Three Ocean Beach residents have taken home-brewed kombucha to the next level, transforming it into a new, higher-alcohol product brewed and distributed like beer.
\nAdam Hiner, Andrew Clark and Todd Kent have teamed to create Boochcraft, a company manufacturing and selling kombucha, after converting it into 7 percent alcohol content comparable to a typical IPA beer.
\nLikely originating in Asia, kombucha is a fermented, slightly alcoholic, lightly effervescent sweetened black or green tea drink with purported intestinal health benefits derived from bacteria and yeast.\u00a0
\nMarketed as “the happiest buzz on Earth,” Boochcraft can be found on tap at all of Ocean Beach’s popular restaurants and markets including OB Surf Lodge and OB Noodle House. It is also widely available at convenience stores and neighborhood Whole Foods or BevMo outlets at the beachfront and throughout San Diego and the rest of California and much of the West.
\nBoochcraft recently expanded into a combined 27,500-square-foot brewery in Chula Vista with office\/multipurpose and production space, including a new canning line and top-of-the-line equipment, which produces 70,000-plus barrels per year.\u00a0
\nBoochcraft has been a perfect pairing for company co-founders Hiner and his brother-in-law Clark, as well as their mutual friend Kent.
\n“Kombucha is probiotic, good for your digestion,” said company CMO Hiner. “I started making it at my former Hillcrest restaurant, Local Habit. We were one of the first to have kombucha on tap in 2011.”
\n“I was an obsessed beer brewer,” confessed chief brewing officer Clark admitting, “I\u2019m obsessed with the art of creating delicious beverages. [Boochcraft] uses so many different aspects of science \u2013 microbiology, chemistry, physics.”
\nHiner credits Clark with coming up with the notion of boosting kombucha\u2019s alcohol content. “None of us were big drinkers,” noted Hiner. “But we were all big on knowing the ingredients in the food we eat and eating organic food.”
\nBut the three business partners shared one thing in common. “We were all ready to do this,” said Hiner.
\nDoes Boochcraft taste like beer?
\n“It takes nothing like beer, it\u2019s more like fruit wine,” said Hiner, noting their six core flavors include grapefruit, ginger, apple, grape, orange-pomegranate and lemon. “It\u2019s basically a fermented tea.”
\nBeer brewer Clark borrowed existing technology from both beer and wine industries in crafting Boochcraft “to create an entirely new product category using existing equipment and infrastructure like kegs and bottle lines.”
\nA perfectionist, Clark said his wife refers to him as a “high-functioning autistic because I\u2019m so hypercritical with myself and everything has to be perfect, has to match. I was like really geeking out after we landed the brewery after renting an empty warehouse.”
\nAfter “just brewing at home,” Clark added it was nice to “scale everything up using new technology controlling temperatures and having special filters to do custom work. We got to pioneer a new industry and spent three years perfecting it.”
\nThe company is introducing 12-ounce cans and two new flavors to its existing offerings, which hit store shelves April 10. For more information, visit boochcraft.com.<\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Three Ocean Beach residents have taken home-brewed kombucha to the next level, transforming it into a new, higher-alcohol product brewed and distributed like beer. Adam Hiner, Andrew Clark and Todd Kent have teamed to create Boochcraft, a company manufacturing and selling kombucha, after converting it into 7 percent alcohol content comparable to a typical IPA […]<\/p>","protected":false},"author":726,"featured_media":279297,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_seopress_robots_primary_cat":"11560","_seopress_titles_title":"Ocean Beach entrepreneurs create \u2018the happiest buzz on Earth\u2019","_seopress_titles_desc":"","_seopress_robots_index":"","jnews-multi-image_gallery":[],"jnews_single_post":[],"jnews_primary_category":[],"jnews_social_meta":[],"jnews_override_counter":[],"footnotes":""},"categories":[12360,11560,11551],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-279299","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-duplicate","category-la-jolla-village-news","category-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/279299","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/726"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=279299"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/279299\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/279297"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=279299"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=279299"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=279299"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}