VERO BEACH — Fresh off a win in a battle of beer brewers, islander Alden Bing and his long-time friend and fellow homebrewer Alan Dritenbas say plans are moving forward to launch Orchid Island Brewing Company into Vero Beach restaurant and bar scene.
The duo nabbed two gold medals at the national SAAZ homebrewers competition in Cocoa Beach recently.
The SAAZ organization – which stands for Spacecoast Associates for the Advancement of Zymurgy – was founded in 1992 and is a local chapter of a national American Homebrewers Association.
Judges sampled more than 700 homebrews.
Bing and Dritenbas found out about their prize late last month.
Bing and Dritenbas bested other brewers with their signature Ruby Red IPA in the fruit beer category and also won the top prize in strong ale/barelywine category for a yet-to-be named beer that they have been experimenting with for a long time now.
The latter beer is infused with five fruits – grapefruit, orange, tangerine, lemon and lime – and has an alcohol content of 9.7 percent.
To say Dritenbas and Bing were thrilled with their wins is an understatement.
Dritenbas said he and Bing decided to enter the unnamed brew into the event just to get the feedback.
They got it all right in the form a gold medal.
“It was a cool surprise,” Dritenbas said.
The reaction they received from their wins has been fantastic, said Bing.
“I just figured we’d take a picture of the medal, put something up on Facebook and that would be it,” Bing said.
It wasn’t. Friends and those keeping an eye on the young brewers are thrilled and anxiously awaiting a chance to sample their beers.
Orchid Island Brewing Company will be represented at the Treasure Coast Beer Festival in downtown Fort Pierce on Oct. 27.
For many months, Bing and Dritenbas had been talking with The Blue Star Wine Bar about the possibility of brewing exclusively for the popular Central Beach hotspot.
Their initial plan was to begin brewing there and eventually expand and get their distributor license.
Now they are planning to go solo with the hopes of landing a spot in downtown Vero Beach for a full-scale brewing operation and tasting room.
Kitty Wagner, owner of the Blue Star Wine Bar, said that while she would have loved to have Orchid Island Brewing at her bar, as a business woman she encouraged Bing and Dritenbas to go into a full-scale operation.
“I like their ambition,” she said.
