Chefs such as Josh Niernberg at Bin 707 Foodbar in Colorado are finding ways to marry their local flavors and tap lines. Bin 707 is in Grand Junction, just 25 miles east of the Utah border, in the fertile region known as the state’s wine country. It’s also historically renowned for beet farming. Niernberg sources his from nearby Palisade, where sugar beets were once a big industry.

“We’ll use them fresh, salt-roasted, smoked, and pickled—that’s how we manipulate acid, salt, and savory [in a dish].” It’s a vegetarian riff on his elk tartare, which upon first glance looks identical, but the beets are either salt-roasted or smoked, tossed with citrus, dressed with a vinaigrette, topped with honey yogurt, then adorned with puffed beet-dyed tapioca crisps and a crest of frisée. “I’m big on sour [beers], not super heavy on barrel, with a little bit of salinity,” says Niernberg, suggesting Verboten Brewing’s Roll in Ze Watermelon Gose as a perfect foil for the beet dish. “The beer has green rind, not bright red watermelon flavor,” which adds a splash of necessary acid to beets’ inherent earthiness.

Preserving Local Flavors

When Niernberg and his wife opened the restaurant in 2008, access to local seasonal produce highly informed their menu. There was no shortage of opportunities, but in trying to capture the rich and vibrant farming community, so much of the menu conception was preserving those flavors for future use. Fermentation is a main component of Bin 707’s larder. “Wild beers are hand-in-hand with preservation,” from the many pickles to conservas that are highlighted on the menu, pairing well with Crooked Stave’s lacto–fermented sours and farmhouse beers like Jester King’s Le Petit Prince, with notes of citrus and straw. “I want to sit down and session [these beers] with dinner,” notes Niernberg.

Another facet that Niernberg considers is cellulose, the fibrous cell structure of many fruits and vegetables. “It’s more the [water] weight of the dish than anything,” Niernberg states, explaining the dehydration process he uses for most vegetables. “First we dehydrate, then use a 3 to 4 percent saline brine, do some lacto-fermentation, then slice and dehydrate again.” Not all of his bumper crop fare becomes condiments or crispy chips, though—a transformation that is less about taste than texture.

In a similar form, radishes are ubiquitous as crisp accents and garnishes, tiled atop a trout rillette as if scales, or found throughout the menu at Tacoparty, Niernberg’s taco shop down the street from Bin 707. When it comes to the array of radishes, Niernberg believes “their sweet spot is a cold fresh lager,” offering up Rhode Island’s own Narragansett Lager, which is new to Colorado. Even though radishes aren’t the star of a mussels and lemon verbena curry dish, Niernberg uses large slices of daikon in place of bread, adding a clean, fresh bite to the dish.

For smaller snacks, Niernberg self-admittedly overutilizes a common brassica: cauliflower, which he deems “the champion of any appetizer.” Crispy fried cauliflower is strewn over sunflower and mayacoba hummus and drizzled with spicy and sweet honey-inflected chili oil, giving the dish a kick. The same impact is found in Tacoparty’s crispy cauliflower taco, with green chile mole verde, queso fresco, sage honey, chives, and salsa macha, all on a house-nixtamalized blue corn tortilla. Here, pale ales and IPA reign, cleansing the palate of heat and sweetness.

Another often overlooked vegetable is the humble potato, which Niernberg highlights in a yellow banana potato bisque—paying homage to the San Luis Valley, which prospered from the potato economy for the past 150 years—bolstered by a kick of ‘nduja (soft Calabrian sausage) and dotted with trout roe and herb oil. Niernberg loves pairing this with Crooked Stave’s Sour Rosé Ale to amplify the spice while contrasting the starch. La Cumbre’s Vivid Wild Hazy IPA and Bottle Logic’s Hanamachi Black Rice Lager also grace the menu, adding a bitter backbone and a nutty dry complement, respectively, to many dishes that call out Colorado’s famous Olathe sweet corn, Fremont beans, and more.

A Supporting Role

Ji Hye Kim, of Miss Kim in Ann Arbor, Mich., tends to cast vegetables in supporting roles as opposed to the lead on a plate, such as pea shoots tossed with garlic and jalapeño, miso butter-glossed asparagus, and sauteed corn round, which are largely inspired by Korean banchan. These side dishes, kimchi and beyond, are traditionally placed on the table before the main dish arrives. “When we first opened [Miss Kim], we had entrees with three or four banchan, which included kimchi.”

“Bitter greens, like watercress or spicy mustard greens, go surprisingly well with slight bitter notes,” Kim comments, noting dishes like classic Bibimbap, a rice bowl with greens, pickled vegetables, and topped with a fried egg, or Tteokbokki, sauteed rice cake rounds often served with seasonal vegetables and mushrooms, a dish inspired by 19th-century vegan cuisine served in palaces. For lighter salads, she’ll tend to choose lighter beers, like Upland Brewing Co.’s ​​Champagne Velvet and Brew Detroit’s Citrus Blonde, allowing guests to really taste the vegetable instead of overpowering it.

“Beer with Korean cuisine functions a bit differently than other foods,” explains Kim, describing the philosophy of chimaek (chicken and beer) and pimaek (pizza and beer)—words that define certain food and drink combinations in Korea. Kim believes vegetables and beer should be held in the same regard. “Ya, which means vegetable, is also a prefix for something sexy, so why not make vegetables and beer sexy and call it yamaek?” 

When Miss Kim opened in fall of 2017, “Drinkers just wanted IPAs, but not all IPAs are the same,” Kim concedes, “whereas with these [aforementioned] pairings, beer is meant to refresh the palate.” She serves many saisons, Pilsners, and light lagers, like Stillwater Artisanal Ale’s Extra Dry sake-style saison, and will occasionally offer a porter or stout. She also likes Brew Detroit’s Cerveza Delray Oscura, a dark Mexican lager. Kim connects these darker flavors to Korean BBQ, in which most meat is marinated in deeper, dark flavors like soy sauce, garlic, sesame, and scallions, without any acidic element—pickles and kimchi provide that balance, but so does beer.

Recipes

Yellow Banana/Jelly Potato Bisque

By Josh Niernberg, Bin 707, Tacoparty

Yield: Approximately eight 10-ounce servings

This recipe uses small fingerling-style Colorado-grown yellow potatoes from the San Luis Valley. We’ve seen them called Yellow Banana and Yellow Jelly potatoes. The key is a very low starch/high sugar content potato.

Ingredients

• 2 pounds diced yellow potatoes (skin on, stored in water to prevent oxidation until needed)
• ¼ pound diced yellow onion
• ¼ pound diced celery
• ¼ pound diced fennel bulb
• 4 ounces nduja sausage (we use Elevation brand)
• 1 ounce minced garlic
• 1 ounce diced shallot
• 2 ½ cups white wine (we use High Desert Wine Lab White Light Riesling)
• 1 quart heavy cream
• 1 quart milk
• ¼ cup apple cider vinegar
• ¼ cup honey
• salt & pepper (of choice: white, cayenne, guajillo, or black)
• High quality first press olive oil or infused oil such as chive or parsley
• Multicolor potato chips
• Creme fraiche/sour cream
• Fennel fronds
• Trout roe (optional)

Directions

1. Preheat oven to 400 degrees.
2. In a large oven-safe stockpot sweat the fennel, onion, and celery until translucent. Do not brown.
3. Add nduja to vegetable mixture and slowly render completely over medium-low heat, stirring constantly.
4. Deglaze with white wine.
5. Add potatoes and cover with parchment.
6. Place pan in oven and roast for approximately 45 to 55 minutes or until potatoes are soft.
7. Remove from oven and add milk, cream, honey, and vinegar. Stir and let cool slightly.
8. Working in small batches, blend equal amounts of solids to liquids. You could use a stick blender here; we really like a high-speed blender like a Vitamix to smooth out the bisque as much as possible.
9. Return the finished bisque to the stock pot and heat to barely a simmer, stirring often over low heat.
10. Season with salt and pepper and adjust balance with apple cider vinegar/honey as needed.

Note: If bisque is too thick, adjust with either milk or water. Make sure to readjust seasoning after diluting as needed.

To serve:

Garnish the bisque with a dollop of both crema and parsley oil. Make a crescent shape around the crema and oil with lightly crushed multi color potato chips. Gently add trout roe (if using) to the chips. Garnish the chips and roe with fennel fronds.

Tteokbokki, Royale Style

By Ji Hye Kim, Miss Kim

This is a quick and easy vegan version of the sauteed Tteokbokki we serve at Miss Kim. It was inspired by the old palace version of Tteokbokki from the 19th century. The original palace version is very luxurious, full of various vegetables and mushrooms, pine nuts, and beef. We make ours simpler with seasonal vegetables and mushrooms, quickly sauteed in a hot pan to order. We decided to skip the beef because the vegan version was so tasty and we didn’t think it needed meat.

For the sauce:

• 100g Korean soy sauce
• 40g mirin
• 25g Gochujang sauce
• 5g Perilla oil
• 10g chopped scallions
• 5g minced garlic
• 15g brown sugar

Mix all ingredients in a large bowl, making sure all the sugar is dissolved. Keep the finished sauce refrigerated. It will last a few weeks.

For the rice cakes (aka tteokbokki):

• 2 cups rice cakes shaped specifically for Tteokbokki
• 4 tablespoons Royale Tteokbokki sauce (above)
• ½ cup mushrooms (we like shiitake, shimeji, and maitake; cremini or button mushrooms are good too!), sliced into ¼ inch pieces
• ½ cup vegetable that you have on hand (we love winter squash or carrots), cut into ½-inch pieces
• 2 tablespoons scallions
• Pinch granulated sugar
• 1.5 tablespoons neutral oil like canola (for sauté)
• 2 tablespoons neutral oil like canola (for roasting)
• Garnish: Chopped scallions and sesame seeds

Directions

1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees.
2. In a mixing bowl, toss the mushrooms with 1 tablespoon oil, a pinch of salt, and pepper. Place the mushrooms on a baking sheet and roast in the oven for about 10 to 15 minutes until brown around the edges.
3. In a mixing bowl, toss the mushrooms with 1 tablespoon oil, a pinch of salt, and pepper.
4. Place the vegetables on a baking sheet and roast in the oven for 15 minutes or until soft but not falling apart. Let cool.
5. Place a heavy steel pan wok on the stove over medium-high heat. When the pan is hot, add 1.5 tablespoons of oil and roll it around to cover the pan. Sprinkle the pan with a pinch of sugar evenly.
6. Add the rice cakes to the hot pan and toss. Leave them for a minute or two until the bottom is golden brown. Toss in the pan and let them cook for another minute or two until most of the rice cakes are toasted golden brown, crispy on the outside but tender when poked.
7. Add mushrooms and vegetables and toss to mix well with the rice cakes.
8. Add the sauce to the pan and toss well so everything is well coated with the sauce. Cook for another minute until the rice cakes are nicely toasted brown. Make sure the rice cakes are not burnt and there is no pool of sauce on the bottom of the pan.
9. Place the cooked rice cakes and the vegetables into a pasta bowl. Garnish with sesame seeds and chopped scallions to serve.

