Robin Shepard
Zak and Ryan Koga with a lot of Hopalicious cans.
Zak Koga, left, and Ryan Koga with their stash of Hopalicious cans they saved from the recycling bin.
The beers of Ale Asylum will soon be made in the brewhouse where many of them were originally created. Ryan and Zak Koga, brothers and co-owners of Karben4 Brewing, have purchased the Ale Asylum brands and their recipes from former Ale Asylum owners Otto Dilba and Dean Coffey, it was announced on March 16. The move means such beers as Ale Asylum’s long-standing flagship Hopalicious will soon be back on local shelves and on tap at bars, possibly as soon as the end of the month.
Ale Asylum ran into financial difficulties that worsened during the COVID pandemic. The brewery started looking for a buyer in summer 2021, but when negotiations with at least two suitors failed, the north side brewery closed in July 2022. Its final batches of its favorites, like Hopalicious, were made in April and May of last year.
Ale Asylum’s equipment and taproom furnishings were sold at auction in fall. The brands (i.e., labels and recipes) were still owned by Dilba and Coffey until they reached agreement this week with the Kogas. The Ale Asylum brands were purchased by the Kogas, not the Karben4 beer company. The purchase allows the Kogas to directly control the brands and then contract with Karben4 to brew them. Karben4 itself has a larger ownership group.
Ale Asylum opened in 2006 at 3698 Kinsman Blvd., the building that now houses Karben4. It remained there until 2012 when the business expanded into a new 45,000-square foot facility at Packers Avenue and International Lane. When Ale Asylum moved, its original space and much of the equipment was taken over by Karben4. Now that the Kogas have bought the Ale Asylum brands, beers that besides Hopalicious include Madtown Nutbrown, Ambergeddon, Unshadowed and others, will once again be made in the brewhouse where the recipes were originally created. Hopalicious will be the first to make a comeback, and others are expected to eventually follow. (Based on an early taste from the brite tank I was given in early March, Hopalicious fans should be very happy with the familiar aroma and flavor from the Cascade hops that made it so popular.)
“Those brands were strong. They started here and we have some of the people who were brewing them since the beginning working for us,” says Ryan Koga. In particular, long-time Ale Asylum brewer Brian Schoop, cellarman and brewer Zach Doyen and quality assurance manager Joe Walts now all work for Karben4.
“We are excited to bring Ale Asylum back to where it all began,” says Zak Koga. “They were really strong brands for 16 years, they were a leader in Madison, and we think this is a great opportunity.”
Over the past year Karben4 has been making a number of upgrades in the brewery that allow for room to make Ale Asylum beers. It recently installed a new canning line for faster packaging. And the Kogas purchased several pieces of equipment from Ale Asylum’s auction last fall.
When Ryan Koga picked up those items he noticed more than nine pallets, roughly 93,000 new (unused and empty) Hopalicious cans about to be tossed into the recycling bin. He immediately made arrangements for the cans to be transported to Karben4, where they’ve been stored since last fall. That was months before he and Zak had started negotiations to resurrect the beer. Fortunately those cans can now be put to use.
Ryan Koga also says there’s enough flexibility in Karben4’s production schedule to make about 4,000-5,000 barrels of beer more than it currently turns out annually. If capacity is used for Ale Asylum brands it will represent around one-third of Karben4’s total production.
Karben4 will use current distribution agreements with General Beverage to send cans and kegs statewide alongside its own beers. While Ryan Koga does have some concern that Ale Asylum beers may compete for tap handles and shelf space with that of Karben4, he sees such competition as internal and actually benefiting Karben4’s bottom line. Koga is also planning joint promotions, with Hopalicious being available in the Karben4 taproom, and he is open to co-packaging in variety packs.
New Ale Asylum beers are not out of the question, says Koga. “I hope over time that Dean Coffey might be interested in doing some research and development of new beers with us. If he wants to scratch that itch and come up with a new cool project, I think there’s going to be a way to do that,” says Ryan Koga, adding there is always an extra pair of brewer boots for Coffey to slip on any time he wants to take a shift in the brewery.
“Beers like Hopalicious shouldn’t die. It’s written in the soul of Madison craft drinkers, so it shouldn’t go away. We have the opportunity, the capacity, and the people who used to make it, so it makes business sense for us to do this,” said Ryan Koga.
The first batch of Hopalicious has been in the tanks at Karben4 since mid-February. The brewery will host a “Hopalicious Comes Home” event on March 22 when the beer will officially be re-released in Madison. Karben4 also allows fans of Hopalicious to reserve cases of the beer ahead of the party through the brewery’s website.
