The inside story of Rohrbach's Space Kitty DIPA as it approaches its 10th bday

The Citra-forward IPA makes up 20 percent of the brewery's production and has become a Rochester standard.

Inspired by Heady Topper (let’s be honest, that’s a sensationally inspirational beer), this is the story of an unexpectedly cheeky and fun double IPA that helped change the narrative for a craft beer original.

As Rohrbach Brewing’s Space Kitty DIPA approaches its 10^th birthday next month, I thought it would be fun and educational to look at the genesis of the beer, while exploring its past and present. What started as Citra DIPA brewed for Rochester Real Beer Week in 2014, became Space Kitty, still growing in production and sales, even if Rohrbach founder John Urlaub had to be convinced the goofy moniker was the right one for this beer.

(Don’t look back to my initial Untappd rating of the beer in 2015, because I was young, cruel, and didn’t know what the heck I was talking about.)

I even caught up with Space Kitty architect Zach Porrey, a former Rohrbach brewer who has worked at Northern California craft behemoth Firestone Walker for the past six years. For Porrey, the inspiration for Space Kitty came from two places: 1. His first experience with legendary craft DIPAs Heady Topper (from Vermont’s The Alchemist) and Pliny the Elder (the beer that arguably created American DIPAs from California’s Russian River Brewing); 2. Two boxes of hops in the Rohrbach walk-in cooler.

When he came up with this initial idea, Porrey said:

I was a very young and new brewer. I had a guy who was working on my car and he found out I was a brewer. He asked if I had ever had Heady. I said, ‘No.’ He hooked me up with a can of it and it kinda sent me spiraling. I was already in school through the American Brewers Guild. Some of my classmates were from the West Coast and I asked if there was any way they could get me Pliny the Elder fresh. I ended up having those two beers side-by-side. They were incredibly inspiring beers. And lo and behold, Rohrbach had bought a box of Citra and a box of Simcoe, two 22-pound boxes. I remember them sitting in the cooler for two weeks and they weren’t incorporated into anything. And I was like, ‘What the fuck are we doing with these hops?’ These are incredible and they make great beer. So I wrote up a recipe.

The initial batch was crafted on the brewery’s 7-barrel system at its Ogden location on Buffalo Road. The name came later. “At that point, it was just Citra DIPA, because JU (John Urlaub) was extremely conservative about beer and names. (Aside: Urlaub readily admits this.)”

There’s a little mystery where the name came from, however, Porrey said. Porrey said he thinks he was talking with former Rohrbach brewer Andy Walker (now the production manager at Lolev Brewing in Pittsburgh).

“When you put Andy Walker and I in the same room, the information starts to just go back and forth like a match of Pong,” Porrey said. “It’s a think tank that maybe you need mushrooms for. I think we were talking about cats and then cats in space. I think he might’ve come up with the name. I think he said, ‘Space Kitty.’ And I was like, ‘Dude, there’s the name of the beer.’ Pitching it to John Urlaub was extremely hard.”

(Fun Rohrbach tangent that I just learned in my last chat with Rohrbach founder John Urlaub: When the brewery opened at its original Gregory Street location in 1991, it was the 142^nd active brewery in the country when it got its license. “When I actually got the license, we looked and there were 141 other breweries currently operating in the United States,” Urlaub said. And then you look at it now and there are almost 10,000 brewers across the country. It was a long time ago, what a different world. But with a little bit of adjustment, I think the strong will survive. The people that do come out the other side will be better for it.”)

With the increasingly weird and tenuous reality of the craft beer industry (and in a climate where one brewery owner even told me, “Flat is the new growth), Rohrbach actually grew in 2024 and is on track to grow a little bit more in 2025 as it pushes its way toward 10,000 barrels of production. The brewery even installed two new 20-barrel fermenters in recent months and had to move its canning from the main production area into the space formerly occupied by Black Button Distilling. Rohrbach’s also renovated its Railroad Street Beer Hall, removing a half wall that used to separate its event room from the main taproom area. And then it opened its Barrel Room events facility in the former Black Button tasting room. It’s a pretty impressive glow up to a spot where Rohrbach has been making beer since 2008.

It’s not an insult to Urlaub a traditionalist. He likes what he likes and he believes in classic styles, brewed and presented beautifully and cleanly. So it’s cool to witness a legacy craft brand like Rohrbach continue to innovate, thrive, and grow. And a lot of that goes back to Urlaub’s willingness to trust and empower his team, even if he needs a bit of good-natured ribbing and harassment to convince him to try something different. That was certainly the case with Citra DIPA and its transition into Space Kitty DIPA, the beer that now accounts for 20 percent of the brewery’s production (just under 2,000 barrels produced last year). Wildly, the brewery’s iconic Scotch Ale remains the top seller. Urlaub said it makes up about 33 percent of the brewery’s total production.

“We’re finding our way,” Urlaub said.

I can still recall the first time I tried Citra DIPA. It was on one of those Rochester Public Market Saturdays when you could visit Rohrbach and enjoy a few samples of beer before taking home a growler. It was before it was legal for breweries to pour pints in their taprooms (that changed due to an updated state law in 2014). This was before the brewery transitioned from growlers to cans. Brittany Statt, then a marketing intern at the brewery, poured that first Citra DIPA sample for me. (More from Statt, an important player in the Rohrbach renaissance, in a bit.) I remember it so vividly, thinking, “Holy shit, I can’t believe this is a hoppy beer from Rohrbach’s.” It was so unlike anything I’d ever had from the brewery.

And clearly, I wasn't the only person with this reaction. (Fun coincidence: It was right about the same time that I was assuming the mantle as the D&C beer columnist. And that went pretty well.) At the 2014 Rochester Real Beer Expo, Citra DIPA was recognized as the best new local beer of the event, an honor that showed this beer might have some legs beyond being a one-off pilot batch.