The post A Great Beer for Greens appeared first on CraftBeer.com.

Cooling Down

Hiking or camping in the dog days of summer can be a sweaty endeavor, and a lighter beer can be the perfect refreshing treat when you’re taking a break from activity.

Nocterra Brewing’s Trail Break Lager is a classic Munich helles with a twist—it’s hopped with Saphir for a pop of citrus on the finish. This 5.2% ABV lager from Ohio was inspired by one of the best-known hiking trails in the country.

“The can label is a very specific color of blue modeled after the blue blazes on the Appalachian Trail,” explains Nocterra marketing manager James Knott. “Most of the blazes are white if you’re doing a through-hike, but the blue blazes represent side hikes, which are often good places to take breaks. When I think of Trail Break, I think of the end of that long hike. You set up camp, sit around the campfire with your fellow hikers, and talk about your day and life in general.”

Our wild spaces are nothing without pollinators, and the best-selling Honey Kolsch from Rogue Ales in Oregon celebrates our buzzing companions with a kiss of wildflower honey in a crisp and gentle 5% ABV package. Sipping this beer outdoors reminds us that we share this earth with every living thing. Those flowers beside the trail are there because of pollinators!

Jade Mountain’s Shaolin Light Lager is brewed within sight of Colorado’s Rocky Mountains, and its name is a reference to a unique climb taken by the founders. The brewery started out as a tea shop in southern China before moving to Colorado and launching the brewing operation, and still incorporates many Asian ingredients such as tea, Buddha’s hand, and squid ink. It’s this super light 4% ABV beer that has the brewers’ hearts, though.

“We did a lot of unintentional hiking in China,” says co-founder Sean Guerrero. “The Shaolin Temple is right on top of the mountain. The only way to get up there was on foot. Shaolin is our brewer’s beer.”

Warming Up

There’s something about a campfire that pushes a comfort button deep in the human brain. When combined with a perfectly toasted s’more, a fire is as cozy as it gets. But what if you want your s’more in liquid form?

High Water’s Campfire Stout from California is a 6.5% ABV stout brewed with graham crackers, molasses, vanilla, and toasted marshmallow. The beer won gold medals at the Great American Beer Festival in 2014 and 2016 and isn’t so strong that you can’t enjoy it on the warm summer nights outdoors.

Idawild Brewing in Idaho takes a similar approach for its 5.3% ABV Fireside S’mores Stout. Brewed with lactose, Tahitian vanilla, chocolate wheat, chocolate malt, and cinnamon graham crackers, Fireside was dreamed up on a camping trip to nearby Ponderosa State Park.

“We were camping and having s’mores and I was drinking a stout,” says co-founder and brewer Matt Nader. “That’s when I decided to brew a beer like this.”

If you want to combine the smokiness of the campfire with a light, crisp beer, seek out Live Oak’s Grodziskie. This Polish wheat ale brewed in Texas weighs in at only 3% ABV, but the 100% oak-smoked wheat malt packs the evocative character of the campfire right in the can.

Hitting the Trail

If you’re hiking or doing strenuous outdoor activity, you might want a break from alcohol altogether, but that doesn’t mean you can’t still enjoy the flavor of good beer. Self Care’s non-alcoholic beers are brewed by Three Magnets Brewing in Washington. Self Care describes Scherler as the “Easiest Non-Alcoholic Premium Shitty Light American Lager,” but goes on to clarify they mean that in, you know, a good way. Pack some Scherler in your cooler or backpack and skip the buzz while still enjoying a familiar style.

Many breweries brew beers as direct tributes to the lands that surround them. Allagash’s From Maine with Love series is a great example. The beers in this series are adapted from pilot batches based on employee recommendations, so while every batch is a completely different style, all of them serve as love letters to the great state of Maine. No. 27, which came out this spring, is a lager loaded with botanicals.

“The idea is a remake of a beer called Spaghett,” says Brett Willis, head of communications, describing a cocktail made by adding Aperol and a squeeze of lemon to a popular macro lager. “No. 27 is a light lager with a bunch of botanicals added to it: rhubarb, red cinchona, angelica root, and gentian root. It’s a quintessential Allagash beer brewed with local malt and local flaked corn.”

Willis says a lot of folks at Allagash enjoy the outdoors, and the brewery gives back to help preserve wild spaces.

“One of the most tangible examples is the Appalachian Mountain Club,” says Willis. “They have a Dark Sky Park that is so non-developed, there is almost no light pollution at all. We help them with maintaining that designation.”

Short’s Spring IPL is brewed in partnership with Pure Michigan, and the brewery describes it as “a lager we hopped to heck.” The 5.1% ABV beer is brewed with all Michigan ingredients and serves each year as a reminder that summer is around the corner.

Recognizing Our History

No matter where you’re camping or hiking in North America, it’s important to pay homage to the land’s original habitants. While land acknowledgements seek to recognize the crimes of our colonial past, Shyla Sheppard of Bow & Arrow Brewing in New Mexico wanted to go further in bringing attention to whose land we live on.

The Native Land beer project is a collaboration that can be brewed at any participating brewery. This Mexican lager is brewed with heirloom blue corn at Bow & Arrow, but Sheppard has encouraged breweries to use corn native to their own regions when brewing their version. Wherever it’s brewed and enjoyed, the beer serves as a reminder of the original residents of the land, and our own responsibility to both the land and our fellow humans.

Head into the outdoors and enjoy one of these great camping beers the next time you’re in the wilderness!

The post The Great Outdoors: Beers to Enjoy while Camping appeared first on CraftBeer.com.

Here are a few styles to wet the whistle and examples of where to find them from local and regional brewers.

Berliner Weisse: Berliner weisse is the lightest of all wheat beers, originating in Berlin and enjoyed by the likes of Napoleon Bonaparte, who called it “The Champagne of the North.” These light and tart beers can be enjoyed fruited or unfruited and can provide relief on even the hottest days since their alcohol content is typically quite low (between 2.8% and 5%).

• For Berliner weisse, try: Creature Comforts Brewing Company’s Athena Berliner Weisse (unfruited) or Swamp Head Brewery’s Lemon Days (fruited).

Italian-Style Pilsner: One of the newest styles that American craft brewers have embraced, Italian Pilsner has become a favorite beer style for many. An Italian Pilsner is typically aggressively hopped with noble varieties but is a very dry lager otherwise. This fan-favorite and brewer-beloved beer style can walk drinkers through even the summer swelter with a low alcohol content and maximum lager goodness.

• For Italian-Style Pilsner, try: Firestone Walker Brewing Company’s Pivo Pils or Fort Point Beer Company’s Sfizio Italian-Style Pilsner.

Kolsch: This dry, crisp beer is a well-kept secret within the beer community. Originating from Cologne, Germany, this light-bodied beer has been a favorite of American brewers and beer lovers for many years. Whether chosen for poolside enjoyment or tapped for food-pairing potential, Kolsch is a versatile beer for all seasons—summer and beyond.

• For Kolsch, try: Mother Earth Brewing Company’s Endless River Kolsch-Style Ale or VonTrapp Brewing’s Kolsch Style.

Belgian-Style Witbier: While this style of beer is usually cloudy, it maintains a light body and a bright citrus character that can refresh on even the hottest of days. With an alcohol presence of less than 6%, the Belgian-style witbier fits any occasion from boats to beaches to backyards and beyond.

• For Belgian-style witbier, try: Celis Brewing Company’s Celis White or Allagash Brewing Company’s White

Mexican-Style Lager: An outgrowth of classic German lager styles, Mexican-style Lager was born from German brewers who emigrated to Mexico and longed to produce the lagers of the Old World. With a slight fruit character and low alcohol content, there is almost no bitterness to speak of in these clear lagers, only waves of refreshment radiating like the sun against the shore.

• For Mexican-style lager, try: 21st Amendment Brewing’s El Sully Mexican-Style Lager or Sun King Brewing Company’s Pachanga Mexican-Style Lager.

Session IPA: Designed especially for hop lovers who want to enjoy all of the flavor without the big body of an IPA or double IPA, the session IPA is a summertime favorite. This style oftentimes uses dry hopping to pour on the hop aroma but has a light enough body to be thirst-quenching. The malt backbone is flexible enough to allow the hops to shine, with the style maintaining an ABV in a wide range of 0.5% -5.0%.

• For Session IPA, try: Odell Brewing Company’s Good Behavior Crushable IPA or Hop River Brewing Company’s You Only Hop Twice Session Hazy IPA.

Hefeweizen: Another fine example of wheat beers meeting the needs of summertime, the hefeweizen style is a mainstay of the cooler in many parts of the country. Cloudy, carbonated, and packing flavors of banana, clove, nutmeg, and vanilla, hefeweizen should be on the list of tag-team partners for any summertime drinking.

• For Hefeweizen, try: Live Oak Brewing Company’s Hefeweizen or Bagby Beer Company’s wEYEssbier.

The post Beer Styles for Summer Sipping appeared first on CraftBeer.com.

Two of beer’s primary ingredients, hops and barley, offer the best possibilities for sustainable production. Barley in particular can be farmed in ways that support water conservation, soil preservation, and carbon reduction. Meanwhile, low-water hop varieties like Neomexicanus, a hop native to the American Southwest, also reduce a brew’s impact.

Water Conservation

Arizona Wilderness Brewing in Phoenix, Ariz., sits in a part of the country where water scarcity has become critical. About five years ago, the outdoor-focused brewery realized that its choice of ingredients—malt in particular—could have an outsized influence on water conservation in its parched home state. As a result, the brewery became a key player in a partnership fostered by The Nature Conservancy to help preserve the Verde River.

The conservancy hoped to encourage farms to switch to early-season crops that grow when river water is more plentiful and there is less waste due to desert heat. With the growing popularity of craft beer, the conservancy hit on a solution: barley. However, to make that solution economically viable, farmers needed a market for the grain. Consequently, the conservancy supported the establishment of craft maltster Sinagua Malt to roast the raw barley and create a marketable product. At the same time, it solicited local breweries to create demand.

The concept resonated with Arizona Wilderness and the brewery has become the malthouse’s primary customer, currently buying 80 percent of Sinagua’s output. According to Zach Fowle, head of marketing for the brewery, this partnership benefits everyone from farmer to consumer. “It’s a win-win for everyone involved. It’s a market-based solution that doesn’t require any sacrifices.”

