From homebrewing to bourbon barrel-aged beers

Rich Palzewic

Staff

June 10, 2024

AMHERST – Anello Mollica, co-owner and vice president of Central Waters Brewing Company, said he estimates 95% of brewery owners started making beer as a hobby before opening a brewery.

Mollica said he and business partner, Paul Graham, are no different – as they started homebrewing in the 1990s in their college apartment.

“This was in the 1990s – pre-internet – so you couldn’t find resources for brewing,” he said. “We had one book: ‘The Complete Joy of Home Brewing’ we went by,” he said.

After college, Mollica said they connected with the two gentlemen who started Central Waters Brewing Company in 1998.

“They hired Paul and me to be one of their first employees right out of college,” he said. “I then left and worked for other breweries, but in the meantime, Paul bought the business in 2001. I came back and bought out his business partner at the time in 2006.”

Mollica said the brewery (351 Allen St.) has since grown from a small operation to one of the biggest in the state – offering flagship beers, seasonal and trending styles, variants and barrel-aged beers from the largest bourbon barrel-aging facility in Wisconsin.

Expanding

In 2006, Mollica said they made the decision to expand, which meant moving from its Junction City location to a new facility in Amherst.

“We broke ground on a new facility in Amherst in 2006 and started producing beer there in 2007,” he said.

Another expansion, Mollica said, came two and a half years ago, when Central Waters opened a second location in downtown Milwaukee (1037 West Juneau Ave.).

“It’s not that difficult to open a brewery because you can get a small space and run a small brewery with a taproom and make it work,” he said.

But expanding and having a larger footprint, Mollica said, is more of a challenge.

“With Central Waters, we’re a bit bigger… and are one of the longest-running breweries in the state,” he said. “A lot of our business portfolio is built around distribution now.”

The brews  

Mollica said both Central Waters taprooms only carry the brews it makes in-house.

“Each taproom has 24 tap lines, and there is usually a waiting list of the beers we want to get on tap because we make so many,” he said.

The Amherst location, known as the “mother shop,” Mollica said is where the brewery does all its distribution.

“We’ve got a core group of beers there, some of which we’ve been making for more than 25 years,” she said. 

Mollica said one of its best-sellers is the Mudpuppy Porter – “it’s the best-selling porter in the State of Wisconsin.”

“Our No. 1 selling draft beer is Honey Blond Ale – we’ve been making that for 24 years,” he said. “Honey Blonde is the second-best-selling beer of its style in the state behind Spotted Cow. Those two beers (Mudpuppy Porter and Honey Blond Ale) do well for us.”

Mollica said the Amherst plant produces six to seven beers year-round.

“We also have a seasonal line that rotates – we have four seasonals,” he said. “We also do a best-of-the-Indian-Pale-Ale (IPA) series every other month. We are constantly thinking of our next brews – we already have our plans set for 2025.”

Roll out the (bourbon) barrel

Despite being highly successful with its naturally-brewed beers, Mollica said Central Waters is known on an international scale for its barrel-aged program.

“We started that in 2001, which was far ahead of the curve for barrel aging – we started aging beer inside of bourbon barrels,” he said. “We’ve grown that program to where we have a large portfolio of those.”

Mollica said Central Waters releases a different barrel-aged beer every other month.

“In October, we release one of those beers called Black Gold, which is an Imperial Stout we age for three years in the barrels,” he said. “For many years, it’s been the highest-ranked beer in Wisconsin.”

Mollica said Central Waters recently released two new barrel-aged beers: Maple Barrel Stout and Butter Pecan Maple Stout.

“Those have been fun projects – we get versatile with things,” he said. “We work with a maple syrup producer in the southwestern part of the state called B&E’s Trees. We give them the bourbon barrels before we put beer in them, and they age maple syrup in those for a year.”

After removing the syrup, Mollica said, B&E’s Trees sends the barrels back, and then “we age beer inside of them, which gives us the maple syrup flavor.”

Generally speaking, Mollica said, Central Waters ages its barrel-aged beers for at least a year, “sometimes up to five years.”

“We certainly have to plan,” he said.

Amherst vs. Milwaukee

Though Mollica said each brewery has similarities, there are also differences unique to each one.

“We don’t brew the same beers in Amherst as we do in Milwaukee,” he said. “Everything packaged in the Amherst plant comes in 12-ounce cans. The Milwaukee plant only packages things in 16-ounce cans. The Milwaukee facility can play around with different styles of beer that we don’t have the time to do out of the Amherst plant – those beers are constantly variable.”

Another difference, Mollica said, is on the restaurant side of things.

“At the Amherst taproom… we don’t have a restaurant site,” he said. 

To offset the lack of a restaurant in, Mollica said patrons are allowed to bring in their own food.

The Amherst location, he said, also brings in food trucks.

“During the warmer months, we have a rotating group of food trucks for a few days a week on the popular days – Thursday, Friday, Saturday and sometimes Sunday,” he said.

Milwaukee, on the other hand, Mollica said, has a restaurant on site.

“We have a great partner in Troublemakers’ Cocina, which has great food,” he said.

Sustainability efforts

Mollica said Central Waters is committed to being one of the most environmentally sustainable breweries in the nation.

From upstream product sourcing to downstream management, Mollica said the team considers the implications of every aspect of the business in managing Central Waters’ environmental footprint.

This comes into play, Mollica said, with the brewery’s raw goods. 

Central Water bottles, he said, are sourced from the greenest manufacturer in the country, even though they are more expensive.

The brewery’s packaging, Mollica said, is post-consumer recycled cardboard, and raw goods for beer production are sourced as locally as possible.

“We purchase all of our barley from Briess Malting Company in Chilton,” he said. 

Central Waters, Mollica said, is also one of the founding breweries of the Midwest Hops and Barley Coop, working to have local farmers produce local hops and barley.

Managing the breweries’ energy and resource consumption, he said, is also an important aspect of its overall sustainability focus. 

Mollica said Central Waters has four solar arrays, one of which is a 1,000-square-foot thermal array that provides hot water to heat the 12,500-square-foot facility.

He said it also provides preheated water to the brewhouse, so every beer the brewery makes is brewed using solar heated water.

“We also have a 120kW photo-voltaic array that produces roughly 65% of our energy needs annually,” he said. 

The brewery, Mollica said, also: 

• Uses LED lighting with motion detecting switches
• Continually monitors and conserves water resources so the brewery consistently uses less water than industry averages
• Conserves and reuses brewing chemicals wherever possible

Mollica said they even built the sampling room bar in Amherst out of recycled materials.

Central Waters, he said, was the first brewery granted entrance into the State of Wisconsin’s Green Tier program, which recognizes businesses that are sound environmental stewards; and was one of the first breweries involved in the state’s Green Masters program. 

Special events

Mollica said one of the neat things about breweries is they are not just a bar – they become a community space.

“Hosting special events has become popular,” he said. “Central Waters has space for special events… People use it for birthday events, retirement parties, surprise parties and small get-togethers. It’s a beautiful, separate room.”

For more information on Central Waters Brewing Company, visit its website (centralwaters.com) or Facebook page.