Hometown brew coming soon

Tom Moench’s love affair with beer started when he was 12.

There was a mystery about Coors beer that captivated him. They didn’t ship it across the Mississippi, so the Florida native thought he’d never be able to try the elusive brand. But he got his chance when his dad brought the boy back a six-pack from Colorado.

“I thought it was really incredible,” Moench said about his first sip.

That one beer planted a seed that would become more than a career for Moench — it would become his life’s passion. The Orlando native is the creator and owner of Central Florida-based Orange Blossom Pilsner, a craft beer that’s exploded in popularity among locals and several states across the South.

But right now, only the recipe is home grown, Moench said. Orange Blossom Pilsner is brewed by a contractor in Greenville, S.C.

He’s going to change that.

Moench hopes that in the next year he’ll be brewing beer in Orlando at his own brewery, and has enlisted the help of the University of Central Florida Business Incubation Program, which provides development services and resources for small companies.

“I know that my acumen is far more in the beer direction than in the business direction,” he said.

Melissa Wasserman, site manager for the incubator, said they were impressed by his sales record and the business’s potential for growth. She liked that he is community-centered.

“He’s also very loyal to Central Florida, and will stay here as the company grows.”

How it began

Moench began brewing his own beer at 18, when he became frustrated that he wasn’t old enough to buy it himself. He bought a simple kit and brewed his first beer in his home kitchen.

“It was like nothing I’d ever tasted before, and I loved it,” he said.

That began his chase for the perfect beer. Moench, who had a nearly 20-year career in theater, film and television behind the scenes, spent his spare time reading every book he could on making beer.

In the late ’80s, his brewing moved from the kitchen to the garage, where he built his own brewery with kegs turned into kettles. He set up a lab for the more scientific parts of beer creation. First, he recreated other beers, but when he perfected that, he began fiddling with his own recipes. He’s used coconut, shitake mushrooms, fresh fruit and ginseng as ingredients.

“I pulled up my pants and got deep into brewing,” he said. “I was serious and all I wanted to do was make the best beer in the world.”

The perfect recipe

His masterpiece so far: the Orange Blossom Pilsner. The honey beer, he said, has a crisp, clean finish, but doesn’t have the sweetness you might assume is associated with honey. In his process, the yeast eats the sugar, leaving only delicate flavors of the honey behind.

And the smooth-not-sweet recipe seems to be a hit.

“It tastes good,” Orlando resident John Carrabus said. “A lot of craft beers are too high-brow and go too far with their flavors, but this is easy to drink, and not too hoity-toity.”

Carrabus is one of many local fans of the beer, which Moench began producing commercially about eight years ago. OBP has been the No. 1 seller at Winter Park’s Mellow Mushroom since it opened; sales of OBP beat out almost all other beers there 2-to-1.

Many of Mellow’s customers try it there for the first time, and they rave about it, bar manager George Saunders said.

“It’s not too much for someone who’s trying to expand their horizons with beer,” he said. “It’s just good.”

Moench said he wished his brewery opened yesterday, but can’t wait to get up each morning to work on that goal.

“That’s how I wanted to live my life,” he said. “This is my love; this is my passion.”

Get OBP

For more information about Orange Blossom Pilsner, visit www.uniquebeers.com/obp. Find it around town at Mellow Mushroom, 310 S. Park Ave. and Houston’s. For a full list of places to buy the beer, visit www.thebrewcrew.com and click on beer tracker.