Focusing on sustainable ingredients makes a bigger difference than anything Arizona Wilderness could do in the brewhouse, insists Fowle. “Any water we save on that end will pale by comparison with the farms on the front end.” He adds, “According to the math that we’ve been able to do, every pint of beer that we sell equates to about 50 gallons of water for Arizona’s waterways.”

In 2022 the brewery added hops to its conservation efforts. It brewed a beer named This Beer Saves Water using low-water hops and Sinagua malt. The goal is to raise awareness of Arizona’s water issues among craft beer lovers. “We really wanted to drive home the point of water saving, the water crisis in Arizona, and why people should care,” says Fowle.

Arizona Wilderness sources other ingredients locally as well, particularly those grown in waterwise ways. For example, the brewery makes three different beers using drip-irrigated watermelons. Fowle contends that the brewery helps create a market for crops that wouldn’t otherwise be economically feasible. He describes the effort as “using the beers that we make to encourage responsible choices in what farmers decide to grow.”

Additionally, buying locally has a much lower transportation footprint than trans-continental or trans-oceanic shipping. “As much as we can work with Sinagua and local groups, it cuts back on the carbon footprint of that malt. Working with these local farms helps in more ways than just water,” says Fowle. Fresh Arizona produce also makes for tastier beer while keeping money in the local community.

Sustainable Agriculture

Colorado breweries are also recognizing the benefits of sustainable, local agriculture. Root Shoot Malting in northern Colorado is a combination farm and craft malthouse that has gained popularity with breweries in Denver and across the state. The farm grows barley using sustainable and regenerative agriculture while protecting green space from suburban encroachment.

What started decades ago as a family farm expanded to include a malthouse in 2016 after owners Emily and Todd Olander observed the meteoric growth of craft beer. Along the way they realized that sustainable, and ultimately regenerative, agriculture would play a significant role in keeping Colorado agriculture viable in the face of environmental and development pressures.

While there’s a difference between sustainable and regenerative farming, Todd Olander believes that both play important roles in reducing the environmental impact of craft beer’s core ingredients. In a nutshell, sustainable farming doesn’t damage or reduce resources, while regenerative farming actually improves the quality of the land.

To support these goals, the Olanders rotate crops every year and undertake additional annual maintenance work. After the barley harvest in July, they plant cover crops, then turn cattle loose to feast. Both tasks improve soil chemistry and nutrition. It’s a more detail-oriented process than traditional farming but Olander believes it’s worth it. “If we can have healthier soil that is more resilient, we can grow a healthier and more profitable crop.”

The Olanders also believe it’s important to sustain the farming lifestyle and guarantee the food supply for future generations. To this end, the couple has worked with local nonprofit Colorado Open Lands to put conservation easements on their property. These easements allow continued farming while permanently preventing additional development. Future farmers will have available land and the community will enjoy the views and environmental benefits of green space.

The Olanders’ ultimate goal is to use fewer scarce resources and artificial chemical inputs like pesticides and fertilizers while crafting high-quality barley and malt. The approach is clearly working, as Root Shoot won medals in every category at the 2023 Malt Cup.

A Positive Impact

Bruz Beers in Denver is one of dozens of local breweries brewing with Root Shoot. The brewery relies on the craft maltster for over 90 percent of its malt. Co-founder Ryan Evans and head brewer Dave Olson buy from Root Shoot because of its positive impact on the local environment and because of the quality.

Olson explains that Root Shoot can and must be more thoughtful about resource usage due to its size. “As a small family farm, they’re going to use less water, they’re going to use less pesticides, they’re going to use less of everything. Everything is going to be less because they can’t afford to just sweep everything (with chemicals).”

In addition to less-impactful farming, Bruz values Root Shoot’s proximity to the brewery because it limits the malt’s transportation footprint. Explains Olson, “I either drive up there or they bring it to us. One forklift, one truck. That’s significantly more sustainable.” Additionally, Root Shoot can supply multiple breweries with a single trip of its truck.

Even the farm’s layout reduces the grain’s carbon footprint because the farthest field is only 10 miles from the malthouse. “A huge step toward sustainability is shortening the supply chain,” Olander says. “My goal is to be carbon-negative or carbon-neutral.”

For Olson, the quality of the ingredients and the beers they let him create more than offset the increased costs that come with buying from small growers. “I’m the brewer and to me what’s in your glass is the same as what’s hanging on the brewery’s walls. It’s the art and it wouldn’t feel as artistic to me if I bought industrial.”

Bruz makes several 100-percent- Colorado brews using locally grown ingredients like cantaloupes, peaches, and chiles. It also contracts with Colorado’s award-winning Billy Goat Farms for hops and buys from a local yeast propagator.

Doing the Right Thing

Ultimately, craft beer drinkers come out winners through better beers and a more sustainable local environment, whether they know it or not. Most customers are unaware of the environmental ramifications of the pint they’re drinking. Fortunately, breweries understand the underlying value and benefits of sustainability.

Says Olson, “I think the average consumer doesn’t inherently care,” explaining that Bruz’s choice of ingredients is driven by the brewery’s own values. “It’s really more about what we want. I’m not doing it for the customer. I’m doing it for me and the guys that I’m buying it from.”

Adds Evans, “It’s about doing the right thing.”

Fowle recognizes the same challenges but sees cause for optimism. “It’s a difficult story to tell,” he says, but adds, “Over time I think the consumers are understanding, especially as the water crisis in Arizona becomes more severe people are open to learning more. We’re seeing more and more that the people who are coming to our brewery are aware of those messages and making the choice.”

Ultimately, brewers care about the long-term impact they can have on their customers, communities, and the environment. “Buying sustainably is going to be better in the long run for our customers, their housing, their state, and what they get out of living in this area,” says Olson.

The post Treading Lightly: Breweries Reduce Environmental Impact appeared first on CraftBeer.com.

Since the 8th century, hops and beer have been as intertwined as grapes and wine. Benedictine monks at a Bavarian Abbey were first to form this happy union when they realized that hops presented a singular way to replace the bouquet of herbs and spices, as well as the bitterness they’d been seeking in their gruit ales.

In 1516, hops became a codified part of what defined beer, through the advent of the Reinheitsgebot, the German Beer Purity Law. And ever since, that’s where they’ve remained, rarely used outside of the brewing world, until very recently. A more diverse drinks marketplace, and movement toward mindful consumption of alcohol hasn’t led people to abandon hoppy flavor. Instead, it’s furthered the threshold of green flavors. With a global oversupply, many brewers (and drinkers) are rethinking hops’ rightful place in our liquid refreshments.

Hildegard of Bingen, a 12th century German Benedictine abbess, was one of the first to write about hops. She noted both their potency and potential as a preservative, foreshadowing the rise of present-day beers (Imperial IPAs, etc.) with International Bitterness Units (IBUs) that top 100, exceeding the bitterness level that a human palate can detect.

Mixing It Up

Hops started finding their way into cocktails a decade ago with tinctures (e.g. Bittermens Hopped Grapefruit Bitters), swapping out citrus, herbal, or earthy ingredients for similarly scented aromatics found in certain strains of hops. For those who don’t drink alcohol, or are trying to limit their intake, a marked change to “hopping” has has bubbled up the sparkling waters space. Just as brewers have long been exploring the full flavor spectrum of hops, these new seltzers do the same, with Mosaic and Sabro varieties giving the juiciness of a spritzer and Cascades providing an earthy piney-ness. Lagunitas’ Hoppy Refresher, a line of non-alcohol products, is a dry-hopped seltzer that uses a pinch of brewer’s yeast to pull out the terpenes (aroma compounds). Hoplark Sparkling HopTea, which launched in 2018, first used citrusy Citra hops, now taps into 20-30 different hop varietals. These hops are used as more than a bittering agent; they intend to be the drink’s primary flavors.

Research and Development

Dr. Alicia Muñoz is technical director at UK-based Barth Haas, one of the largest suppliers of hops in the world. At Drinktec 2022 in Munich, Muñoz was part of a team that used their own products to introduce four new hopped-innovations, including a hop sparkling water, a hop tonic water, a hoppy kombucha, and a non-alcoholic beverage called Energize Beer. These four drinks were the beginning of an ideation process that looked towards the over 200 varieties of hops that Barth Haas sells, as starting points for hop product placement, accentuating three distinct hops varieties: Citra and PHA Topnotes (a combination of Cascade and Willamette).

“Citra has notes of mango, blackberry, and grapefruit. Cascade is citrus fruit, sweet fruits, berries, limes and creme caramel. Willamette has a strong wood aromatics, cream, lemon, myrrh, and curry,” Muñoz explains. “Hops not only add bitterness and flavor, [but they] also have antimicrobial properties, and affect stability.” Munoz notes that they can also alter mouthfeel in the same way that hop varieties can differentiate beer styles.

“Tonic was my favorite to be honest, but we couldn’t call it tonic water because it didn’t have quinine,” says Munoz. Instead, Baarth Haas swapped hops for the expected Cinchona tree bark. “It is easy to drink, and wasn’t as sweet as tonic waters in the market, with only half of the sugar. And it wasn’t as bitter (at 25 IBUs) — tonic is usually three times as bitter.”

For this, Munoz used PHA Cascade to bring a zesty grapefruit aroma, and then RediHop, a modified hop product that imparts only bitter notes via isoalpha acids, to balance it out.

Marius Hartmann, a brewmaster at Barth Haas, did his master thesis on kombucha, and looked at how hops interact with scobys (bacteria and yeast starters). For a hopped-kombucha, he decided to use LupoMax, a concentrated lupulin pellet designed to deliver optimized hop flavor, with Callista, a newer hop variety released by the Hop Research Center in Hüll, Germany, which adds citrus (orange, ruby red grapefruit), stone fruits like peach, strawberry, and passionfruit flavors. Combining both approaches allowed these lighter, more nuanced hop flavors to carry through the brewing process, and permeate the kombucha, rather than dissipate over time.

For sparkling water, Munoz notes that “since you don’t have fermentation, you don’t have substances that mask aroma.” Water carries little character, so it’s really a study of how bubbles and bittering agents coalesce. When you add hops to a malt build, Munoz points out, “The matrix of a beer versus an NA-beer is more complex. Polyphenols, sugars, and alcohol change how you dose your hop products.” Energize Beer, aside from having ginseng extract and taurine (to put it in the realm of Red Bull), uses a combination of various hop products, such as Lupomax Mosaic and Incognito as a whirlpool addition, Spectrum Citra & Mosaic in combination with Lupomax Ariana at the start of fermentation. Grapefruit and orange essences add to the overall impression.

