have been here for three years, and we recently hired an additional person for the tasting room,” he said. “We come to work with our friends every day, and it’s so important that the personalities all fit.” “We’ve grown when we needed to. We have kept on a good path while others have gone on an accelerated route. We’ve been doing it organically, and we’re happy with the way things are going.” In the last month, Kelsen Brewing has begun to push into a new venture: pub food and pizza. “We got a pizza chef last month, and we’re working our way into pairing food and beer. We’re getting a foothold. Doing basic and a few specialty dishes has been big. When we get more comfortable, we can work on flavour profiles. It’s like our beer, which started small, but now we have 12 on tap.” As New Hampshire residents hail Kelsen Brewing, the entrepreneur’s venture has begun thriving elsewhere too.
“We distribute all over the state, in a limited form. We do our IPA, Porter and Brown Ale. We do give small amounts of other types to some of our best customers. Right now, we also have had growth in sending beer overseas,” he said. As they expand their reach, they’ve also got the new Cryptic Project on the go. Launched with a huge event on March 31, the venture will see experimental, sour, farmhouse and mixed fermen- tation beers come out of the taproom. Their first four were Luminous, a sour ale infused with blackberries, Nocturne, a darker sour with chocolate and raspberries, Faded, a Gose sour with sea salt and coriander, and Hypnotize, a Saison with hibiscus and lemon. “This mixed fermentation program is going to be a lot of fun, and we want to add more barrels and do wood-aged beers,” said Kelly. “We want to progress through flavour and experimenta- tion. Next year, we’ll see a big push for that in our tasting room.” As their customer base has grown, they’ve had to expand, which is news that both delights Kelly and keeps his mind racing. “We just remodeled our tasting roomand doubled the seating capacity from 20 to 45-50. We have added a bar, and we have 24-30 seats on the patio in the summer,” he said. They may grow out of their location soon, as seating is maxed out. Kelly is hoping he doesn’t have to deal with that for another year-and-a-half. “We’ve grown when we needed to. We have kept on a good path while others have gone on an accelerated route. We’ve been doing it organical- ly, and we’re happy with the way things are going.”
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FEBRUARY 2019 • SPOTLIGHT ON BUSINESS MAGAZINE
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