INTO THE FIRE - NOLA DEFENDER
by Sam Nelson
With a recent boost from a victory at a local competition for entrepreneurs, the team behind Cajun Fire Brewing is poised to bring their beer and their story to a wider local audience.
Jon Renthrope and Adam Dawson don’t just make beer. They make beer look good. If Renthrope brings the substance to Cajun Fire Brewing, then Dawson brings the style. They lead a five-person team that looks like it could be on the cover of a millennial fashion magazine, but instead they are making beer that they hope tells a local story.
Their own story got a big bump when Cajun Fire won the Big Idea pitch contest on March 28 to cap Idea Village’s Entrepreneur’s Week. The $50,000 prize will help them secure a facility as Cajun Fire begins the process of becoming New Orleans’ third manufacturing brewery, after The Courtyard Brewery opens this summer (City Council approved Courtyard’s permit on April 10).
“All of that money is going to our facility,” Renthrope said.
Renthrope, the brewmaster and founder, is currently looking at properties in Mid-City, Bywater, Algiers, and the Lower Garden District, but will not confirm exact locations until a deal is set. Dawson said they are intent on locating the brewery in Orleans Parish. If they land in the Lower Garden District, the neighborhood could become the craft beer nexus of Louisiana with all three Orleans breweries located in close proximity alongside craft beer bars like the Bulldog and Avenue Pub nearby.
Cajun Fire Brewing is also the only African-American owned brewery in operation in the South, according to Dawson. In an industry that has long been dominated by white males, their example in the craft beer community will be significant for both brewers and drinkers. And, they want to add some "swag."
“Using our heritage and our roots, we want to bring a certain kind of flare to the industry,” Dawson said. “We want to raise awareness, not just for African-Americans, but for all folks, that you can do anything under the sun."
Renthrope and Dawson met at St. Augustine High School. Dawson had been attending University of Florida under an Alliance Partnership Academic Scholarship. He returned to St. Augustine with his friend, Paul Taylor, to talk to students about the scholarship in 2005. When Katrina hit, Renthrope went to the University of Florida to study environmental science.
His first craft beer was an Abita Purple Haze. Soon after, he decided to try to make his own craft beer in 2008 using the cooking equipment he brought with him to school. “I watched some videos on YouTube and tried my hand,” Renthrope said. “My first beer was really good. It was an imperial stout. My next two batches were not so good.”
Renthrope kept home-brewing through college, often using his biology coursework to inform his use of yeast strains.
When Renthrope moved back to New Orleans in 2011, he saw that only NOLA Brewing was making local beer in the city.
“There weren’t many beer options when I moved back,” Renthrope said. “It opened my eyes. I still wanted to go into environmentalism, but I decided to pursue beer. I put my time, savings, all of it into learning more about making beer.”
Renthrope teamed with his older brother Jomarque, who is an applied chemist, to help make and fine-tune beer recipes for Cajun Fire. Dawson, Taylor, and Renthrope’s fiancée, Courtney Wilson, round out the operations team.
Renthrope wants Cajun Fire to produce beer that connects to Louisiana culture and history.
“New Orleans has a beer history that’s truly itself," Renthrope said. “We have a product that’s under represented and a culture that’s under represented. We just want to keep that culture alive in a pint glass. And along the way we want people to realize that beer is art.”
“With beer, we like to throw history in there as well as modern ingenuity. I think that’s what art is—it’s capturing a memory and an emotion, and that’s what we hope to capture with our beer.”
Cajun Fire’s Praline Ale exemplifies this spirit. Renthrope’s grandfather, from Kinder, Louisiana, taught him how to make pralines, and Renthrope uses the same recipe for his amber ale, putting two pounds of pralines in the mash for five gallon batches.
“The pralines are so sweet, that’s all you really need,” Renthrope said.
For Acadiana Honey Ale Renthrope sources honey from Bernard’s Acadiana Honey in Breaux Bridge. He served the honey ale to everyone at the Big Idea pitch contest in March.
Renthrope is fine-tuning recipes for his brews, Ol' Yella American Pale Ale, Hoppy Hour IPA, Blueberry Lemon Ale, and a variation of the first beer he made, an imperial stout.
While Renthrope studies beer history and culture to inform his brewing, Dawson has done the same for the company’s designs. The degree holder in Visual Arts Studies may not be a beer expert, but his artistic ability is evident in Cajun Fire’s graphic designs, labels, and merchandise. Dawson isn’t just focused on branding, but using merchandise and label space as canvases for his work.
“Beer should tell a story,” Dawson said. “New Orleans has a huge story, and I want to highlight that history in every single bottle label that I make.”
For Hoppy Hour IPA, Dawson’s design of rustic wood, feathers, skyline and colors all highlight different aspects of local history and culture while alluding to Renthrope’s Native American roots and Dawson’s Creole heritage.
All of Dawson’s label designs can be seen here on the website or below.
Dawson also plans to launch a merchandising line with the same intent for quality design.
“I don’t ever want to make our merchandise look like it needed two shots and a beer for you to buy it,” Dawson said.
Cajun Fire hopes to secure a facility in the next 90 days, and then begin purchasing equipment and applying for permits. Along with the $50,000 prize from Idea Village, they won a year of free legal work from Chafe McCall, L.L.P. that will help them with the permit process. Renthrope’s goal is to open a taproom before Mardi Gras next year.
Renthrope said he plans to brew about 13,000 gallons in his first year. Dawson said they would like to build the taproom first and then allow customers in to drink while the parts of the brewery are being constructed, so they can witness the development of the brewery as they build it out. Dawson also wants to create a space in the brewery for visual and musical arts.
Renthrope plans to use his environmental studies background to build a brewery with sustainable environmental practices. He said he is exploring the utilization of solar panels, energy-efficient water management systems, and low carbon transportation options. The brewery is talking to a French company that produces shatter-proof glass bottles, although a sustainable canning line is more likely given New Orleans recycling climate, Renthrope said.
What’s most striking about Cajun Fire is how they balance their creative ambitions with respect for history and current brewers in the industry. They use all their experiences and studies in science, art, history and family to make their beer what it is. They are stylish, hard-working, and ambitious, but also cooperative with the craft beer community around them. If they can deliver consistently quality beers, they will likely become one of the most successful craft beer brands in the Deep South, while bringing the market much needed diversity.
“We plan to make some noise,” Dawson said. Beer drinkers will be listening.
