During its year and a half of operation, Ardent Craft Ales has made a big impression on the fast-growing RVA craft beer scene.
During its year and a half of operation, Ardent Craft Ales has made a big impression on the fast-growing RVA craft beer scene. Started in a Church Hill garage as a brewing co-op, Ardent took the leap to full-scale commercial production with the opening of their brewery space in Scott’s Addition last summer.
This article was featured in RVAMag #23: Winter 2015. You can read all of issue #23 here or pick it up at local shops around RVA right now.
Since then, brews like their Honey Ginger and Saison, as well as seasonals like their Sweet Potato & Sage Ale, or their Szechuan Peppercorn Saison (discussed below), have captured the imagination and thrilled the tastebuds of many an RVA beer drinker. We caught up with co-founder and head brewer Kevin O’Leary to talk Church Hill beginnings, why a spirit of cooperation is important for independent breweries, and why Ardent’s taproom does not have a TV.
Ardent–where did the name come from?
We were toying around with the pre-Prohibition movement. We started looking at some of the pre-Prohibition laws, Prohibition laws, and current ABC laws. It [mentioned] the “regulation of ardent spirits.” Ardent means passionate, fiery, spirited. We brewed in a garage up on Church Hill, and people were saying, “It’s 17 degrees outside and you’re making beer without heat. It’s 103 degrees out and you’re making beer without AC. You guys are really passionate about what you’re doing.”
I lived in Church Hill. I went past Alamo and saw your crew out there multiple days, and I kept going, “I need to stop.” I was usually on my way to Alamo to get food for me and my wife and kid, so I would always go, “I’ll do it another day,” and I never stopped. I still kind of kick myself for not stopping in.
And it’s funny–back in the day, that neighborhood was a little rough, and people credited us for being adventurous. My business partner, Tom Sullivan, has lived up there for 15 years or so, and people said that he was an adventurer. Now it’s one of the hot neighborhoods. There’s Union Market now, there’s The Roosevelt, there’s Sub Rosa… none of that was there. It was just people selling crack across the street.
How did the jump happen from brewing in Church Hill to actually giving this a go?
I started home brewing up in New England when I was 19-20 years old. Got a job at a brewery up in New England, [at] Cambridge Brewing Company. Learned the ropes there. Moved to Richmond because my wife got a job [she] couldn’t refuse and I had no room to grow. Within two weeks, I met people in the beer community–which is really, really tight compared to many other cities I’ve been to. A bartender, Sean O’Hearn at Commercial Taphouse, said, “Hey, there’s these dudes brewing up in Church Hill, you should go meet them.” I went out, met Tom [Sullivan], met Paul [Karns], met other people that were involved in this co-op, and said, “Hey, can I start hanging out? I’ve got a little professional experience.” I hadn’t brewed on a small scale in many years, so it was sort of a learning experience for me, to re-teach myself how to brew on a small scale.
We started getting people stopping by on Sundays, maybe like yourself, and saying, “Are you guys doing a fish fry?” And we said, “Come on in, try a beer.” After many people saying, “We really like this beer, when can I buy it?” We said we should try to put together a business plan. It took us a long time and a lot of help from many many people.
So how did this space come about?
We were driving around before we ever had capital [or] our final business plan. I don’t think we can get in trouble now, but… one of the doors was open and it looked vacant, so we poked our head in, looked around, and said, “Oh, there’s potential.” Two years later, we were working with a developer, looking at numerous properties, and we said, “What about that place on the corner of Highpoint and Leigh?” It was vacant for many many years. We got a key and we were able to come in and took a look.
The place was in really rough shape. There were trees growing in here. It was an old moving company; there was people’s furniture still hanging out here from 15-20 years ago. We ended up stripping everything down to the bones. Even the panes of glass–all of these windows were boarded up or cinder blocked up. Everything got stripped down and we built it from scratch. We wanted to keep it original. Having no TV’s in here is just… we loved hanging out. Hanging around, drinking a beer in a garage–no TV’s. Also, when I go out, I hate getting distracted. I hate when there’s a TV on, because I look at it, and I’ve lost the conversation.
What were the original brews you guys took from making it in the garage and transferred to doing it on a commercial scale?
When we put together the business plan, we decided on having a few cores. Those cores were the Saison; the Honey Ginger, which is our summer seasonal; The Common; which [all] got amazing feedback. But slowly people’s palates are evolving, because there are a lot more people wanting Saison, wanting IPA’s, etc. IPA was another one of our cores. When we first did our hop order, we couldn’t get every single hop we wanted for an entire year, so we decided to take a different approach. We said, “Let’s make the same base beer and use different aroma and flavor hops.” It’s actually turned out to be pretty beneficial, because people love variety.
And then we’ve run numerous single beers. Our Winter beers, our Dark Rye. I have a tough time with Imperial Stouts if they’re sweet, so we figured a little bit of rye to add some spiciness and to dry it out compared to a lot of Imperial Stouts. I made one batch of pumpkin, [but] I have a mental allergy to pumpkin beer after making so much of it up in New England. We’ve also done some one-off collaborations. We’ve got one on right now which is a chestnut, maple alt beer that we collaborated with our friends over at Hardywood on.
We’ve got a really great relationship with every brewery that’s here. We borrow ingredients from each other if we’re short. We hang at each other’s facilities. It’s something that I want to see continue to thrive, because when I was working up in New England, we were always friendly with the other breweries, but we never sat down and brewed together. But back in the 90’s they used to invite everyone over and say “I’m going to try something crazy. I’m going to make a Belgian Tripel. No one’s ever made a Belgian Tripel, come on in!” It’s fun because we’re all in the same boat. We’re all doing the same thing. I think that it needs to happen more.
