From Home Garage to Home Brewery: The Promising Future of Out.Haus Ales

This nanobrewery is almost solely a one-man effort

Don't let the name mislead you: the beers brewed by Out.Haus Ales do not taste like they came from an outhouse. In fact, they've proven to be a state-wide success, thanks to the relentless efforts of founder and self-distributor Thomas Albright. Albright has been operating the nanobrewery right out of his own home in Northwood since first obtaining the licensing this past November. After years of positive feedback on his home brewing from "friends of friends of friends," says Albright, he decided to go for it full-time. He never expected it to take off the way it did in just a few months.

"In the late '90s I owned a company in business consulting," says Albright, "and I had my own farm in Northwood. I've been home brewing since 2006, and decided to open my own one-barrel brewery after others living around me started to open theirs. I thought, 'why not'?"

Originally from Rochester, New York, Albright has lived in Northwood since 1999 and has many close friends from Massachusetts. Since he lived so out of the way from everyone else, his friends would joke that his house was an outhouse. The name stuck, and Albright decided to use it when he started his business, converting part of his garage into the brewery.

Albright says that the differences between a nanobrewery and a microbrewery not only have to do with the licensing fees, but also with the amount of barrels that are produced each year. According to him, a nanobrewery produces less than 2,000 barrels a year, with microbreweries producing anywhere from 2,000 to 60,000. Furthermore, nanobrewery operators are required to self-distribute to any participating retailers. Albright's current clients scatter different regions of the Granite State, in Hooksett, Wolfeboro, Manchester, Meredith, Nashua, Portsmouth and Hampton.

"I have a route set up with Map Quest," says Albright, "I travel and make deliveries depending on which places need more stock. The entire route takes about four hours. I always go from Portsmouth to Hampton, for instance, since they are close by to each other."

Aside from deliveries, Albright does nearly everything else himself, save for a few office tasks performed by his girlfriend. She will sometimes make phone calls inquiring when and if certain stores will need replenished shipments.

"I have friends from New York and Pennsylvania as well as Massachusetts," Albright says, "and some of them have gone to southern places like Nashua to try my beers. No one has come to Northwood, though. I just don't have the public space for it right now."

Albright currently brews a pale ale, IPA, brown ale and stout. In the future, he wants to incorporate some of his homemade craft beers into the mix, once Out.Haus Ales begins to gain more notoriety. He already has a couple of ideas in mind, like a maple ale and a coffee oatmeal stout. He also hopes to create an official website for Out.Haus Ales, as a way to gain more online presence (Currently you can visit Out.Haus Ales on Facebook).

But for now, he says his focus is on working towards purchasing a larger area of property in Northwood where he will have more space to brew.

Some of the retailers where beers brewed by Out.Haus Ales can be found are: the Candia Road Convenience Store in Manchester, the Case-n-Keg in Meredith and the Beer Store in Nashua. A full list can be found on the Facebook page, facebook.com/Out.Haus.

The brewery's official Tumblr page describes the long process of foundation through updated blogs over the course of its history. Out.Haus Ales was nearly two years in the making before becoming an officially licensed nanobrewery, and it is proving to be a worthwhile effort.