“I have to really credit Zach,” Urlaub said. “We’ve always had talented brewers. We are constantly asking them for ideas and thoughts and letting them run with it. Sometimes you just get really lucky.”

Since that initial batch, Urlaub said the beer has remained largely unchanged, something that showcases Porrey’s original inspiration and vision. During a round-table discussion, Urlaub said the brewers were encouraged to be as weird as they wanted.

“Nothing was off the table,” he said. Porrey pitched the idea for a Citra-forward DIPA and proposed calling “Space Kitty.” Urlaub scoffed, thinking, “No way, that’s just so off-brand for us. I didn’t like it all. After the meeting, Jim McDermott (former Rohrbach director of brewing operations) pulled me aside and said, ‘John, you know, you told these guys to be creative.’ I was mad. I said, ‘Go ahead and call it Space Kitty, but it’s a stupid name.’”

So with that, a local legend was launched in 2015.

“I didn’t think it was the right fit for us,” Urlaub added. “But of course, it was perfect. Sometimes I get put in my place and I’m happy to be totally wrong.”

Photo by me: The current Space Kitty family.

Urlaub shared that Space Kitty remains the fastest-growing brand in the brewery's portfolio. “We’re really lucky. Scotch Ale is a flagship and all our brands sell pretty well, but that (Space Kitty) grew more than any other brand last year. It’s still growing, which is pretty cool.

“I think in the IPA category people are much more adventurous. They love to try new things. But I think Space Kitty is unique in a way, because it’s a lot of peoples’ go-to. Not everybody is adventurous. People trust it. We’re lucky in that way.”

(Of note, I’d venture that my in-laws, Dave and Liz, are the number one consumers of Space Kitty in Monroe County. It’s never not in their fridge.)

And Rohrbach has played into the strength of the Space Kitty brand by expanding the family with a series of new releases such as Tropikitty pineapple DIPA, the recently released Tangerine Space Kitty, and the new Cosmic Krush hazy IPA, which is the latest beer to join the Rohrbach flagship family (it essentially replaces the Different Animal IPA).

(Here’s a free idea, Rohrbach: A Space Kitty-themed variety pack called something like “Box of Kitties” or “Kitty Litter.” You’re welcome!)

How to put a kitty in space

Like I mentioned earlier, Brittany Statt has been in and around the Rohrbach brand and family for over a decade. She started as a marketing intern and tasting room associate, eventually became marketing and brand director (responsible for social media and the visual identity of the brewery), and then launched her own company, B. Brandhouse Design & Marketing. She still designs all Rohrbach beer labels.

Space Kitty was one of her earliest designs for the brewery. And like the beer recipe itself, the label has only seen minor tweaks in the past 10 years. That speaks to the strength of her design, but also shows how it has become somewhat of a local icon. Statt said she loves when she’ll cross paths with someone wearing a Space Kitty shirt. It reminds her of how much the brand has penetrated the local consciousness and become part of the local beer fabric.

So what inspired the Space Kitty label and why has it remained largely unchanged in the last decade?

Originally, Space Kitty was released in 22-ounce bombers as part of the brewery’s old Neoteric Series. That was the old umbrella the brewery utilized to release these one-offs and experimental batches. It eventually migrated into cans and became part of the brewery’s core rotation around 2016. Statt didn’t design the first label (that honor went to the girlfriend of one of Porrey’s buddies and he still has the original label framed and displayed in his California apartment).

But Statt was entrusted with helping Space Kitty establish its visual identity.

“This beer was Zach’s baby and it was his name,” Statt said. “He was the one who advocated for it and pushed for it. It was very different for the brand at the time. There was some hesitation. But ultimately, they let him run with it and trusted him. It was obviously a great thing they did.

“It was super fun and kind of difficult for me. Only because it was so different for Rohrbach. When you are doing packing and coming from the space of having a unified brand, all of that went out the window with Space Kitty. It’s probably the most creative or funky, for lack of a better term, challenge that I’ve gotten.”

rohrbachbrewingco

A post shared by @rohrbachbrewingco

She was newly graduated from RIT when she started guiding the Rohrbach brand. “It was right when everyone was making the switch to cans and we were all learning,” she said. “We had done growlers for so long and it was such a different process. Art-wise, production-wise, for everything.”

She admitted that she didn’t expect this label would join the “Classics” or flagship lineup. That stable already included Scotch Ale, Blueberry Ale, Vanilla Porter, and High Lager, beers that had all been brewed for 20 years when Space Kitty joined the litter. That also led to a sense of freedom, because she didn’t put as much pressure on herself, she said.

To approve the label production and design, Statt had to drive down to a Ball cans manufacturing site in Virginia. Urlaub even had to sign off on Statt renting a car, because she wasn’t old enough to legally do so solo yet.

“I did not know what I was doing, but I worked hard to make sure I did,” Statt said.

A final note: It’s pretty wild to think I’ve been working on this independent publication for over two years now. In that time, I’ve published nearly 250 newsletters, highlighted some of my favorite people in the industry, curated two beers festivals (that featured 150 participants and 4,600 attendees), and continued to break all the biggest news in the region (closures, consolidations, openings, etc.).

The Cleveland Prost remains the preeminent source for regional beer news. If you own a brewery, bar, or beer-adjacent business, this is the best place to reach the nerds you wanna be in front of. So I remain open to sponsorships, advertisements, and sponsored content. Feel free to reach out to me at clevelandprost@gmail.com for more. And more than anything, thanks for all the support. None of this would be possible without the devoted (and thirsty) audience.