Two years ago, while building the wooden bar at Heavy Riff Brewing Co., Justin Saffell and Matt Walters hatched a plan to become the first U.S. manufacturers of foeders (pronounced FOOD-ers), large oak tanks used for aging wine and beer. Since opening their Foeder Crafters of America workshop in O’Fallon, Missouri in January, 60 breweries scattered across 25 states have tapped the two-person team for custom-made foeders.
Breweries comprise your core clientele, but aren’t foeders traditionally used by wineries? Walters: Breweries in Belgium have been using foeders for hundreds of years.
Saffell: And breweries have been on the back end of the line for foeders since the beginning of time, so we try to give them priority.
Why are foeders gaining popularity among breweries? Walters: Because sour beer is getting really popular.
Saffell: A lot of the emerging breweries have a foeder or two. People opening new breweries are looking to existing ones to emulate a little something that they have and produce the style of beer that they’re producing.
Prior to Foeder Crafters, you were among the ownership of Heavy Riff. Why pursue this venture instead? Saffell: Being in the brewing industry for a bit, talking to other breweries and reading trade magazines, it was pretty clear that there was a need for foeders. Breweries that were able to attain them were secretive about where they got them. It’s really against their nature to be so secretive, but when you have a hookup on something that’s kind of rare, that was kind of a light bulb moment. I started talking about it with Matt.
Walters: It took him six weeks to convince me it was a good idea.
Why? Saffell: It’s one of the most difficult pieces of woodwork to make, to be able to have something that, for decades, is going to have liquid inside it and 20- to 30-percent humidity on the outside – the wood does some crazy things. The physics behind it are extreme.
How did you learn to make foeders? Saffell: Trial and error. We studied every foeder we could, which was very few, and there’s no information on the Internet on how to build them.
Walters: Which was a good thing because we changed how you build foeders. We basically re-engineered and “Americanized” the foeder to make it cheaper, faster to produce, easier to use and stable.
What is the advantage of a foeder compared to a barrel? Walters: The surface area to volume is different, so you have a lot less oxygen getting into that beer. And it’s a bigger vessel, so that allows the beer to mature and age without oxidizing as quickly. Also, the ratio of oak surface area to beer is a lot less so you won’t get as much oak taste. And ease of use – it beats the hell out of racking hundreds of barrels.
What size foeders do you make? Walters: We’ve made maybe 20 different sizes. A barrel is 31 gallons. We do a 7-barrel, 10, 15, 20, 30, 40, 50, 60, 75, 100.
Saffell: And a 250.
Walters: We haven’t built that one yet.
Saffell: We just have the order. We’re terrified.
Walters: We know we can do it.
Where do you source your wood? Saffell: That’s kind of a secret. It’s Missouri oak.
Walters: The French buy almost all the Missouri white oak they can get their hands on.
How’s business these days? Saffell: We have a backup of 20 that we have to build. It’s hard to keep up.
Walters: Usually we’ll ship to a client once a week. Sometimes there’s two or three foeders in a week. One brewer said, “Foeders are like tattoos. Once you get one, it’s just a matter of time before the next one.”
This article appears in September 2015.