Local brewery invites customers to brew their own beer

Kettering microbrewery Eudora Brewing Company has launched the brew-your-own portion of its business and will expand it further later this year.

Rick Vogel and Ralph Mantica of Kettering were the self-described guinea pigs who brewed up the first batch — an Irish Red ale — on Monday under the direction of Andrew Decker, Eudora’s brew-on-premises manager. Vogel and Mantica said they have been regular customers of Eudora since the microbrewery’s tap room opened last fall and wanted to try their hand in brewing a batch for themselves.

Of the 11 breweries and brewpubs in various stages of development in the Dayton area, Eudora is the only one to incorporate a “brew-your-own” program into its business plan. Eudora has three kettles available for its brew-on-premises program but will be using one of the three until additional equipment is installed later this year, according to Neil Chabut, the microbrewery’s founder.

Chabut, a 2007 Fairmont High School and 2011 University of Dayton graduate, was an avid home-brewer before he launched Eudora, which is located at 4716 Wilmington Pike.

Those who sign up for the brew-on-premises program pick the style of beer and the ingredients necessary to create it. The mixing, boiling and chilling, performed with the assistance of brew-on-premises manager Decker, takes two to three hours. Customers return two weeks or so later to bottle their finished beers.

Eudora is part of a brewing rebirth that has swept through the Miami Valley and many parts of the country, aided by the rapidly rising interest in craft brews and, in Ohio, by a change in state law that made it less expensive to start a microbrewery.

For more information about Eudora Brewing Company, go to EudoraBrewing.com.

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