Brewmaster behind Blue Moon creating cannabis-infused beer
Nonalcoholic drink is required because of law against mixing with THC.
The man behind Blue Moon Belgian White Ale wants consumers to drink more beer.
So his new suds sub THC for alcohol. Brewmaster Keith Villa on Wednesday unveiled his latest beer venture: Ceria Beverages, an Arvada-based company developing a line of nonalcoholic craft beers that are infused with compounds derived from cannabis — including the psychoactive ones.
“I’ve been seeing firsthand where consumers are drinking less and less beer,” and opting instead for wine, spirits, sparkling water or even cannabis, said Villa, who retired in January from a 32-year brewing career with MillerCoors. “This is an alternative to regular, alcoholic craft beer.”
Ceria partnered with Ebbu, a Colorado company that develops cannabinoid extracts and formulations used in infused products. For Ceria, the company tailored extracts said to provide consumers with feelings of relaxation, bliss or uplift.
CEO Jon Cooper said he started Ebbu to solve a vexing issue for cannabis consumers: The Blue Dream marijuana strain they were buying from one dispensary could generate wildly different sensations than the Blue Dream bought at the next shop down. The company has learned to manufacture infusions that deliver consistent and specific sensory experiences.
“It really gives a person control over the experience that they’re having,” he said.
On its face, Ceria will look much like a craft brewer. Villa will develop a couple of types of beer — probably an American-style light lager, perhaps an imperial IPA, and most definitely a Belgian-style wheat — and then put them through a de-alcoholization process.
The alcohol-free suds will then be sent to a licensed cannabis manufacturing facility, where they will be infused with Ebbu’s proprietary water-soluble cannabinoids. From there, the brews can be shipped to licensed dispensaries.
While cannabis beverages currently represent a sliver of the state-legal marijuana products sold, sales of infused colas, teas and waters have steadily in- creased. During the first six months of 2017, cannabis beverage sales in Colorado, Oregon and Washington totaled $13 million, up 26 percent, according to BDS Analytics.
It remains illegal for alcoholic products to contain marijuana or certain parts of the hemp plant, leaving brewers to come up with crafty solutions.
Villa has dabbled with the concept of cannabis-infused beers since Colorado launched legal sales of recreational marijuana in 2014.
“As a beer professional, it really opened up a lot of ideas,” he said.
Villa delved into researching cannabis, a cousin of the hops plant, and started some off-theclock experiments. The resulting brews had to be kept under wraps and completely separate from his work at MillerCoors lest he lose his brewmasters license for adding a Schedule I substance into a federally regulated alcohol product.
Ceria plans to start selling its beers in Colorado by the end of the year and is pursuing licensing agreements in other adult-use markets such as California, Massachusetts, Nevada and Oregon for 2019.
Meanwhile Villa’s former employer, Molson Coors Brewing Co., which maintains headquarters in Denver and Montreal, is continuing to monitor the impact of legal cannabis on beer sales.
“As the legal landscape changes in Canada and evolves in the U.S., we are working actively to understand the impacts on our business, if any, and the range of appropriate responses in the interests of our company and our stakeholders,” Colin Wheeler, a Molson Coors spokesman, said in February. “We’ll take our time and get it right, consistent with our values as a company and our commitment to responsibility.”