The Market Responds

It’s not all theoretical. The market for hoppy beverages is bounding to new heights. Chad Pieper, the general manager of Upslope Brewing’s taprooms in Boulder, Colo., has seen a spike in sales for their Spiked Snowmelt series of craft hard seltzers.

“Hops were a natural fit for us, they brighten the tangerine flavor. We weren’t doing boysenberry and hops — we were focusing on citrus to compliment the citrus hops, the Citra hops specifically,” says Pieper, mentioning their pale ales and IPAs in the same breath.

Their Tangerine & Hops and Grapefruit & Hops flavored seltzers are top sellers, made with an undisclosed variety of hops, accentuated by fruit juice. Today the brewery makes a dozen seltzers, including non-hopped flavors like Peach Lemonade, Ginger Yuzu, and Cucumber & Basil. A seven-month long R&D project, spurred on by the incredible success and omnipresence of White Claw, has become a 20,000 barrels per year business within Upslope’s production. 

When Upslope first started going down the exploratory process, the assumption was that Snowmelt would serve a younger audience that wasn’t all that into craft beer—the spritzer and craft cocktail crowd. But it’s proved to have a much wider reach.

“We had guys pulling off Harleys and up to the bar and ordering Tangerine,” says Pieper, surprised.

But no more surprised than Benedictine monks were in the first place when hops came around.

The post New Hope For Hops appeared first on CraftBeer.com.

Since launching in the fall of 2021 in Brooklyn, N.Y., the brand’s presence has blossomed all over New York City as well as Washington D.C., but for now, remains a one-person operation. Back Home’s momentum is little surprise, however, considering how dedicated Tabatabai is to craft beer, her Iranian heritage, and building community.

“One time when [Tabatabai] dropped off some cases, people at the bar were clapping for her,” says Christa Sobier, owner of Brooklyn beer bar and bottle shop Beer Witch. “I said to her, ‘Is that normal?’ She laughed and said, ‘No!’ This is how much people love her. When there’s a new release of her beer, people are outside waiting for us to open so they can get some.”

Back Home may have launched in 2021, but its roots stretch decades into the past. Born from Tabatabai’s mission to recreate her grandfather’s homebrewed beer so treasured by her family, Back Home brings to life not only Iranian and Middle Eastern ingredients and flavors, but the communal joy of brewing beer and bonding with one another over beer, a joy taken away in Iran after the revolution in 1979, after which alcohol was banned.

Back Home’s story—which is also Tabatabai’s story—begins before this revolution. Her father grew up in Tehran and her mother in Shiraz; both came to the United States for university and had intentions of returning to Iran to get married and have a family there. The revolution took place while they were still students in America, and the Iran they had known drastically changed.

“They outlawed so much,” Tabatabai says. “Dancing, playing music outside, alcohol…women had to be covered. It went from being a completely free country to being so oppressed, with so many rules and regulations on people’s bodies and freedoms.” Her parents started their family in the States, settling in Atlanta, with special attention paid to maintaining Iranian culture and traditions in their home. Tabatabai’s grandparents immigrated to the States as well. Her grandfather died when she was a toddler, and she got to know this beloved family member through stories.

“He was this larger-than-life man everybody knew in the community; he was the beer maker and the winemaker,” Tabatabai says. “He hosted people at his house and would try these different concoctions. They were in southern Iran, where the weather is very hot and humid. It’s great for growing cherries and oranges and lots of fruits and herbs. He would use things from his garden in his beer and wine.” It wasn’t until a few years ago, though, that her grandmother specifically commented on wishing she could enjoy his ab jo (Persian for beer) again.

Past Becomes Present

The wish became a sort of challenge for Tabatabai. Brooklyn-based by this point, Tabatabai was a freelance journalist who had worked at ESPN. She had no professional connection to beer, but the connection she did have is perhaps more important. Not only did she like to drink beer and visit breweries on her travels, but she understood the accessibility of the beverage and the way it was loved around the world across cultures.

“At home, I don’t remember there ever being liquor or wine. It was always beer for my family. And that’s kind of why I love beer, too. It’s accessible and anyone who is poor or rich, it doesn’t matter…anyone can drink beer. Black, white, Asian; everybody loves beer. It’s consumed most widely in the world in terms of alcohol.”

How, though, does a seasoned journalist dive into the complexities of brewing in order to bring a relative’s memories to life? One important skill set helped: Tabatabai had grown up joining her relatives in the kitchen, learning to craft different Iranian dishes with love and how to use various Middle Eastern ingredients. The relationship with flavors, aromas, and how different components work together provided a valuable foundation for brewing. Building on that, Tabatabai watched YouTube videos, picked up classes at NYC homebrew shop Bitter & Esters, and joined Brooklyn homebrewing club Brewminaries. As Tabatabai continued to learn, hone her craft, and tinker with recipes, she’d share the fruits of her labor with family.

“They would tell me if they loved it or hated it or what tasted familiar or what I could change about it,” she recalls. “It was a really a fun project. It would bring up stories about my grandfather. My grandmother would taste something that would ignite a memory.”

At first, Tabatabai simply valued this bonding her beer fueled, but as brewers began to try and commend her barberry sour through beer swaps, her confidence began building. And the desire to embrace Middle Eastern ingredients in beer evolved into the realization that this brewing hobby could be an impactful business, prompting Tabatabai’s decision to go all in on Back Home Beer in 2021.

An Expanding World

It’s no secret that the craft beer industry has long been lacking in inclusivity, diversity, and representation. As Tabatabai points out, beer is universal, yet the people making craft beer in the United States too often don’t reflect this—therefore neither do the actual ingredients and flavors in the beer. As the industry starts moving forward with more inclusive hiring, it makes sense for it to open up with beer styles and flavor profiles, too, fully welcoming all people with all palates. Fixating on North American and Eurocentric styles for nearly all of American craft beer’s lifespan has resulted in Middle Eastern flavors being absent from the conversation here.

Some responses Tabatabai has received when people find out about Back Home Beer is the immediate assumption that this is “Muslim beer,” and questions as to how such a thing can exist when Muslims don’t consume alcohol. Back Home Beer isn’t affiliated with religion, and reactions like these stem from sweeping generalizations. In fact,, as Tabatabai notes, people in the region surrounding what is today Iran invented beer. The earliest evidence we have of brewing beer is from over 2,500 years ago in modern-day Iraq and Iran. Forty years of an alcohol ban in Iran and a lack of diversity in American craft beer cannot erase thousands of years of brewing tradition; this is what Back Home Beer highlights.

Most reactions to Back Home are overwhelmingly positive, though, with people of Middle Eastern heritage embracing familiar flavors right alongside others who embrace learning about these flavors. Tabatabai says the intention with Back Home has never been to only fulfill a small niche, to only be “that Middle Eastern beer.” Rather, she is exploring classic craft styles and expanding on what they can be, making lagers, goses, and IPAs stand out with the inspiration of Middle Eastern ingredients.

A crisp, refreshing lager is made just a bit complex with the addition of Persian blue salt, an idea born from Tabatabai’s father and other people she noticed in the Middle East sprinkling salt into their lagers. Just as with food, she says, it works to enhance the beer’s other flavors, like the grain’s sweetness. A gose, too, becomes more layered with sumac and sour cherries—reflecting the wild ones that grow throughout Iran and the tradition of eating them, salted, with rice. The gose marries that tartness, sweetness, and saltiness with a hint of savoriness from the sumac. These beers pair as well with Middle Eastern food as with any other cuisine and can be enjoyed anywhere by anyone. They’re a natural teaching tool for introducing beer drinkers to these ingredients, whether they’ve experienced them before in food or not.

Ahead of the Pack

Back Home has captivated craft beer connoisseurs while simultaneously breaking out of the craft beer pack to appear on the menus of not only Middle Eastern restaurants, but Korean, Mexican, American farm-to-table, and oyster-and-cocktail spots. Co-founder of in-demand Brooklyn destination Cool World, Julian Brizzi was turned onto Back Home by Ally Marrone, the bar director at sister restaurant Grand Army Bar, and says they’re proud to serve the brand at both spots. At Dame, an English seafood eatery in Manhattan where you’d be lucky to snag a table, manager Megan Higgins calls Tabatabai “an absolute master at her craft,” saying “the Sumac Gose strikes a perfect balance of tangy and fruity, with really subtle hop aromas and a slightly higher saline streak than you would find in most goses. [It] pairs really well with Dame’s staple dishes…but honestly, I would crush more than one sitting outside on a warm spring day.”

For Christopher Struck, beverage director at NYC- and DC-based Lebanese restaurant ilili, Back Home’s message is as compelling as its beer’s quality. “Back Home Beer is a good beer that does good for our society by offering better representation and diversity, both at and on the table. Zahra has given us something compelling to drink at a time when looking to the past may be comforting, but looking to the future will require something radically different.”

With this upward trajectory, extending both within craft beer and beyond in the hospitality and dining scenes, what does the future look like for Back Home Beer? Since launching, Tabatabai has been contract brewing at Staten Island’s Flagship Brewing Co., a relationship she treasures for how hands-on she can be but also how she can trust her beer is being cared for whenever she can’t be there. As strong as the partnership is, though, recent media recognition and demand from restaurants, bars, and retail have made Tabatabai think about next steps. The founder has begun raising money with the plan of securing a production facility in Brooklyn, where, importantly, there will be a taproom.

“There will be street food from Iran that will go well with the beer…and it will just be a place for the community to come. It’s tough right now because so many people reach out like, ‘Where can I get the beer?’ and I have to direct them everywhere else. Which is great, but I also want to be able to say, ‘Come to me. You have a place to come at Back Home.’”

Until then, Tabatabai creates community even without a physical space, through each beer and her own passion for highlighting its ingredients. Sobier says the first time Beer Witch tapped Persian Blue Lager, the Back Home founder came to the bar with homemade roasted pistachios with lemon and sumac, sharing with each patron.

Beer lovers can simply crack open a can of Back Home beer to not only experience a delicious beverage, familiar in its well-executed style and exciting in its fresh flavors—it’s also an ode to memories, family, and freedom, and an instant emotional and sensory journey back home.

The post Transporting Beer Drinkers ‘Back Home’ with Middle Eastern Flair appeared first on CraftBeer.com.

She was crying. Not from sadness, but jubilation.

Fritz, who works in marketing and sales for Potosi Brewery in Potosi, Wis., had just wrapped up the 12-week mentorship program when Brewers Association DEI project coordinator Alana Koenig-Busey explained how there would be funds after the program ended—to continue education in a brewing or related program, pursue level one and two of the Cicerone Certification Program, attend the Craft Brewers Conference with travel reimbursement, or build a resource library of Brewers Publications and Brewers Association resources.

“I was so overcome with emotion,” Fritz recalled. “I did not expect that at all. People wanted to invest in me as a person, not for their gain or to move me around like a pawn. I felt really beat down after roughly eight years in the industry, and this program has helped lift me back up.”

