Kraft Beer With Kindsey: Wooden Cask Brewing Company

It is no secret that bourbon dominates this state, but the craft beer industry is growing in Kentucky. There are locally owned breweries and microbreweries scattered all around the state and it is my mission to travel to each and every one and tell their story.

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Before metal kegs, wooden casks were the original method of storing and dispensing beer.

From the name of the brewery to the beers, Randy Schiltz opened Wooden Cask Brewing Company to pay homage to the rich tradition of beer.

Schiltz, co-founder and master brewer, began home brewing in 1998 because of the inability to find quality beer.

“Home brewing has been around for a long time,” he said. “All the imports coming over [from Europe] is kind of a reason why we were, there was a lot of home brewing because everything here was Bud, Miller, Coors and very little beer being brewed, you know good beer being brewed.”

Schiltz passion for the traditional style came during his time living in Southern California and his inability to afford the imported beer.

“When we lived in Southern California right after we first got married and the beers that I liked, kind of the English, the Irish and Scottish and some of the Belgians at that point were pretty expensive,” Schiltz  said. “Two freshly college graduates moved out to Southern California, we didn’t have a whole lot of extra money. So my beer buying habits turned into beer brewing habits.”

Schiltz and his wife moved to Newport, Kentucky in 2007 and Schiltz continued to homebrew.

“I’d been homebrewing for a long time and it is a little bit of a sickness in that and maybe it’s my personality and once you get into it, you get really deep into it and you learn to brew some really good beers,” he said. “And when your neighbors are all happy on Friday because your house is where everybody comes to drink beer. So you start thinking about like I can do this professionally.”

Schiltz partnered with a member from his homebrewing club and opened Rivertown Brewery in Ohio in 2009, but then sold their half of the business in 2014 to start his own brewery in Newport.

“We live in Kentucky and brewing usually is a community type thing,” he said. “You know you’re doing it for your community and having a brewery in Ohio it just didn’t feel like any community. We focused on finding a place down here and we look in all over Northern Kentucky. The right building, the right zoning and all that kind of stuff all kind of came together here.”

And in November 2016, Schiltz partnered with his wife, Karen, and opened Wooden Cask in Newport.

Schiltz knew his love and passion for traditional styles of English, Irish and Scottish beers would be the perfect niche in the growing craft beer community in Northern Kentucky and across the river in Cincinnati. 

“Really well done traditional styles of beer,” is what Schiltz says sets Wooden Cask apart from the breweries nearby. “The Brown Porter. The Yorkshire English Ale. 7th Street Runoff. Those are really, true traditional to style.”

During the time that Schiltz was looking for the building to house Wooden Cask, he noticed the lack of quality true traditional beers.

“So in the year that I was driving around I’m looking for the building, you know, doing a lot drinking at that time,” he said. “And one thing I noticed was there was vanilla porter, you know, chocolate stout, cherry blonde. There is all this adding so much other stuff to beer and very, very few have a good English brown ale or a good English-style porter or a good Scottish stout. Something like that. It was always other stuff.”

Schiltz says he is not against those type of beers and the breweries that make them, and even enjoys them from time to time. But it just not his style.

“That’s too much going on,” he said. “I like good beer.”

And good beer is what Wooden Cask has. However, no matter how successful Wooden Casks gets, Schiltz wants to always keep his passion for making good beer.

“The whole thing for me in this business really it’s about selling enough beer, but you can be profitable,” he said. “Pay a good salary and still enjoy what you’re doing. A lot of times when breweries grow really fast, people kind of lose the passion for it. And that’s one thing I really want to keep.”

My beer picks at Wooden Cask:

Something light: Girl Next Door: This blonde ale is a beer that anyone can enjoy. Whether you are new to craft beer or a seasoned drinker, you’ll enjoy this light-bodied and fruity beer.

Something in the middle: Pacific Time: I am not a big IPA drinker, but I really like Pacific Time. It’s a great IPA for people who don’t like super hoppy, bitter beer. 

Something dark: Newporter: I actually didn’t have this beer, but I really just love the name.

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Address: 629 York St, Newport, KY 41071

www.woodencask.com