Richard Dubé, the Vice President of Brewing Operations at Christian Moerlein, is leaving the company effective immediately.
Richard came to Christian Moerlein with a very extensive brewing background including working at Labatt and Boston Beer Company as well as teaching at the prestigious Siebel Institute of Technology, one of the best brewing schools in the country.
Richard began working with Moerlein in 2012 opening and brewing at the Moerlein Lager House. He tweaked all the recipes that Moerlein had been contract brewing and bottling and in my opinion he drastically improved them. Initially these improved recipes were only available on premise at the Lager House on the Banks.
Just over a year after his arrival Christian Moerlein ended their contract brewing and opened their own production brewery in Over-the-Rhine. Once Moerlein was making all of its own beer Richard’s recipes became the base recipes for all Moerlein beers. Be it bottle or draft, the Lager House or La Rosa’s, if you were drinking Moerlein beer after March 2013 you were drinking a recipe from Richard. After reinvigorating the brand and helping launch the Moerlein production brewery in OTR he was promoted to the Vice President of Brewing Operations for all of Christian Moerlein.
This is obviously a huge loss for Christian Moerlein but I want all our readers to rest assured that Richard has hand-picked a great team of brewers at Christian Moerlein. I have faith that this team will continue to execute Richard’s recipes in excellent fashion.
As far as what the future holds for Richard himself, we don’t yet know. I got the impression that he is going to relax and spend some time with his family and perhaps run the Grand Canyon again (yeah… he’s in his 50s and ran down and backup the Grand Canyon. Just thinking of that makes me tired). What I do know is that in the past he has said his wife is not willing to move again. What does that mean? It mean’s Cincinnati has a fantastic brewer who isn’t going anywhere and won’t be able to sit still for long. No one knows what Richard is going to do but whatever he does will be in Cincinnati and will be delicious.
This is coming on the day of the celebration for the rebirthed Christian Moerlein’s 10th anniversary (for more on the full history of Christian Moerlein Brewing Company start my series here). Tonight at the production brewery in OTR they are having a celebration including some of their 10/161. 10/161 is the Christkindl that’s been bourbon barrel aged in Woodford Reserve barrels and is, in my opinion, very delicious.
Updated: Late last night I reached out to Moerlein CEO Greg Hardman and received his response this morning:
We appreciate the contribution Richard Dube made in assembling our team of talented brewers as we have a strong team of innovators that will continue to drive our commitment to craft brewing. As we have enjoyed tremendous growth at our Over-the-Rhine brewery in a short period of time, Christian Moerlein will continue to strengthen its position in the craft beer category. We do wish Richard the best of luck as he pursues other endeavors and thank our team for their continued creativity and commitment to our beers and our brand.
BrewMinds 
I hear the staff at Moerlien is fleeing like rats on a sinking ship. Bad news
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I had some of the 161 last week at the Tap Room. Yummy. It had a really creamy aftertaste (like a Barq’s cream ale===which is a compliment). Only now do I see that it was barrel aged…which explains the unique taste.
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I’ve really been enjoying the Moerlein beers recently. Dube obviously contributed to that uptick at Moerlein. But brewers do come and go, even at the best breweries in the country. There is no shortage of good brewing talent out there these days. Hopefully Moerlein’s commitment to quality will remain for many years to come.
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