To understand why this meant so much to Fritz, you must understand her and her drive to “build a rocket that goes to the moon.”

Small Town, Big Dream

The population of a small town can sometimes coalesce into homogeneous thinking. Everyone knows one another. Some families have been around since anyone can remember.

Fritz is Potosi through and through. Her father was president of the Potosi Foundation, a 501(c)(3) non-profit organization that is the sole owner of Potosi Brewery, established in 1852. Her great-grandfather worked at the brewery in 1933. But if you grew up in a small Midwest town where your family is well known and works at the one brewery in town, you may wonder if you’re doing your best and trying to find yourself outside the confines of a village with fewer than 700 people. With her closest industry peers miles and hours away from the small-town brewery, it can be somewhat difficult to grow and find opportunities to learn new things.

Fritz moved to Spain when she was younger to explore the world and better understand herself. She completed a study abroad there and found an internship in the northern part of the country. Fritz emailed any and every company in Spain, taking a role with a company she could barely find any information on. She thought, “I’m just going to go. This could be really bad,” but it was “one of the most amazing experiences I’ve ever had.” She would go back to Spain again before settling in Wisconsin and immersing herself in the craft brewing industry.

As with her experience in Spain, Fritz desires to expand her horizons in the brewing industry.

When she learned about the BA’s Mentorship Program, it sounded like a way to improve her sales and marketing skills and gain more confidence in her role. Fritz also applied to the mentorship program because she was beginning to feel stuck. Working in the industry felt like the same thing over and over again. How was she going to get to the next level? What was next?

She knew she had found what she was looking for in the Advancing Professionals track of the Mentorship Program.

Mentors Give Back

The BA Mentorship Program has successfully finished four cohorts. Selected participants complete a 12-week program with mentors from various parts of the industry. These professionals come from all over: Lakefront Brewing Co., Allagash Brewing, universities, private businesses, and more. Each has a specific skill set to help train participants in one of three tracks—Aspiring Professionals, Advancing Professionals, and Brewery Startup.

Brewery startup is one challenge for the Midwest, where laws prove difficult to parse.

“I think navigating the legal challenges of operating a brewery in the Midwest has been a big one,” Koenig-Busey said. “Recently, Illinois and Minnesota have enacted laws that have been a big help to craft brewers in those states.”

These changes include raising the cap on growler sales, more off-sale options, and more event licensing opportunities.

And luckily, mentors like Bob Morton of Lily’s Seafood Grill & Brewery in Royal Oak, Mich., have been through all of this before. Morton remembers when he began by learning from Lakefront co-founders Russ and Jim Klisch. The brothers’ guidance is a big part of what led Morton, who got into the industry in 1989, to become a mentor in the BA program.

“When I first opened the brewery down in Florida, I had an opportunity through the equipment manufacturers to spend almost a year being able to travel and go into probably half a dozen different breweries and just learn from brewers there,” Morton said. “I was in Milwaukee at the original Lakefront Brewery, as well as some others. That was incredibly helpful. I was a homebrewer before that. It was a big step between brewing at home and running a commercial brewpub.”

Morton remembers how helpful, giving, and willing to share information those brewers were. That stuck with him; he formed a philosophy of being in it together in the brewing industry. Morton believes the industry is strongest when everyone is doing their best, and if you’re capable, you should mentor to keep the momentum going. 

“I feel like it’s my duty and my pleasure to be able to do that,” Morton said.

The Michigan brewer didn’t just share knowledge during the mentorship program. Morton has stayed in touch with some mentees.

“I’m actually working with one of my mentees now who’s in the process of opening up a place,” he said, adding that he helped a mentee connect with someone about an opportunity that would help advance that progress. “I get a lot of satisfaction helping these people get up and running. And if we didn’t have that connection to the program, that connection may not have been made. And that all stems from the BA’s program.”

Ciaran Leask was a mentor in the Aspiring Professionals track and echoed the feeling of being connected.

“The connections I made with my mentees were really diverse,” Leask, who brews at Brewery Vivant in Grand Rapids, Mich., said. Each of the four mentees had different paths they wanted to pursue. One wanted to explore the Cicerone Certification Program after hearing about it for the first time.

“So we just started studying for the Cicerone Certified Beer Server exam together,” Leask said. “It was just a really concrete way to help them move forward… something that they could work toward without trying to become a professional brewer.”

Leask said that mentoring changes the mentor as well. There’s an eclectic mixture of people looking to learn and teach this new wave of industry professionals, which is invigorating.

“It’s a great eye-opener and a great refresher,” Leask said. “It was nice to dive back into topics I haven’t touched since going through brewing school, so that was really cool. It’s also a great way to make connections across the industry, across the entire country, as well as just your own state or in the Midwest.”

Mentees Find Their Way

December Lee joined the spring 2022 cohort of the program. The Fresh Coast Beer Works operations manager had been in the craft brewing industry for almost 10 years doing it all: waitressing, bartending, cellar work, and operations management.

Lee learned about marketing, leadership, and how to help push Fresh Coast to the next level. The goal was to grow and make more connections, and Lee made some in particular that stuck.

“Being a woman in the industry can be a little difficult at times,” Lee said. “Having the ability to connect… I was in the same cohort as a head brewer here in Traverse City. I work with all dudes all the time, so I got to connect with another female and have female mentors who kind of understood what it’s like and get really good feedback on any questions I had whatsoever.”

Fritz also has a long list of those who enriched her through this program. Her main goal was to gain insight into how others manage their sales, handle distribution, approach marketing efforts; gain confidence; and network.

Eric Meyer from Cahaba Brewing gave her new perspectives for facilitating communication across different departments. She learned that they keep a list of workers’ ideas so they are visible and people know their voices are heard. Plus, Cahaba is similar in size to Potosi, making the scale and implementation easier to understand.

Julie Rhodes of Not Your Hobby Marketing shared the concept of creating content in batches to save time.

Ben Morgan of Firestone Walker taught her about creating effective pitch decks for retailers.

“He drove home the importance of visuals and keeping it simple,” Fritz recalled. “I was having trouble selling in a display, and after I implemented his suggestion, the buyers started saying yes.”

She hasn’t completed a full 180-degree turn, but she said she’s approaching tasks in her role differently, like with what she learned from Morgan. She’s also more mindful of pursuing goals like attending THRIVE at the Craft Brewers Conference in Minneapolis.

“I feel like I have more tools in my toolbelt,” Fritz said.

Fritz is thinking about what is most important to her in the industry and where her focus should lie. Wisconsin is home, but Fritz lights up when she recalls her time in Spain or how Firestone Walker has an entire marketing team, whereas she’s a team of one in many ways.

There’s just so much possibility.

“I think there’s still a lot I want to learn; I just like learning,” Fritz said. “It definitely opened my eyes to opportunities and different ways of doing things.”

The post Pursuing a Passion: Mentorship Program Fuels Participants appeared first on CraftBeer.com.

These five U.S. breweries all make good beer. But for folks who have been there, they know that they’re in for an experience that doesn’t just stop there. There are stories behind each one, and they go beyond the beverages they serve.

American Icon Brewery | Vero Beach, FL

The old Vero Beach Diesel Power Plant was an iconic building through the turn of the mid-20th century, once the only source of electricity for the popular Atlantic Coast city.

The building was vacated in 1995 and added to the U.S. National Register of Historic Places four years later, a catalyst to its preservation. It was an empty shell—save for its massive 750-kilowatt engine—after being gutted in 2001.

It stayed that way until 2016, when it was purchased by real estate developer Michael Rechter. It was then that the idea for American Icon Brewery was hatched, opening a year later.

When you step through the doors of American Icon, the heart and soul of the old power plant is immediately evident. The engine is a major centerpiece of the facility, refurbished, given fresh coats of paint, and now used to house the taps that pour American Icon’s beer.

And those taps serve up some of southeastern Florida’s most well-regarded beers, among them Florida Heat, a sour ale with chili peppers and blood orange, and AmerIcon Blonde Ale, which co-owner Carl Berry says is the most popular beer in the taproom.

“We wanted to modernize the building but also keep the industrial feel as much as possible,” said Berry. To add to the ambiance, American Icon’s outdoor patio is located next to active railroad tracks that have been there since the building’s early days, and visitors can enjoy a beer while watching a train go by.

While American Icon’s beer and mouthwatering food menu surely attract visitors, Berry says the architecture is also a large draw and visitors will stop in just to experience it.

“I always enjoy talking to people who come here for the first time just because they saw the building and want to see the inside of it,” he says.

Bang Brewing | St. Paul, MN

Grain silos are part of the fabric of rural America, ubiquitous in just about every farm you pass on an average country road. But chances might be good that you’ve never said to yourself, “Hey, I bet it’d be cool to have a beer in one of those things.”

But guess what: It is cool. And it can be done at Bang Brewing in St. Paul, Minn., Bang’s brewery and taproom, dubbed The Bin, is a custom-built prefab grain bin.

Bang was established by husband-and-wife duo Jay and Sandy Boss Febbo, who wanted to build something unique, sustainable, and environmentally friendly. Bang fits the bill and then some.

The Bin was customized to reduce water usage, its electricity is wind-generated, and the facility is completely zero-waste. As for the beer? It’s 100 percent organic.

While Sandy says that many visitors are attracted to the distinctiveness of The Bin, they’re also drawn to the ever-changing list of rare beers using ingredients such as local honey and tomato juice from a popular area food truck.

During warm weather, Bang also offers a serene beer garden, set amongst a natural prairie backdrop. It’s the perfect complement to an experience that’s already second to none, both in setting and in conservational focus. 

“With Bang, it’s our goal to make the biggest impact with the smallest footprint,” Sandy says.

Farmers & Bankers (F&B) Brewing | Woodstown, NJ

Smack dab in the middle of this small town in rural Salem County, N.J., stands a soaring old building, built in the Romanesque Revival style and featuring a striking open-arched tower.

Built in the late 1800s, this structure housed the First National Bank of Woodstown for most of its existence, shuffling through a few other bank iterations and law offices before going dormant in 2013, sitting unused and collecting dust for years after.

That is until husband and wife Mike and Rebecca Melniczuk stepped in. With dreams of opening a brewery and bringing the town’s heart back to life, they purchased the building in 2021 and got right to work reviving it. F&B Brewing opened a year later.

The historical character of the old bank is unmistakable. The Melniczuks made sure to integrate elements such as the old vaults, which were incorporated into the design and are used as additional space. They even envision using the oldest part of the building as a private event space.

But aside from preserving history, the Melniczuks also set out to integrate the fabric of Woodstown into everything they do, including the names of their beers.

