That’s how it started for Bill. Three years ago he was trying to decide whether he could make a living out of something he loved: home brewing. He built this rig and as he told us “figured I’d either build a company of have the most kick-ass home brew set-up in the world.” I love meeting people who are building their dreams. There’s a magic feeling about that, and you can’t help but want to cheer them on. And now I’m in this position where in a small but direct way we can play a role. I want Boston to taste White Birch. We think it’s delicious.

Bill describes his inspiration as loving Belgian beers and home brewing. He brews everything at a human scale. We’re talking lifting grain sacks and dumping them off your shoulder, not using a grain elevator. Everything is done by hand, and everything is really little. There were also some pretty technical things going on at the brewery. Bill ages some of his beers in casks, and he has a large number of bacteria colonies he maintains that play a part in lambic and sour beers.

There was a serious anti-gimmick feeling at his place. We asked about flavored beers and his passions rose. I’d asked Dann of Pretty Things about these the other day and experienced a similar reaction. These guys are committed to using the basic ingredients of beer (grain, yeast, hops) to create flavor, and are really suspicious of all of the “flavored” beers being made right now with spices etc. It’s analogous to coffee. It shouldn’t be hard to figure out where we stand on this. You’re not going to find a “Hazelnut Coffee” at Clover. But you will find White Birch as soon as we can work it out. We’re typically programming out a few months, we’ll keep you posted.

(couple more photos after the break)