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There’s been a lot of buzz lately about Orlando’s Cask & Larder (C&L). At only 9 months old, this “southern public house” has been setting the bar higher and higher for brewpubs across the country. Not only does C&L take a farm-to-table approach – sourcing local products, curing their own meats, preserving their own fruits, and pickling their own vegetables – but most importantly, they also make their own craft beer… and it’s some of the best beer in Florida.
C&L’s head brewer, Ron Raike, is no stranger to the Central Florida beer community. He first began brewing beer while studying for his master’s degree in computer engineering at the University of Central Florida. Before joining C&L, he was the brewmaster at Shipyard Brewing Company for more than a decade, and in 2012, Ron took Best of Show in the Best Florida Beer Competition.
So, when word got out last week that Cask & Larder would soon start distributing, the reaction was immediate and overwhelmingly positive. We got a chance to sit down and have a beer with Ron to get the who/what/where/when on this latest venture.
First of all, congratulations on C&L’s success overall…We were all very excited to hear the news of the distribution plans last week. Which of your beers are you planning to distribute?
Preliminarily speaking, the Red Drum, which is a West Coast Red Ale. That’s the big focus because there are no hoppy red ales out there right now. Tocobaga is about the only thing that I can think of that comes close and I just think that there’s a hole that I want to fill. It’s a hoppy red yet caramel sweet and it pairs with food really nicely. You can have a couple of them because the alcohol’s a bit lower. It’s just a good drinking beer.
The Olde Southern Wit is also in the plans. It’s a traditional Belgian Wit brewed with spices and citrus that is a staple here.
How have the new distribution plans affected your brew schedule?
It hasn’t yet because we haven’t kicked it in yet, but that’s where the one-offs, the blends, and the sours that I have been working on are probably going to play a bigger role here to supplement that. The biggest thing is to focus on serving the restaurant, making sure the service here isn’t impacted, and then slowly growing the distribution. That was the big thing with distributor selection. Going with a larger distributor, you can technically say “I only want to be distributed in Winter Park,” but once it goes into their warehouse, I can’t control it… It’s out of my hands. So I’m going with a smaller distributor, like Ryan Williams of Progressive Distributing. His delivery day in Winter Park is on Thursdays, so our goal is to have him literally pick up his deliveries for the day and they go out to market and that’s it. None go back to the warehouse, none go into storage, everything goes out fresh and then hopefully next week, they get another fresh shipment.
Do you know what establishments will be pouring C&L beers and when might that happen?
First and foremost, I hate to be a breaker of the tied-house rules, but The Ravenous Pig. [which is C&L’s sister restaurant]. Then Redlight Redlight, Eola Wine Company, a couple of other places on Park Avenue, maybe Taps as we grow that circle to Winter Park Village. Eventually, I would love to take care of Cigar City’s tasting room, Swamphead’s tasting room, and Green Room’s tasting room. Those are the people that I think truly care about what they have on tap.
As far as timing, I would say I am hoping for late summer, but there are no guarantees on exactly when it’s going to happen.
Are there any plans to offer growlers in the future?
I don’t like growlers. Our biggest thing is quality. Having customers come in with empty growlers and then trying to refill them, I don’t want my product going into a dirty growler. And even if they are clean, then we have to shut certain tap handles down for too long to service someone. I know everybody wants growlers, but there’s a tabletop canning system that I’d love to have down the road. That way they are properly filled. It’s in the works.
In the last two years, the craft beer industry has grown exponentially here in Central Florida and shows no signs of slowing. Do you think that the growth is sustainable?
I think more beer bars opening up is going to be tough. I’d love to see more people opening breweries. It might seem fun and sexy for people to jump into the business, but it’s tough and you gotta know what you’re doing. I hate to scare people away from it. But there is a lot of room in Orlando for it to grow. I think we have the customer base here to do it. But if it was easy, I would have done it myself, but the money end is tough and the management end is tough.
What would be in your bucket list 6-pack?
I’m a huge Odell fan. Just about anything from them – It’s just a stand-up stellar product. This is a good question… Crooked Stave is doing some good sours. Sours are something I love to sip on, but I can’t drink pints of it. And a couple of beers from here I think would go in. I’d hate to take them out of my bucket list.
But of course!