Two of the most popular beers are Cow Tippin’ milk stout, a nod to the area’s rich farmland, and Wolverine Wheat, which pays homage to the local high school’s mascot. They also raise funds for the community with projects such as F&B’s Reliance Pale Ale, with proceeds going to the town fire department.

“Our plan is to keep growing, and we love to see the town grow with it,” said Mike. “The downtown area is seeing a revitalization and I’m proud to be a part of it.”

McMenamins Concordia Brewery at Kennedy School | Portland, OR

Imagine drinking a beer in school. And not only is it allowed, but it’s encouraged. That’s the deal at Concordia Brewery at Kennedy School in Portland, Ore., part of the McMenamins chain of unique restaurants, pubs, and hotels.

Indeed, this facility is a hotel, with classrooms converted into guestrooms (complete with chalkboards), a soaking pool in an old teachers’ lounge, and a movie theater that was also a former classroom. But the brewery, bars, and restaurant are not to be outdone, and they’re a major attraction in a city that is world renowned for its beer scene.

The Kennedy School was built in 1915, and by the mid-1970s was closed due to declining enrollment. McMenamins bought the school in 1997 and began the renovation.

The school theme is apparent everywhere. According to McMenamins marketing director Renee Rank, visitors are known to walk throughout the property, drinks in hand, to check out all the different rooms.

There’s the main pub area, converted from the school’s cafeteria. There’s the Boiler Room transformed from…well, that’s self-explanatory. And there are the Detention and Honors Bars, both with their own distinct characteristics and vibes.

And the beers are just as adventurous as the facility. Think Marshmallow Bonbon Imperial Stout or Orange Banana Pineapple Sour, complemented by a popular stable of IPAs.

But arguably, patrons come to Kennedy School for the surroundings and photo ops just as much as the beer and food.

“We’ve even integrated memorabilia from students here,” Rank says. “We really wanted to keep the character of the old school alive.”

Scratch Brewing Company | Ava, IL

Enjoying a beer while immersed in the tranquility of the woods and surrounding nature can be among life’s most relaxing feelings. Located on five acres of wooded property and situated in the middle of the forest, Scratch Brewing Company in Ava, Ill., aims to provide just that.

Scratch is the epitome of off the beaten track, a trek from the highways and byways of Illinois and down a long gravel road. Foraging is the name of the game here, as co-owners Marika Josephson, Aaron Kleidon, and their staff mine the brewery’s surrounding lands for ingredients, ensuring that their beer list is entirely seasonal.

Picture this: You’re taking a walk through the woods and the garden enjoying all the flora and fauna that the Scratch property has to offer. You notice the chanterelle mushrooms that are prevalent here. According to Josephson, those very mushrooms are used to make one of the more popular drinks on their menu: Chanterelle, a bière de garde-style beer.

They’re also known to tinker with ingredients such as lavender, dandelions (used in their popular Dandelion-Ginger Tonic), and hickory nuts, the latter of which, at any given time at Scratch, can be heard falling in the woods.

Don’t forget their pizza, sourced using local flour, fermented with Scratch’s sourdough culture (also used to ferment their beers), and then wood fired.

The beer, pizza, and serene setting all combine to make an unforgettable experience in the heartland of America. There are thousands of other breweries nationwide that also ascribe to “it’s not just what you drink, it’s also where you drink it.” So, the next time you stop by a brewery for a beer, take a sip…and be sure to take a look around.

The post Five Unique Places to Drink a Beer appeared first on CraftBeer.com.

But Sierra Nevada Pale Ale wasn’t my beer of origin. I was too young still, searching for sunken pool toys in the shallow end. Years later, Mom swapped the brown bottle for one from a new local craft brewery: Lagunitas IPA. The town of Lagunitas was a place my dad took us to walk amongst tall trees, teaching us about fungus and flowers. The actual brewery in Petaluma was a short drive up the highway. I fell in love with that beer. I tried to steal it for high school parties—my mom was madder about her beer being taken than about me taking beer.

Invitation Lost in the Male

When I think of my beer origin story, I always see a vision of my mom in her late 30s. I soon learned that this association is rare. According to research by the Brewers Association, craft drinkers were 31.5 percent female and 68.5 percent male in 2018, shifting from 29.1 percent female in 2015.

It’s no surprise that beer has been perpetuated as a man’s drink. In Beer and Society: How We Make Beer and Beer Makes Us, authors Eli Revelle Yano Wilson and Asa B. Stone point out that “gendered framing of beer consumption” has a strong history in magazine ads, TV commercials, billboards, etc. To take this point further, Tara Nurin’s A Woman’s Place Is in the Brewhouse spends an entire chapter revisiting sexist advertising paid for by the beer industry.

When you’re not exposed to something or you don’t feel represented as part of the group (worse, if you’re the brunt of the joke), you’re less likely to try that thing. Thus, the ones who pioneered craft beer were “educated, cisgender heterosexual (cishet), white men categorically,” according to Beer and Society. Almost half a century later, less than 2% of breweries are solely owned by women, according to the Brewers Association.  

We’ve heard the stories of dads getting their daughters into beer—and Nurin devotes an entire chapter to this, too—but rarely do we hear about the moms who influenced us. I couldn’t be the only one. Yet when I asked women in the beer industry “Did your mom get you into beer?” most didn’t say yes explicitly.

The Implicit Value of Beer-Drinking Mothers

A handful of answers echoed Whitney Froelich’s, who is in marketing and an assistant brewer at Cocoon Brewing in De Pere, Wis.

“Quite the opposite,” she replies. “My mom has only ever drunk Miller Lite, which I can’t stand. I thought that’s what all beer tasted like until I was maybe 28!” She calls herself a late bloomer.

“Context matters,” Stone and Wilson write in Beer and Society. “…our social environment structures the personal relationships we have with beer—and each other.” If mass-produced big beer is what’s in your household growing up, then that’s the definition of beer to you until new information comes along to widen that perspective.

“I didn’t realize beer wasn’t considered a ‘woman’s drink’ until I started drinking craft beer,” says food and beverage content creator Stephanie Grant. You read that right: Grant’s introduction to craft beer led to her noticing the disparity. At home, her parents were supposed to share six-packs equally—a rule her mother stuck to diligently and her father broke sometimes with giddy excitement, which the kids found entertaining.

Now, Grant admits she may have turned into her mother. “If my husband happens to drink a beer I have my eyes on, hell will be raised until laughter takes over,” she says.

Grant’s story is a tender reflection of what Stone and Wilson state in their book, “…our relationships with beer are deeply sociological and psychological; our drinking practices are not entirely our own.”

Here, Grant goes deeper: “Without knowing, my mom told me beer was for everyone who wanted to drink it. Gender didn’t matter. Race didn’t matter. The only thing that did matter was making sure you left enough beer for everyone else to enjoy.”

Craft or not, our beer-drinking moms showed us from day one that beer isn’t just a man’s drink.

Women and Beer Come Full Circle

Upon further investigation, you’ll find that beer didn’t even start off in the hands of men.

Brewing is cooking, so it’s no wonder that beer was brewed by women who also baked and took care of the home while men were out hunting or tending to farms. Gregg Smith, author of Beer in America, is often quoted as saying, “When money got involved, men increasingly started brewing.”

Although “millions upon millions of women throughout history have cooked this critical liquid,” writes Nurin in A Woman’s Place, it’s rare to find someone like Guinevere Bell, co-owner of Traust Brewing Company in Mount Holly, N.C., who grew up with a homebrewing mother.

“I remember the smells of brewing vividly,” Bell reminisces, who says her mom also collected “special beers like Sierra Nevada Celebration ale.” Naturally, Bell grew up a craft beer fan, but “never saw it as a profession [for herself] until Covid.” Something about a global pandemic allowed Bell to kick convention in the teeth and open a brewery. Now, the smell of brew days offers her sweet nostalgia.

Kindsey Bernhard, director of hospitality and general manager at Austin Beerworks, also grew up with a beer-drinking mother who had started bringing home more interesting beers than the basic domestic choices during the craft beer boom of the early 2000s. Bernhard was avoidant at first, having been utterly disgusted by an IPA her mother encouraged her to try.

Finally, Bernhard’s “aha” moment came on a trip to New Orleans for her 21st birthday with her mom. Again, at her mother’s request for her to try something other than the macro brands, Bernhard obliged and ordered NOLA Brewing’s Blonde Ale. Her world was changed.

“I’ve been working in the beer industry since the age of 22 and I credit my love of this industry to my mom. Without her, I would have never been introduced to beer and a career I love,” Bernhard says. “A lot of people aren’t that lucky.”

Intricacies, Nuances, and Cultural Implications

“Beer is a cultural object we collectively invest with meaning,” Stone and Wilson write. Culture, whether centuries-old tradition or simply actions established by our parents, creates the foundation for our individual relationships with beer.

Like Bernhard, Krista Orzel, wholesale account manager at JAFB Wooster Brewery in Wooster, Ohio, readily gives her mother credit for her relationship with beer today.

“With German roots, my mom has always shared her love for dunkels—points if served with German chocolate cake,” Orzel says. Oktoberfests and meals with friends and family at the local German restaurant were integral to her upbringing.

“In our family, beer has always been included in celebrations. It is a huge part of what ties me to my family history, and I am grateful for that every day.”

However, countless folks are raised without models for moderate drinking. Upon first reaction to my question about moms influencing us with beer, Sarah Real, owner and brewster of Hot Plate Brewing Company in Pittsfield, Mass., thought “no way.” Sarah’s mom, who doesn’t drink, had an abusive alcoholic father, and Sarah’s dad (now divorced from her mother) is a recovering alcoholic.

“So there’s quite a bit of weight around the topic of alcohol” in their family, Real says. “Needless to say, I wasn’t exposed to social drinking, just drinking or nothing at all.”

Despite this, Real knew she wanted to become a brewer straight out of college, and her mom responded with something to the effect of “Isn’t that for guys?” Real was beside herself. (Her mother’s reaction illuminates the importance of research like that in Beer and Society and A Women’s Place Is in the Brewhouse).

Real’s flame intensified. “I silently fumed,” she says. “That comment stuck with me. I decided that I wanted to see myself in the brewhouse and changed my life to do it.”

She knows she’s “not the only one who has struggled with a parent questioning the passion” around beer or other fermented beverages. Thanks to Real’s fierce independence and questioning of sociological patterns, she’s one more woman in the brewhouse and one more female owner.

People like Real are how industries evolve. “Changes start with representation and imagery,” Stone and Wilson write. “People need to be able to see people like themselves engaging positively with beer and within brewery spaces.” Because of Real’s tenacity, even her mom has come around to enjoy the magic of craft beer, which is the ultimate cherry on top.

