Rick Otey and the LouisvilleBeer.com Boyz.
Richard Otey stopped in right before the grand opening of New Albany’s newest brewery, Donum Dei Brewery. Here’s what we asked him:
- First off, tell us about the name, and am I pronouncing it correctly?
- You guys are opening the 17th in New Albany? What can people expect at the grand opening?
- Please tell me that you won’t have green beer.
- Please tell me you will be making an Otey Oatmeal Stout.
- What beers will you be premiering the first night?
- Is New Albany ready for 2 breweries? I think it’s great!
- What did you learn in the process of openiing a brewery?
- What hurdles did you hit that you didn’t expect?
- How long has the construction taken?
- When I was in there a couple weeks ago, you mentioned how cheaply you got the wood that you used for building the bar. Tell us about that.
- You guys kind of popped up over night, and surprised a lot of people, including Baylor, who’s New Albanian Pizzeria is just a block or two down the street. Why so secretive?
- Tell us about your taproom.
- Brewhouse is 10 barrels, right?
- Indiana has a law that you have to sell food in your taproom, what food will you be serving?
- Tell us about your team. Your wife is the CEO, right?
- How long have you been homebrewing?
- What are some of your best recipes?
- What beers do you like brewing? Drinking?
- You told me the other night that someone did your logo for free? How’d that happen?
- Plans for packaging?
- Plans for barrel aging?
- Collaborations with other breweries?
- Love to see something with New Albanian.
- Did you grow up in New Albany?
- What hours will you guys be open?
This just in…Louisville Beer News this week
- Breweries opening left and freakin’ right in Kentucky and Indiana:
- New Albany’s second (or third, if you count both NABCs) brewery, Donum Dei is set to open on Tuesday, when this podcast is released. We have Rick Otey here to talk more about that.
- Paducah Beer Werks in, uh, Paducah, is set to open March 24. Second in Paducah.
- Covington’s Braxton Brewing is opening March 27 as heard on last week’s podcast.
- BBC Taproom is expanding! We’re here amongst construction. Scott, tell us what’s going on down here.
- At first, everyone jumped the gun thinking Bell’s was suing them. A lot of misinformation was being thrown around, then Bell’s came out to clear the air, saying
- “We have not, and are not asking them to change their name or their logo. There is no lawsuit. We are not suing them. We have not asked them for money. We have not asked them to stop selling their beer. We are asking them to withdraw their federal trademark application”.
- They apparently tried to play nicely with Innovation.
- I personally reached out to Innovation Brewing to try to settle this matter in February, 2014 and attempted to talk about this brewer to brewer instead of involving lawyers. Our efforts were rebuffed and Innovation Brewing choose to pursue this in the legal system.
- Over the last year, we have offered co-existence agreements and have offered to pay for their legal fees. We tried to find solutions that would work for both of us. Their response was to ask for an exorbitant amount of money and we did not feel that was a collaborative solution.
- All offers that we proposed were rejected and after more than a year of discussion regrettably, this matter has moved to the federal trademark office.
- I hate that it’s come to this, but I do see protecting your own image in matters like this. I do think that it requires cooperation on both sides. I think Innovation went looking for $$ because it was Bell’s. That’s shitty too!
- Michigan’s Bell’s Brewery, you might have heard of them, is going after Innovation Brewing, a small NC brewery, which you probably haven’t heard of.
- Corsair Distillery is starting a malting facility outside of Nashville. Very cool. I wonder if they’ll do enough to sell to other distilleries and/or breweries? They’re a very innovative company that makes some cool spirits.
- Here’s what Sam Calagione said about it:
