“I thought that Mortal Kombucha was trying to be a hard kombucha, probably from day one,” Becca Schepps tells Boulder Weekly. You know Schepps: she’s the woman you read about two weeks ago, the one who started the Boulder-based kombucha company slightly out of spite and guided it to a successful line of non-alcoholic beverages adorning grocery store shelves around town. Well, that was only half the story, because Schepps’ kombucha isn’t just hanging out in the coolers with the sodas and coconut water, but by the beer aisle as well. She calls them Mortal XXX, four hard kombuchas clocking in at 5.2 percent alcohol by volume apiece: Cucumber Cool Off, Guavaloha Punch, Lavender Afternoon, and Pineapple Kapow.
But, there was a hitch. Schepps knew how to make kombucha; she just didn’t know how to make beer.
“It’s not as easy to make an alcohol product if you have no brewing experience,” Schepps says.
So, she went looking for someone who did.
“I was bothering every person I knew in beer,” she continues. “Like, ‘Help me do this.’”
But kombucha contains active yeast, and most brewers are about controlling yeast.
“Breweries do not like kombucha,” Schepps says. “They don’t want it in their lines. They don’t want to share kegs with you because you could just ruin their whole life.”
Thankfully, Schepps had a connection with the guys at Boulder Fermentation Supply. They were the ones who helped her learn how to make kombucha in the first place. And they are the ones who run the brewery next door, VisionQuest, and are no strangers to off-kilter projects.
“Adam Kandle was like: ‘Okay, I’ll help you figure out how to make hard kombucha,’” Schepps recalls.
It also helped that Kandle had recently opened a third business, this one in North Boulder: Adamant Brewing & Blending. Dedicated to mixed fermentation and oak-focused beers, Adamant was a chance for Kandle to play around with anything that might contaminate Vision Quest’s clean beers, including hard kombucha. That was in the fall of 2019. “In the winter, we had something really solid,” Schepps says.
So Schepps ordered cans and labels, and Mortal XXX was ready for stores on March 6, 2020, with a launch party scheduled for March 13. “And then the world shut down,” Schepps says with a laugh. “The worst day in the world to launch a new product.”
But like the pandemic-induced pause that allowed Schepps to regroup and reimagine the direction Mortal Kombucha was taking, the same happened with Mortal XXX, including finding a new brewery. Kandle closed Adamant in June 2020, and Natural Groceries and Whole Foods were ready for their second order.
“We started talking to our co-packer [Rocky Mountain Cultures] up in Gypsum, who was trying to get their liquor license,” Schepps says. “But the TTB had also kind of—not shut down—but been on pause for approving new liquor licenses.”
So Rocky Mountain Culture’s vice president of product development and quality control, Steven Dickman, contacted Bonfire Brewing in Eagle.
“Because they’re best friends,” Schepps explains. “Bonfire was like, ‘Yeah, come over. We’ll R&D it, and we’ll make it for you.’ So we made it with them for a little bit until our co-packer got their liquor license up and running.”
Which makes things a whole lot easier for Schepps. Now Mortal Kombucha and Mortal XXX share the same base kombucha and are made in the same facility under the watchful eye of Dickman—no stranger to kombucha himself as he founded High Country Kombucha back in 2004.
The only thing left standing in Schepps’ way is consumer perception. Kombucha is pretty popular these days. So are beer alternatives like cider and seltzer. And while it seems like hard kombucha should be a no-brainer, inconsistencies and scalability issues from other producers have held hard kombuchas back. A trend Schepps is hoping Mortal XXX can buck.
“This is a more exciting way to get seltzer,” Schepps says. “You like seltzer, but you feel kind of like, meh, after you drink it? Here you go, try this . . . You like cider, but you can only have a few because, like, they have that tart, too tart, taste after a while. Try this.”
“So the idea is to really get that word out,” Schepps says. “Don’t be scared of hard kombucha. It is a great low calorie, gluten-free functional beer alternative that can taste just as good as your pilsners, pale ales, ciders, saisons, and sours.”