The Beer Butterfly Effect

In A Woman’s Place Is in the Brewhouse, Nurin writes that she loves “the idea of brewers teaching their young kids, especially daughters, to brew when time allows. Not only does it give children a respect for alcohol and responsible consumption, it gives them hands-on ways to learn and apply math and science.”

My mom wasn’t a brewer and I wasn’t very good at math or science as a kid. As an adult, now that math equals money and science equals food and drinks, I’m getting better at both. Beer had a leading role in this transformation.

I’m sure my mom’s hankering for craft beer paved the way for me to explore different parts of my brain as well as inherently push back against social norms. But if you look closely, these stories aren’t really about beer. They’re about the trust, grace, and good times we share with those we love.

“Taking note solely of the flavor of the beer we drink,” Stone and Wilson write, “is like focusing our attention only on the stone flung in the middle of a pond: the ripple effects—larger and longer lasting—represent the social implications of one’s tastes in beer.”

Stopping for a moment to understand how these ripples affect us is the best way to ensure we’re creating the effects we want to in the first place. I think I speak for all women in beer when I say, “Here’s to creating more stories of moms getting us into beer, among many other exciting and surprising interests.”

The post Cheers to Our Beer-Drinking Moms appeared first on CraftBeer.com.

At the start of the 20th century, there were more than 70 brewers of lambic ale in the city of Brussels, but by the1960s, only five or six remained. Bottle Conditioned, which contemporaneously premiered at the Sonoma International Film Festival (SIFF) in California and DOCVILLE International Documentary Film Festival in Belgium in March, and played at the American Documentary Film Festival in April, is an aggregation of four years of footage, analogous to the brewing and blending culture of lambics.

The process of making a lambic-style beer is time-consuming. First, the beer is spontaneously fermented with wild (as opposed to added) yeasts in an open-top fermenter. It’s then barrel-aged, and after a year (or two or three), blended into several distinct styles of beers derived from the lambic base. For example, gueuze is a blend of one-year-old, aka young, and two- to three-year-old lambics, whereas kriek (sour cherry) and framboise (raspberry) are lambics with added fruit and/or juice. Lambic is only made during the coolest months of the year, and these base beers are transported to a coolship (a large, open-topped rectangular tank) that acts as the initial fermentation vessel. There, wild yeasts, time, temperature, and the laws of nature take over, creating a uniquely “sour” beer.

Franck and his crew followed a few notable lambic breweries (Cantillon, 3 Fonteinen, and Bokke) and their brewmasters in an effort to not only elevate the art, but to help sustain what many see as an anachronistic approach to beer making. When Franck first investigated this project, he frankly thought that most Belgians didn’t really care about lambics anymore—it was the foreigners, or beer tourists, who rediscovered it. In fact, Franck first learned about the lore of lambic while drinking craft beer in the U.S. after moving there in his 20s.

Franck confesses that the film was “such a hard medium to carve a story—from inception to finish it took roughly four years to make.” Unlike narrative-driven features, where you write a script and shoot exactly what you need, Franck relied on the editing process to dictate the flow of the film. Or as Jean-Pierre Van Roy from the iconic Cantillon Brewery says in the film, “It’s the lambic that tells the brewer what to do—all other breweries lead the beer.”

Van Roy, the fourth-generation brewer at Cantillon, describes lambic production as a victim of industrialization. After World War II, everything changed—Coca Cola came to Europe and there were new “standardizations of taste,” says Franck. In response, many lambic brewers added saccharin or artificial sweeteners as customers complained that the beers were too sour. Van Roy quips in the film that “different generations wrestle with tradition and the increased demand for their rare beers,” but we’re now starting to see lambic-style experiments farther afield. Raf Souvereyns, brewmaster at the bohemian Bokke, boasts an outlandish barrel-aging program using a multitude of different woods, but even with his oversized character and the renegade additions of non-native Brazilian passion fruit, his beers stay true to the core of what Belgian lambic really is.

The film reveals scores of large format glass bottles in vignettes: champagne corks being popped and aged gueuze ceremoniously poured out of wicker caddies to avoid any sediment in the glass. There’s a scene with Souvereyns at Ebenezer’s Pub in Lovell, Maine, in which he delivers a soliloquy about the importance of drinking the past to inform the future. Franck was struck by the moment, one that “merges the world of beer and wine visually.” Once the Shelton Brothers began importing lambics to the States, people started caring about authenticity and provenance, parallel to that of the wine world. An online market emerged for vintage lambic beers—bottles that were two, three, or five euros at the brewery when “fresh” were now going for hundreds of dollars on the open market.

As the demand for Belgian lambics increased among beer aficionados, a few breweries in the United States began paying homage to this style, including Russian River, The Lost Abbey, de Garde Brewing, Side Project Brewing, and Casey Brewing. Allagash Brewing in Portland, Maine was an early adopter of using indigenous yeast for its Belgian-style beers. “Rob Todd founded this brewery with Allagash White as the flagship,” says Jason Perkins, brewmaster & VP of brewing operations who has worked at the brewery since 1999. “Second came the Dubbel, third was the Tripel. We have a wide range now, but to some degree, all inspiration is from Belgian brewing traditions.”

In 2007, Perkins says the brewers at Allagash asked themselves, “Can we mimic the process, with similar ingredients, in a very different part of the world, with (our own) natural microflora, to make lambic?” Despite the geographic gap, Perkins argues that there are more similarities than differences when it comes to Belgian and domestic lambics. It’s more about respect to process than it is location.

Resurgam, Allagash’s only year-round Coolship beer (the rest are seasonal), is built on Pilsner malt, raw wheat, and hops. Aged in French oak, it’s a blend of one-, two- and three-year-old spontaneously fermented beer, bottled and corked in a 375ml champagne split. With aromas of apricot, lemon zest, and candied fruit, its tropical notes and finessed funk lead to a clean, tart, and dry finish. Allagash’s Cerise is similar to a kriek, and its Red resembles a framboise. These domestic lambics fetch a pretty high dollar, predominantly sold at specialty beer stores. Says Perkins, “If you think about the average beer taking 14 days to three weeks [to make], it’s an astronomical difference of time, storage, and effort,” not to mention expense. Volume-wise, these beers make up less than 1 percent of  Allagash’s overall production—more of a curiosity than a focus. But the brewery is satisfied with slow and steady sales; these beers are meant as an opportunity to educate, as well as a nod to tradition.

Lambics make up an equally miniscule portion of the production at Firestone Walker in central California, but for brewmaster Matt Brynildson, it’s a passion project. Whereas the brewery’s Barrelworks series doesn’t fully fit its reputation as a West Coast-style IPA magnate, it aligns with Brynildson’s personal interests. When the Belgian beer company Duvel bought majority share ownership of Firestone Walker in 2015, Brynildson took this as a sign that he should be spending more time in Belgium. And in 2019, after taking a sabbatical there, he bought a place in Antwerp so that he’d be able to split his time between the States and the Belgian brewing scene.

Firestone’s lambic production begins in a barn nestled in one of its 40-acre vineyards. Receiving only 10 barrels of wort per brew, the project plays off the romantic notion that lambic is made in nature, when in truth, Brynildson reminds us that, “Cantillon’s right in the middle of Brussels, and it still works.” Over time, Brynildson developed a Barrelworks house culture that became its signature flavor profile. “We were trying to carve out our own little niche; we wanted there to be some indigenous wild yeasts that would integrate into this program.” He purposefully uses local wine barrels and grapes for fruited sours, honoring lambic’s regionality.

In keeping with tradition, Brynildson leaves fermentation to the whims of indigenous yeast,  but he pushes the funk even further, inoculating wort—the initial liquid extracted from the mashing process—with bacteria such as pediococcus and/or lactobacillus. Firestone’s Ferus, their first gueuze-like blend, won a few awards against Belgian beers in Belgium, giving them some confidence in blending. But on a microbiological level, Brynildson thinks American wild beer producers are focusing too heavily on lacto as a driver for acid production. Brett and pedio are much lower in acid, and evolve less heavily, which Brynildson associates with his German beer instructors who brewed under the rules of the Reinheitsgebot; they were only allowed to adjust pH through naturally occurring acids. Brynildson focuses on a balance point that relies on these beers’ acidity not being too aggressive, “like an IPA with 100 IBUs.” There’s also a school of thought about pre-acidifying the wort before it enters the coolship, which Brynildson suggests “wards off certain histamine-producing bacteria,” but also tames the wild beast, or yeast as it were. Whether foreign or national, there’s something special about the spontaneity of these beers.

The post The Coolship Has Landed: Film Elevates the Art of Lambic Brewing appeared first on CraftBeer.com.

Fast forward to 2023, and with most of the country reopened, the public able to resume tasting room visits, and brewers getting used to their new normal, a few breweries have managed to make a name for themselves, garnering attention and accolades despite only being open for less than three years.

Here are five small breweries that have opened since 2020. If you haven’t heard about them yet, it’s likely you will soon.

Magnanimous in the Southeast

In the Southeastern United States, Magnanimous Brewing has been making waves throughout the beer community in Tampa Bay and beyond, and they haven’t even marked three years in business yet. Magnanimous was founded by Charlie Meers and Mike Lukacina. Meers has worked at Athens, Ga.’s Five Points Bottle Shop as well as stints running Cigar City Brewing’s Tasting Room and Cycle Brewing. Lukacina has brewed for Tampa’s 7venth Sun Brewery, Cigar City Brewing, and Coppertail Brewing.

Magnanimous opened in October 2020 with only four core beers and several rotationals. Fast forward to 2023, and Magnanimous has dropped two to three new releases each week since opening their doors. They’ve won over their neighbors in record time, too. Neighboring beer guy and Cigar City Brewing founder Joey Redner says that the most impressive thing about Magnanimous Brewing is their well-made hazy IPAs. Redner has said that he “hates hazies,” but he’s a fan of Magnanimous’s Juice Lord.” Coppertail Brewing owner Kent Bailey testifies that “Magnanimous hazies and lagers are so on point! With industry vets like Charlie Meers and Mike Lukacina behind the scenes, no wonder it’s so good.”

SoCal Brewery Rebirth

In southern California, one of the newest breweries on the block is carrying on a family tradition. McIlhenney Brewing Company was founded in 2021 by Shawn, Jamie, Pat, and Val McIlhenney, former owners and brewers of Alpine Brewing Company in Alpine, Calif. The brewery rightfully bears the family name after it brought beer fame to the city of Alpine with its intensely hoppy IPAs. McIlhenney Brewing was founded in the same spot where Alpine Brewing got its start in 2002, with award-winning brewer Shawn McIlhenney helming the brewhouse.

