From Tea to Beer

A wild idea takes off across Ohio
 

Wild Ohio Brewing’s Tea Beers are in a league of their own. And despite being an outlier, they have gained ground in bars and retail locations throughout Ohio. The tea beer starts with green and black tea and cane sugar, the standard starting point for making kombucha. From there, rather than fermenting the tea and sugar with a SCOBY (symbiotic culture of bacteria and yeast) to produce kombucha, Wild Ohio introduces an ale yeast. The result is not a beer by purists’ standards, and no longer a kombucha, either. 

WILD OHIO BREWING IS BORN
 

Without barley or malt, the tea beers are classified differently than traditional beer and fall under the FDA’s regulation, which is why you’ll see a nutritional label and ingredients on Wild Ohio cans. And it’s not just the barley that’s left out. The tea beers are completely grain free (though the contract breweries producing Wild Ohio also produce beers with grain).

These “alternative craft beers” come in four core flavors— Blueberry, Black Cherry Bourbon, Blood Orange Tangerine and Mango Hops—with alcohol percentages ranging from 5% to 9%. Other flavors are available seasonally, like the lemonade-flavored DalyPalmer in the summer months and a cranberry flavor for the holidays.

If some of those flavors sound familiar, you may recall Wild Ohio’s predecessor, Luna Kombucha, which started producing a higher-alcohol line of kombucha tea beers called Luna Notti in 2015. Luna brought on Jason Kuwoski (co-founder and head brewmaster at ArtMonster Brewery in South Korea) to create the initial high-alcohol varieties, which included Blueberry, Ginger and Raspberry Hops.

Rick Durham, currently a brewer with BrewDog, worked as the head brewer for Luna in 2015 and 2016. There he developed the original recipes for Luna Notti’s Cranberry, Black Cherry Bourbon, Mango Hops and Blood Orange Tangerine varieties. Luna was Rick’s first professional job as a brewer, and he appreciated the challenge of trying something new. “I’m not a purist,” he explains. “I’m an English major—creative writing. Working with the English language, it’s something that can be molded, that you can have fun with. That’s also how I feel about the brewing process.”

30-BARREL BATCHES
 

Russell Pinto, owner of Wild Ohio Brewing, was the sales manager for Luna and headed the company’s evolution from brewing kombucha teas to the Luna Notti line of higheralcohol varieties. When Luna’s former owner decided to close the company, Russell knew there was potential in the higher-alcohol tea beers and wasn’t ready to walk away. He purchased Luna in April 2016, and with Rick and an assistant brewer spent several months transitioning and rebranding as Wild Ohio Brewing. This included swapping the SCOBY for ale yeast to increase shelf life and keep the tea beers stable without refrigeration.

When Russell bought the company, he was concerned he wouldn’t be able to support the existing overhead costs and made the decision to start contracting with other breweries, including Four String Brewing Company in Columbus and FigLeaf Brewing in Cincinnati. At the same time, he focused his attention on growing the retail contracts he had established while with Luna.

Russell explains that Luna ran a 10-barrel system, but that contract brewing required a minimum batch of 30 barrels. He thought it could take half a year or more to sell that much product, which was then still unknown to consumers. Instead, the 30 barrels sold out in less than two weeks and increasing production became the new company’s next hurdle.

“We kept making 30-barrel batches for three months,” Russell says, “and for the first five batches I hand-labeled everything. But then we couldn’t keep up with the demand.”

Since then, he hasn’t looked back. Now in Wild Ohio’s third year, Russell says he’s confident that the company can support the overhead costs required to take over production in house.

There have been some setbacks that have slowed progress, like the unannounced closing of Four String Brewing late last year, but business has continued to grow.

Currently, Russell is working on setting up a new production facility in Columbus’s Merion Village, finally giving Wild Ohio a home of their own in their hometown.

Wild Ohio’s tea beers are available at bars and restaurants throughout Columbus, and at over 900 stores in Ohio. To find a store near you visit wildohiobrewing.com.