By Andy Sevilla.
When Christopher Newton began home-brewing beer for personal use, just over a decade ago, he didn’t envision opening up his own brewery.
“Right from the beginning I had a lot of friends saying I needed to be selling this (home-brewed beer),” Newton said. “And I kind of ignored that for a while, because when you have friends over and they’re getting free beer that’s the kind of thing you hear, but it kept being pretty constant.”
In more recent years, Newton said he took his friends’ advice more seriously, hosting large parties offering guests his product. He used the events as a feeler to gauge attendees’ reaction to his creation.
“By-and-large, I just got a real good response,” he said.
| At top, Christopher Newton (right) and his friend Travis Ross (left) prepare for a Bomber Brewery fundraiser. Newton plans to open a microbrewery in Kyle that is “off the grid” and environmentally friendly. It will feature solar power and beer made with captured rain water. (Photos courtesy of Christopher Newton) |
Fast-forward to 2014; Newton now is in the midst of obtaining permits for the building of his microbrewery, Bomber Brewery. But not just any brewery – one that is agreeable with the environment, a personal goal and challenge for him.
“One of the things that’s going to set this brewery apart from most others is we’re building it off-grid,” he said.
Bomber Brewery will not use any power or water from public or private entities. Instead, Newton said his brewery will use a combination of solar panels and propane for power, and water will be tapped from rain collection.
“Initially we’re doing a combination of solar and propane,” he said. “Solar will run all of my electrical equipment, all of my computers and all of my lighting. And then propane will be used for heating the water… We are going to tap in to the roof and … do rain storage, filter and treat, in order to make the beer.”
The challenge of using mostly recycled goods and natural resources for his brewery came from naysayers who opined that it couldn’t be done, or at least not done affordably; and also out of a personal appeal for “going green.”
With a career in civil engineering, and past experience as an environmental engineer, Newton set his sights on a self-sustaining brewery.
“There are a lot of breweries out there that are doing a real good job of going as green as they can – recycling as much as their grain – or there’s a handful of them that have invested a lot into solar… But nobody has gone completely off-grid … I’ll be the first one off-grid since there’s been a grid,” Newton said, adding that in the old days everyone was off-grid, people used wood fires and natural resources.
But, Newton’s sights go beyond his microbrewery in Kyle.
“The whole idea behind this is it’s a pilot for a larger facility,” he said. “Once we’ve been open for a number of years we’ll purchase a larger lot and build a much, much larger facility,” keeping the business in Hays County, though not certain if in Kyle or closer to his Dripping Springs-area home.
But for now, Newton plans a grand opening sometime this summer. After the opening, Newton said Bomber Brewery will have quarterly tastings and tours of the facility.
A year or two down the road, the brewery will incorporate a tasting room into the business welcoming patrons every other week.
Bomber Brewery will offer a wide range of beers, from a very light hefeweizen to a pitch-black stout or porter, and everything in between; but Newton said he mainly focuses on full-body classic English ales.
The microbrewery has equipment now to produce 75-gallon batches of beer and will be set up to have anywhere from eight to 16 beers in different stages of fermentation at any given time. Newton said his brew, on average, takes about three to five weeks until it’s ready for consumption.
Newton said the brewery is moving one step at a time. He designed the business as a one-man operation and is bankrolling it on his own dime. He said his friend, who owns the property where the brewery is located, at 802 Old Stagecoach, helps him with the brewery, but ultimately he is manning the desk.
“It’s an American dream to have your own business, and this is something turns out I’m really good at – coming up with recipes and brewing really tasty beer – so I figured this is a good way to go,” Newton said.
