I've been home brewing since 1984. Back in 2008, one of the biggest beer nuts I know drove up from Orlando to brew with me once he found out that I was a homebrewer. After sampling a few of my favorite ales I heard him say, "You really should be doing this professionally". I've heard this one before, many times, but this time it was coming from someone that I know and respect when it comes to beer. (I should probably apologize to all my other friends at this point but hey, you know who you are and you know why you just weren't credible!) So I started looking into what was involved in "going pro" and found a whole new respect for the hard working people that bring us our beer.
Along the way I discovered that we should start with a sessionable beer and it would probably be a really good idea to do a smaller "market research" batch to see how well my beer would be received by a larger group of craft beer enthusiasts. I chose my Irish Red Ale as my most sessionable beer and approached my favorite brew pub in Atlanta, 5 Seasons Brewing - Sandy Springs. Convincing Kevin McNerney, their brew master, to brew my Irish Red Ale took longer than expected. Although he didn't say no, Kevin couldn't say yes either. My "Big Red Ale" still needed a little more work before it was ready for prime time.
I continued to perfect my Irish Red that winter until I had exactly what I wanted. Last spring I brought this beer in for an informal tasting at "The 5". Kevin McNerney, Dennis Lange and David Larkworthy collectively gave my "Big Red Ale" the thumbs up I was looking for. Now we had to set a brew date that would work with Kevin's other beers. We eventually settled on the last week in August and on Sunday October 11 2009, at 4:00 PM, O’Dempsey’s “BIG RED ALE” debuted at the 5 Seasons Brewing Company – Sandy Springs. The feedback was very positive and “Big Red” continued to sell well until it was completely consumed. Our research was done. I couldn’t be happier with the results.
O’Dempsey’s “BIG RED ALE” first shipped to Savannah Distributing on April 2, 2010 so you could say we’re fairly new. We hope you like it as much as we do and in closing we would like to give a shout out to the very special people that helped us bring O’Dempsey’s to life: The entire staff at the 5 Season’s Brewing Company – Sandy Springs, Spike & John from Terrapin Brewing Company for all of their great advice, John Schorn & Dave Weil of Savannah Distributing for all of their great advice and for believing in us enough to bring our beer to you, and especially Kevin McNerney and Denis Lange for all their contributions and endless support.
Enjoy!
Randy Dempsey
