Fall 2006

A beer odyssey: Andy Tveekrem’s ancient brews for the 21st century

Somewhat of a god in certain circles

After graduation, Tveekrem meandered through a series of experiences—a stint in graduate school at Kent State in European history, jobs at landscaping, snowmaking, and house remodeling. In the meantime, he continued to experiment with homebrews and networked with likeminded enthusiasts in the Society of Northern Ohio Brewers (SNOBS). “I was waiting for something to fall into my lap,” he recalls.

Networking paid off. In 1991, he was first invited to volunteer at Cleveland’s Great Lakes Brewing Company and then offered a job as assistant brewer, a position he held for the next nine years. During that time, both Tveekrem and the brewery grew to be regional success stories. He completed two courses in brewing technology at Chicago’s Siebel Institute of Technology and U. S. Brewer’s Academy, was promoted to brewmaster, and met and married his wife, Vickie. “We held the wedding reception in the brewery’s basement,” he says. “ What a night!”

By 2000, Tveekrem had made a name for himself in the brewing subculture, winning awards, publishing articles, and being featured in beer magazines and on Web sites. In April of that year, a Cleveland area rival of GLBC, Crooked River Brewing, hired him away to be brewmaster at a sister venture, the Frederick Brewing Company (FBC) in Maryland. Speaking of hiring Tveekrem, a Crooked River spokesperson gushed to the Plain Dealer, “He is somewhat of a god in certain circles.”

Tveekrem and the FBC rode a crest of popularity, winning awards and acclaim, and grew (probably too rapidly, he says) into the biggest craft brewery in the mid-Atlantic region. But the brewery’s parent corporation overspent and fell into dire financial straits.Tveekrem considers his time with FBC the low point of his career.

The ascent of man: hops and malt

But those dark days now seem like ancient history. Tveekrem, who has been at Dogfish Head for more than three years, is currently immersed in an ambitious, multiphase expansion of the brewery that began in 2004 and will likely be completed in December. The expansion includes a 60,000 square-foot warehouse addition, the installation of 23 200-barrel fermentation tanks, and construction of a new 100-barrel brewhouse. On the construction site every day with the design-build team, Tveekrem decides where various apparatuses should be placed. “From my brain to the ground,” he says proudly. “My goal is for the brewery to be an efficient, safe, sanitary, and comfortable place to work.” By the time the project is completed, Dogfish Head will be able to produce 200,000 barrels (6,200,000 gallons) per year— quadruple what it made before. Demand for Dogfish Head’s big malt and hops flavor is growing.

Tveekrem laments that the lion’s share of the world’s beer today is pale yellow lager in which neither malt (providing sweetness and body) nor hops (providing bitterness and a floral aroma) are notably present. Asked the essential difference between Dogfish Head’s products and those of the three huge American beer conglomerates, he replies, “We focus on all-malt recipes and use more hops for extra flavor and aroma. The large companies are all about reducing or eliminating flavor.”

So what conclusions will future historians and archaeological chemists draw in a few thousand years when they unearth a 21st century brewery in a place once known as Milton, Delaware? “I hope they look back and say, ‘Hey, what those guys did back then was truly instrumental in shifting the flavor of beer. They really put hops and malt back in the mainstream of beer flavor,’” answers Tveekrem. “That would allow me to slumber happily under the ground.”

Cheers.

Barry Eisenberg ’85 is a member of the Wooster Editorial Advisory Board and director of communications and marketing for The Society of the Plastics Industry Inc., in Washington, D.C.

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