Brewing an idea for Newburgh

Dustin Gunter is trying to turn passion into a career.

Gunter, who will graduate from Purdue in a few weeks, became interested in brewing beer his freshman year of college. He got a home brew kit and started experimenting with different recipes.

“I got excited about what I was making,” Gunter said. “I really had a lot of fun while I was doing it. Then, when I got done, I got to give it to family and friends that would then consume it and they really enjoyed it. They loved the taste and the aromas of great beer. I kept doing it, I kept getting better at it and the rest is history.”

Through his experimentation, Gunter has developed four beers — Anecdotes Ale, Dynamite IPA, American Wit and Sister City Brown — that will be the core of Burgh Brewing Company, a microbrewery he’s establishing in Newburgh.

Gunter grew up between Newburgh and Boonville. He graduated from Castle High School in 2010. Newburgh is where his family is, where he met his girlfriend — who he hopes will soon be his fiancee — and where he calls home.

“It’s just a great place, has a lot of great people in it,” he said. “I have a lot of friends there, my family’s there. I went to school and am more or less homesick a little bit. I’ve recognized Newburgh has a lot of great people. Newburgh fits the mold perfectly for craft brewery.” There are a few microbreweries in the area — as well as wineries — and Gunter hopes to bring that economic bolster to Newburgh. The multiple wine trails in the area are also a benefit.

“There’s a large beer tourism trade, more or less, in Indianapolis and also in other large cities — Louisville, Chicago, other large metropolitan areas,” he said. “There’s a really large beer tourism industry.” A craft brewer is defined as “small, independent and traditional.” That means the brewery has to produce six million barrels of beer or less per year, maintain 25 percent ownership by a member of the alcoholic beverage industry and produce beer traditionally.

“You want to be innovative, so that can be encompassed in the traditional because part of the tradition is being innovative,” Gunter said.

He’s been able to look at others in the industry as a source of inspiration. He said Jim Koch of Samuel Adams and Sam Calagione from Dogfish Head have been role models for him, but he has also developed relationships with local brewers.

“I know some of the guys who work in some of the breweries in Indianapolis and they’re great guys,” Gunter said. “I know some of the guys in Laffayette, some in Evansville. It’s a great community of individuals. It’s kind of a mutual respect between everyone that’s in the industry. Everyone learns from everyone and everyone is pursuing the same goals. It’s kind of looking up to those rock stars in the industry, as well as looking up to people who are close to you and keeping them close.”

Gunter is using crowd funding to help get Burgh Brewing Company off the ground.

“This is something that we’re really wanting the community to get involved with,” he said. “Our motto, more or less, is we are the sum of the people we’ve met and the experiences we’ve had. We’re really wanting that to be incorporated into the brewery. So, if that means the community can help out, the community can fund it, then that would be great because that means the community has a stake in the brewery itself. That’s really what we want to do is create a place for the community to be.”

Gunter said his ultimate goal is to be brewing beer for great people on whatever scale he’s able.

“Like most brewers, (we) want to grow, but they want to make sure that they maintain the same quality,” he said. “If could grow the brewery to distribute statewide or to the Midwest or even nationally would be great. I’m always wanting to make sure that what I’m doing, or what I’d be doing five years down the road if I were going statewide, I’d want to make sure that I’m still making the same quality as what I made on my stove or what I made on my stove a couple years ago.”