ONE YEAR OF BEER!
Come out this Friday (2/24/23) and help us celebrate our first anniversary 5-11 pm. The band ‘Chicken Parts’ will be playing from 7-9 pm. Enter our drawing for $100 in Courtland Pride Bucks, IA merchandise, to-go beer, and other prizes all weekend long!
In our first year Luke and Bill brewed more than 129 barrels or 3,999 gallons of beer in retro-fitted dairy tanks. And they canned over 5,500 cans of to-go beers.
That would be 13.6 gallons of beer per person in Courtland, population 294! Fun fact we are the second smallest brewery town in Kansas next to Sylvan Grove and Fly Boy Brewing with a population of 291.
We brewed 41 batches, 35 unique recipes, and few repeats like Red Trucks, Lovewell Lager, Pinky’s Pils, and Scandiego. We started with six of our beers on tap and this fall moved up to eight. Typically rotating a new beer on the menu every two weeks.
We had A LOT of fun naming all our beers. Which turns into A LOT of fun working with A Little Hometown Shirt with merchandise. Recap of beers in order of release:
- Red Trucks
- Pinky’s Pils
- Volunteer Wheat
- Pivot Pale
- Flannel Stout
- Side Eye Saison
- Pancake Day
- Resting Blonde Face
- Black Betty
- Scandiego
- Cousin Eddie
- White Rock Wheat
- Hay Bale Pale
- Slice of Hefeweizen
- Nose Gose
- Sweet Girl
- 148-Orade
- Dunkel Cold Medina
- Billy Beer
- Loupe
- My Jam
- Rye Charles
- Turnt Out
- Saison Dejoia
- Oktoberfest
- Dan-O-Lantern
- Let’s Gose Girls
- Farmer’s Tan
- Jiggy Wit It
- MMM Hops
- Pale McCartney
- Haulin’ Oats
- Main Squeeze
- *You’re My Boy Blue (out soon)
- *Slam Dunkel (out soon)
We had visitors from 38 states and multiple countries this year! *This US map didn’t go up until April. I will offer the first person from the remaining states a beer on me:
- Alabama
- Connecticut
- Delaware
- Georgia
- Hawaii
- Kentucky
- Maine
- Mississippi
- New Hampshire
- New Mexico
- Tennessee
- Vermont
- West Virginia
Had over 40 events this year including but not limited to hosting twenty musicians, a book signing, a pop-up meat shop, arts & crafts, Kansas Day Eve, talk on birds, build-your-own bloody beer bar, food trucks, and pizza!
We got better at serving at brew fests from Hays to Wichita.
We helped fundraise over $1,000 for organizations like the ALES for ALS, Courtland Pride Club, Republic County Community Foundation, and most recently Kansas Sampler Foundation through a collaboration with Land of Aah’s Lager which is on tap now!
In the summer we used old kegs to create some outdoor space!
We worked with the City of Courtland and Adri’s to designate an open container district in Courtland during special events! This allows our beer to go outside our taproom during Fun Day inside the marked area. *CFD is always the last Saturday in July.
We loved getting the chance to highlight local produce in our beers. From the Depot Market we used blackberries, raspberries, cantaloupe, and pumpkins. We foraged for our own sumac and sandhill plums, and grew our own rhubarb.
Our favorite was having Dave DeJoia a fellow Courtland Fermentation Club member let us pick Frontenac Red grapes for our Saison DeJoia beer-wine hybrid seen above!
Our friend Amber (Rockin C Custom Leather) continued to lend her artistic skills to compliment her murals with new paintings and now leather key fobs.
Our beertenders started with Jacob being a lifesaver helping Luke and Jennifer in the beginning then this spring we added Andrew, Jaid, and Ashleigh to staff. We are so lucky to have them on our IA team!
And most importantly we want to say THANK YOU to all those who have supported us along this crazy journey with a kind word, small purchase, or regular visits. This started nearly a decade ago with a Mr. Beer kit, Courtland Fermentation Club ‘meetings’, buying a building, renovations, business planning, more renovations, business plan, loans, and asking ourselves over and over and over is this going to work?
Irrigation Ales is truly a reflection of the Courtland and Republic County area and all the momentum with all the other great businesses and projects improving our communities. Your optimism and positivity mean more to the future of our area than you may realize. Our future is watching, listening, and waiting for their turn to be part of something special in rural.