t stand it. This Friday I did the raspberry. That was probably the best yet. It had a raspberry aftertaste, like an afterthought. I try not to overdo it. The reason we sell so much is because all of a sudden we’re doubling our market… the people that will drink the beer. There’s a whole other group now. All the people that come in here and order martinis will now come in and drink the beer. DCB: Yeah there’s a whole new segment who will drink the beer now. Dave: Yeah, when we tap the cask, anyone at the bar we give a little sample to. Usually right away they’ll order it. So that’s what we’re doing for the summer. It’s pretty fun. We’ll probably do raspberry for a few weeks because they’re in season right now. I’m going to have to do a blueberry at some point. I’m not big on it. It’s such a strong flavor, it’s tough to do a little bit of. Dave: The Summers End is our most recent beer. We treat it kind of like a hybrid beer. I don’t filter any beers…Without filtering it stays pretty good and hazy. We treat it like it’s a summer beer, and people think summer beers are like that anyway. DCB NOTE:(Around this time the lunch business started to really pick up) DCB: Seems like things are going pretty well so far Dave: We have a good local following, of all ages. Peoples from our age up to their 80’s. Some people come here, like, once a day. And I’m good friends with them, because they’re here so much. A couple have come in and help me brew a couple times. We end up talking about beer, and brewing and they’ll ask me questions, so I’ll ask if they want to come help. DCB:What’s the short term plan for the next 2-3 years? Dave: Try to make some money… It’s all loans, we don’t have any backers so our first goal is to pay off the loans that we owe for buying and renovating this place. We’d like to save some money, that will go towards the long term goal of a production brewery. Our umbrella corporation is called Moon Hill Brewing Company, so if in 10 years you see a Moon Hill Brewing Co. beer, that’s us. We Might start another brewpub before we do that. DCB: If you had a second brewpub would it be the same food and beer? Dave: We’d probably start with the same base recipes. Have someone take over for me, here. Then I’d go over there and do things there. Start it up and everything. It’d be cool to do it in a different town and call it, for instance, the Marlborogh Ale House. A different location, but still under the Moon Hill Brewing Co. It wouldn’t be just like this place, it’d be a place for that town. DCB:It’s kind of cool that you don’t have backers, too, so it’s all yours. Dave: Yeah, so if it fails it’s all our failure… but if it succeeds, it’s our success.We probably won’t even start making money for a couple years, but we’ll see how things go. We’re on the right track, though. DCB: Well thanks for you time Dave. We’ll definitely be back soon! This interview make you want to try some of Garnder Ale House's beer? Of course it did! So be sure to go check them out for yourself and be sure to tell them DrinkCraftBeer.com sent you. Gardner Ale House
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