As Marika Josephson waxes lyrical about small farms, caring for the community, protecting regional agriculture and finding abundance in unlikely places, she sounds more like a philosopher than a beer brewer. In fact, she is both. Josephson, who is a partner in Scratch Brewing Company in Ava, Illinois, also has a Ph.D. in philosophy. It was, in fact, graduate school that brought Josephson and her husband to southern Illinois from New York.
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Founders and owners of Scratch Brewing Company, Marika Josephson and Aaron Kleidon, display a selection of roots, shoots and leaves, ingredients for Scratch beers.
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Scratch was named one of the most beautiful places in the world to drink beer thanks to its welcoming terraces and lush gardens.
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Many natural resources and materials found on the 75-acre property was incorporated into the Scratch facility during its growth and expansion.
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Kleidon chose to make beer in southern Illinois for its botanical diversity and overlapping ecoregions.
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From a puncheon, Josephson removes the spent grain leftover after the mashing process for compost.
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Kleidon stands over the copper kettle as the wort boils for 60 to 9 0 minut es with hops, botanicals and other ingredients.
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Some of Scratch's beers are aged in 135-gallon oak barrels where the beer will extract flavor from wild yeast and bacteria inhibiting the barrel.
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