Could anything be more old-fashioned than buying your pure-cane soda-pop from a family-owned small bottler, drinking it, and returning the bottles to the same building for a deposit? Breese, Illinois’ Excel Bottling is a living dinosaur, but now that dinosaur has decided it wants a nip of the hard stuff. Back in March, the P-D's Evan Benn tipped us off that Excel would soon enter the craft beer business.
The two maiden brews will be a blonde ale called “Brewskee,” which is a riff on Excel’s top-selling soda, a lemon/orange blend called Ski; and a German-style hefe (using local wheat) called Shoal Creek Wheat, named after the body of water that supplies water for the city of Breese, said Excel General Manager Bill Meier. The latter will be brewed according to the ominous-sounding “German purity law,” he explained, which brooks no additives.
Excel has two great reasons to get into the beer game, said Meier. “The number of craft beer companies opening in the U.S. has dramatically increased, and it’s one of the few growing industries,” he said. “Also, over half of the cost of a brewery is the cost of the packaging line, and we already have that from the soda line. We’ve become so efficient at producing soda, it’s opened up spare time on the bottling line. About a year ago, Illinois passed a law that says if you’re a small craft brewery you can self-distribute. We can sell in our local area and do returnable glass beer bottles. We hired a brewmaster. Most all of the pieces are now in place."
“At first we’re going to keep it local and mainly sell in Clinton County, within 50 miles of the plant, where the demand is now,” he added. “We retail the soda right out of the factory now as one of the few remaining returnable-bottle companies in the U.S., but they won’t allow us to sell beer right from the factory.”
“Our batch size is 20 barrels, which is 270 cases. We have a set-up very similar to that of Urban Chestnut. We’ll make the beer once a week or every other week, depending on the demand.” According to a Facebook post from June 28, brewing could begin as early as August 1; Excel is hoping to launch the beers on August 15.
If Brewskee and Shoal Creek Wheat catch on, they’ll surely expand to the denser areas of Edwardsville, Collinsville, Belleville, and possibly even St. Louis.
Excel will, of course, continue to sell its cane-sugar sodas in glass, at the factory and at many area retailers.
“Ski is our number-one brand, number two is Frostie Root Beer, and we also sell 15 historic flavors such as Black Cherry and Orange Pineapple,” said Meier. “Last year we introduced three sodas named after Breese — Cherry Breese, Blueberry Breese, and Strawberry Kiwi Breese.”
Excel Bottling
488 S. Broadway
Breese, Ill.
618-526-7159
