| Orf Brewing is the brainchild of Chris Orf and Andreas Barrett. In the winter 1997, when Orf was couch-surfing for several months at Andreas' apartment in Tempe, Arizona, an idea formed: they would build and operate a combination brewpub and comedy theater. It was the perfect combination! They would get to drink great beer, eat yummy pub food, and be funny. Unfortunately, they had almost no brewing experience or restaurant experience between them. The funny, they had in spades. Later that year, Orf moved to New York and Andreas moved to Washington, DC. The brewpub-comedy theater idea lay fallow, but not forgotten. Andreas worked as a musician in the capitol area while Orf pursued his comedy career, working at various improv theaters and television shows in NYC. Orf also started homebrewing diligently, developing his own recipes to suit his tastes. Quite by accident, Orf found out that his scientific background (he has a master's degree in chemistry) and his tendencies to experiment ("what if I throw THIS into the mix?") combined in beer form to make ales that were distinctly different from what was generally available on the market--but were also really, really tasty. Orf and Andreas, being less than thrilled with their "survival" jobs--Andreas was teaching high school orchestra; Orf was working for an internet advertising firm---kept searching for ways to implement their long-held dream of a place where they could drink beer, be funny, and get paid for it. Prohibitive real estate costs in Manhattan and the DC area prohibited them from doing this as effectively as actual Prohibition ever could have. A stroke of good fortune in 2005 led Orf to meet his lovely then-future, now-current wife, Elana, at a music festival. Elana lived in Austin, Texas, and even had a steady job and owned a house. Not being a fool, Orf chose to move to Austin rather that force his new bride to relocate to the south Harlem apartment building where he lived. He found Austin to be a vibrant, creative city, with much more reasonable real estate prices and a relative dearth of breweries. The beer and comedy situation was suddenly looking much better! After much research and planning, the brewpub idea was junked in favor of a straight-up microbrewery. The comedy theater idea would need full-time management, it was determined, so Orf went about building relationships with the improvisational theaters in Austin. And now, in 2007, more than ten years after the initial kernel of the idea was planted, Orf Brewing is beginning to take root. With a menu of half a dozen delicious and distinct beers, plus relationships with the Austin Improv Collective, the ColdTowne Theater, and the Out Of Bounds Improv Festival and Minigolf Tournament, the dream is about to become a reality. And that ain't no joke. |
| *ABOUT THE BREWERY* | *BREWS* | *MERCH* | *NEWS & UPDATES* | *CREATIVITY IN OTHER FORMS* |
Both this website and brewery are still under construction.
We apologize for the placeholder nature of this current web page.
Please check back at a later date for more information.