USA: Feather River Brewing Company keeps on brewing
Feather River Brewing Company is a 14-barrel brewery that has been making a splash in the beer festival circuit for six years. Master brewer Roger Preecs owns and operates the Feather River Brewing Company in Magalia. Roger Preecs, owner of Feather River Brewing Company, said it's been a 12-year process to get the brewery where it is today, The Northern California Homes posted June 19.
Preecs has been a regular participant in beer festivals for six years, since brewery started producing its German-style ales: Honey Ale, Raging Rapids Ale and Dark Canyon Ale.
"We don't brew the standard English style," Preecs said. "I'm more along the German lines malts, smoothness, less bitter and no aftertaste."
Preecs said he wanted to be different from the majority of breweries in California, which do the English style. "I'm kind of a rogue brewery," Preecs said.
Preecs built the brewery on his property over a six-year period after spending a life jumping from job to job. All the different careers added to Preecs' skills, which include ceramic works and metal fabrication.
"My previous jobs made it so I could do this brewery myself," said Preecs who runs the 200-gallon-a-week brewery by himself.
Preecs has been distributing brews to beer festivals around the country and won the People's Choice Award at the largest beer festival in California, The California Festival of Beers in San Luis Obispo, in both 2002 and 2003.
"That was the ultimate award. Can't top that," Preecs said. "People judged. Not judges. And the people chose the brewery they liked the best."
Feather River Brewing Company is currently on tap at restaurants in the Magalia, Paradise and Chico areas. Preecs also distributes his 22-ounce bottles of ale to local liquor stores and grocery stores.
But he still finds handing out samples at beer festivals and donating to charities a good way to spread the word of a German-style beer brewed in Magalia. "It lets people try our product, and hopefully it'll increase sales," Preecs said.
Preecs said sales have increased steadily and that someday he'll have to grow out of his personal property, where he both lives and brews his living.
"We'll be doing something because it just keeps growing, and it's going to snowball," Preecs said.
As far as beer festivals go, Preecs said the Feather River Brewing Company beers almost always get a positive reception. "We usually run out of beer way before the end because people usually flock toward our booth," Preecs said.
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