The 920 Brew Project

It was mid-March and Dan Dringoli was finally seeing brighter days ahead. COVID-19 had been a fact of life in Oshkosh for a year now. Bare Bones Brewery, which Dringoli co-owns with his wife Patti, had struggled through that year battered by waves of restrictions and public fear concerning the sort of gatherings that the Dringoli's business relies upon. But the tide was turning. People were being vaccinated. Restrictions were being eased. Something closer to normal was on the horizon.


On March 18, Dringoli sent an email to his fellow brewers in the area suggesting they collaborate on a beer to mark the passing of what for all of them had been an exceptionally difficult period. "We overcame significant adversity together," Dringoli wrote. "We've leaned on each other quite a bit. We came up with collective solutions to battle this unprecedented time and we survived."

Patti and Dan Dringoli of Bare Bones.

Dringoli then presented the seed of an idea that would be cultivated over the coming weeks by those he had reached out to. "Let's do a different kind of collaboration, built around the strength of the brewing community," he wrote. "We owe a ton of gratitude to our fellow breweries and our customers who kept coming in and getting beer to go. We truly owe them everything. So let's come up with a collaborative thank you to our collective customers. A beer created by all of us."

Dringoli's proposal has led to the largest brewing collaboration of its type in the State of Wisconsin. It involves a meadery and 10 breweries scattered across three counties. Taking part in the collaboration are Oshkosh's Bare Bones, Fifth Ward, and Fox River breweries. Neenah-based breweries Barrel 41 and Lion's Tail. Appleton's Stone Arch Brewpub, McFleshman's Brewing, and Appleton Beer Factory. Knuth Brewing from Ripon. Omega Brewing of Omro, and Rushford Meadery & Winery.

The group's working title became The 920 Brew Project, after their shared area code. They had quickly come together, but then came the first hurdle: how to find agreement among 11 independent-minded brewers on what to brew. It turned out to be no problem at all.

"It was like a subconscious thing," says Bobby Fleshman of McFleshman's Brewing Company. "I was talking to Jody (Cleveland, head brewer of Bare Bones), and I mentioned this idea for a cucumber Kolsch. Jody took that to mean, 'hey, let's do a cucumber Kolsch.' He put it out there and everyone agreed on it right away. We were all in the same frame of mind. It came together so quick."

Bobby Fleshman in the brewhouse at McFleshman's.

It was agreed that the beer would be produced at the Bare Bones facility. In early April, Cleveland sent out his recipe for the Kolsch, a German-style of light ale noted for its clean, quenching drinkability. The idea would be to enhance those characteristics with the bright flavor of cucumber while maintaining the more subtle aspects of the base beer. For the cucumber flavor, they discussed purchasing a pre-processed, aseptic puree, but then decided against it. Instead, they'd begin with fresh cucumbers. "I think we all kind of know what our strengths are and where our input is useful," Fleshman says. “That’s where Shane came in.”

Shane Coombs of Rushford Meadery & Winery has a deep background in working with a variety of fresh, plant-based ingredients that he sometimes incorporates into his meads and wines. For the trial beer, Coombs pressed and processed 72 cucumbers then handed off the “cuke juice” to Ian Wenger and Zach Clark of Fifth Ward Brewing. Clark and Wenger began experimenting with dosing rates using their 1869 Blonde Ale to get a sense for what might work with the Kolsch. By the end of April, the blended samples were being passed around among the other brewers.

Shane Coombs

"I don't even know how many people from the breweries were involved at this point," says Fleshman. "It must have been about 18 or so of us. We all kind of picked out our favorite dosing rate. I think we landed on something that people are going to really dig."

On May 24 and 25, brewers from Barrel 41, Fox River, Lion's Tail, Omega, and Rushford got together with Jody Cleveland at Bare Bones to brew 25-barrels of Kolsch. As the beer completed its fermentation Coombs processed 124 pounds of fresh cucumbers. And on June 8, the final blend of the beer was prepared by Cleveland, Coombs, Fleshman, and Steve Zink of Omega Brewing.

May 24th in the brewhouse at Bare Bones. From left to right,
Steve Zink of Omega, Jody Cleveland of Bare Bones, and Jeff Eaton of Lion' s Tail.

"We could not have pulled off something like this if we had not already been so close knit," says Fleshman. “I think most brewers would be hesitant to get into something like this because of that ‘too many cooks in the kitchen’ kind of thing. But we're already so tight that we figured it could work. We'll probably even do something like this again."

The 920 Brew Project's Cucumber Kolsch will begin pouring in the taprooms of each of the collaborators in mid-June. The beer will likely be on tap through the remainder of the month. In Oshkosh, Cucumber Kolsch will also be available in cans at Bare Bones, Fifth Ward, and Fox River.