While the name and beers of Alpine Brewing Company were sold off previously and changed hands, the McIlhenney family “wanted to create an atmosphere here where locals and visitors alike can come to relax with a pint and feel like family,” explains Jamie. Adds Shawn, “It’s a place where people are greeted by name at the door, not judged by the beer they order and can just feel really comfortable spending time here.”

Experimenting in Arizona

Owner and brewer Tyler Smith founded Kitsune Brewing in October 2022 after previously contract brewing his beer. Smith began brewing with Simple Machine Brewing in Phoenix as a collaboration to make a Black is Beautiful beer, joining the campaign to raise awareness for diversity and inclusion in the beer industry.

“We’ve been doing a lot of crazy stuff with our sours,” Smith said on a recent episode of the PHOENIX Magazine podcast. “We did a beer that was gray, and we called it Dirty Snowflake. It was coconut and vanilla. Our hazies, too—we just try all of these different hop combinations. What’s great is that everyone in Arizona, when you start looking at those types of styles, is doing some amazing stuff. Right now, we’re just a footnote, but hopefully we can be known as some of those cats out there that are doing great things with these styles that people know and are bringing them to the next level.”

Committing to Local in New Hampshire

In northern New Hampshire, Devin Bush and his wife, Beth Ibitz, opened Wildbloom Beer in Littleton, focusing on saisons, Belgians, and lagers. Bush has previously brewed at other breweries, but when he decided to open his own, he knew what he wanted to brew and serve in his own place. When the New Hampshire Brewers Guild created an award for Brewer of the Year in 2020, Bush was the first brewer awarded the title. 

“I’ve now been in the professional brewing world for 16ish years,” Bush said on a recent episode of Drink Beer, Think Beer with John Holl. “If I was going to own my own brewery, I wanted to do beers in the way I want to do them and see if people respond.”

The beers he wanted to brew were offerings like Bear Camp Smoked Grodziskie, Forage Fresh Hop Saison, Pinecone Cozy Pale Ale, and Settle Down Easy Czech-Style Dark Lager.

“Wildbloom is about 99 percent sourced ingredients from New England, and that is one of the things that solidified. We really wanted to drive home those points of who we’re working with, getting local ingredients and that whole thing. We are sourced from New England and we know the people who grow every one of our products. They’re all friends of mine.”

Human and Robot in Philadelphia

When Human Robot opened in 2020, Philadelphia Magazine reported that the brewery would have two styles: Human and Robot. “Human refers to the classic, European-style beers,” explains Jake Atkinson, co-owner of Human Robot, “while the Robot side is a reference to more modern, out-there techniques that yield hazy IPAs and ‘crazy huge stouts.”

Human Robot Brewing owners Atkinson, Chris Roller, and Rachael Morris opened the original operation in the Kensington area of Philadelphia in 2020 with a second location in Jenkintown, Pa. opening in 2022. In both operations, Human Robot has joined forces with a food purveyor—Poe’s Sandwich Joint in their original Kensington location and Herman’s at the Haus in their Jenkintown location.

It was their twin focus on both classic and contemporary styles that has turned heads toward Human Robot. In March 2023, Human Robot’s tap list was comprised of equal parts ale and lager with offerings like Single Axis: Citra and Dreams of Orgonon Hazy IPA alongside a Franconian zwickelbier, Czech-style pale lager, German Pils, and more.

Who’s Next? There are many young and talented craft brewers making great beer right now. What new brewer or brewery has turned your head in 2023? Who should be added to this list? It’s likely you’ll find a young beermaker in your area who will intrigue and inspire you.

The post Five Young Breweries You’ll Be Hearing About Soon appeared first on CraftBeer.com.

Considering the bounty of all that comes in spring, I’d like to suggest a pairing word for the season: Simple.

• Simply sautéed asparagus with a saison.
• Simply roasted beets with a wit beer.
• A simple salad of tender greens with a pilsener.

To keep it simple, limit yourself to no more than three or four ingredients and let your palate open up to the flavors of spring.

As an example, might I suggest you stop reading right now and put in front of yourself a shaved piece of Parmesan reggiano cheese and a pint of pale ale? Go ahead—it’s OK, I’ll wait.

Alrighty! Welcome back. Now that your palate is happy, let’s carry on.

Once you taste a pairing as simple as Parmesan with pale ale, your palate will begin to think of another word: Balance. The balance of the malt to the hops, of the nuttiness in the cheese to the carbonation in the beer, of the pop of the hops to the creaminess of the cheese.

There is something to be said for the chef or brewer who achieves balance. Simple and balanced pairings are often overshadowed by attention-grabbing, show-stopping, over-the-top, palate-wrecking dishes and beers. But in both the craft beer and the culinary worlds today, there is a general drive toward balancing the palate. In pursuit of the perfect pairing, chefs are now more likely to simplify—to take something off the plate—instead of over-indulging and overworking the pairing.

Today, chefs are highlighting the blissful simplicity of a vegetable in the height of its season, meat raised by the most caring hands, a fish caught by a small boat. All of these ingredients, when sourced properly, demand that the hands that cook them highlight their simple, clean flavors.

Achieving simplicity and balance takes focus, dedication, and perseverance. It means finding and creating relationships with the best possible ingredients to make the simplest bite or sip shine on the palate.

Now, to be clear, I am not saying that any beer or dish that is over-the-top or complex in plating lacks these qualities. I am saying: Let’s give some much-needed attention and recognition to what is often overlooked and underappreciated.

When a chef dips the freshest radish in butter and garnishes it only with salt, she’s not taking the easy way out. It is done to highlight a radish served at its best possible harvest time. It is done to tell a story, bridging relationships from farmer to chef to the diner’s palate. And when that simple radish, harvested at the perfect time, pops with a gentle sweetness and is paired with a saison that pops with hints of pepper…well, then that story turns into a moment, a complete experience. And as simple and balanced as that moment is, it is exactly what the first harvest of spring is about.

Here are some simple and balanced pairing suggestions for your palate to seek out this spring:

• Asparagus and prosciutto paired with a saison or farmhouse ale
• Roasted beets and fresh feta paired with a wit
• English peas and mint paired with a pilsener
• Ramps and goat cheese on toast paired with a pale ale
• Grilled spring onions and crème fraiche paired with an IPA
• Spring lamb and fava beans paired with a brown ale
• Fresh ricotta and radish paired with a tripel
• Radishes dipped in butter paired with a saison

The post Spring Means Simple and Balanced appeared first on CraftBeer.com.

To help attendees plan and ensure they visit breweries of exceptional repute and historical significance with beers matching their personal tastes, here’s an overview of the communities surrounding the convention site with vital information on breweries and tasting rooms in each. There’s truly something for every type of craft beer enthusiast in San Diego, so go forth and drink your fill (responsibly, of course)!

Near the Conference Venue 

Homebrew Con host site, Town and Country Resort, is in Mission Valley West just off Interstate 8. That east-west freeway facilitates a quick two-mile trip east to Puesto Mission Valley, a Michelin-recognized brewpub helmed by the most revered lager expert in San Diego County, Doug Hasker. A Gordon Biersch expat with over two decades of experience, he has shifted his bottom-fermenting skill set to production of a kaleidoscope of Mexican-style lagers that pair exceptionally well with a menu of SoCal- and Mexico City-influenced tacos, enchiladas, and more. You won’t find a much more San Diego pairing than that! Or head a couple miles west to visit landmark Home Brew Mart, the 25-year-old homebrewing emporium that birthed Ballast Point Brewing. The store and its inventory of ingredients and apparatuses now give way to a bar serving a wide array of BP cores and seasonals, plus scads of small-batch creations covering a wealth of ale and lager styles, some of which are produced on-site.

From there, take a short walk to the off-the-beaten-path forger of English, Irish, German, and Belgian beers, Deft Brewing, a brewery that’s teamed with a meadery and winery to build a lovely outdoor space called The Gärten, offering entertainment several nights a week. Farther north is venerable Coronado Brewing’s main production facility with a kitchen-equipped indoor-outdoor taproom serving up largely West Coast-style ales, as well as a tasting room from “it” brewery Harland Brewing, the appeal of which is amped up by a comfy back patio. The latter offers an assortment of IPAs and lagers along with occasional pastry beers.

Coronado Brewing, 1205 Knoxville St; Deft Brewing, 5328 Banks St; Harland Brewing Bay Park, 4112 Napier St; Home Brew Mart, 5401 Linda Vista Rd; Puesto Mission Valley, 5010 Mission Center Rd.

A Slightly Longer Uber Ride 

Clusters of breweries and tasting rooms are located throughout San Diego County, making it easy to get more bang for your rideshare buck. Here are three five-star communities worth the trip.

North Park

Regarded by many as the craft beer capital of the city dubbed the craft beer capital of America, North Park is packed with brewery venues, bars, and restaurants. It’s the place to be and perhaps the only neighborhood where you can taste multiple National Homebrew Competition medal-winning IPAs that have gone on to be produced on a commercial scale.

The first is the most awarded amateur IPA of all time, Hop-Fu! Conceived of by San Diegan Kelsey McNair, it is the flagship West Coast IPA at his stylish, two-story North Park Beer Co., and struck gold at the 2022 World Beer Cup (WBC) after nabbing bronze at the Great American Beer Festival (GABF) that same year. Prefer something opaque? Hop-Fu!’s hazy sibling, Art Is Hard, took silver at GABF in 2021. And just half a mile north is El Cid Brewing. A Navy-themed nano installed in the shell of former American Homebrewers Association (AHA) Homebrew Shop of the Year, The Homebrewer, it’s the pro-brewing passion project of Eric Bridges, a retired Senior Chief who placed third at last year’s NHC with his Knifehand IPA.

Another local business with NHC roots is a tasting room belonging to Rip Current Brewing. Brewmaster Paul Sangster was the Ninkasi Award winner at the 2011 competition and has kept the homebrewing spirit alive at his brewery, crafting lesser-seen styles in addition to hop-forward crowd-pleasers like Lupulin Lust double IPA. Several more obscure offerings have won GABF awards, including two-time gold-medalist Breakline Bock and the silver-clad Black Lagoon Scotch ale, both of which combined to earn Rip Current Very Small Brewery of the Year honors in 2016.

Other North Park standouts include Fall Brewing, a popular hangout among local brewers featuring balanced, largely SoCal-style beers and a rock-show motif; tasting rooms from the sustainability-minded makers of murky IPAs and creatively flavored saisons, sours, and stouts, Pure Project Brewing; and bike-friendly beer bastion Rouleur Brewing. Also, El Cajon Boulevard’s lease-to-brew Brewer Igniter facility currently houses one-year-old upstart Seek Beer Co. and its family of crispy-boi lagers, IPAs, and modern-day sours from a transplant who opened and ran Urban South Brewery’s Houston brewpub before going west.

Those looking for beer and a bite would do well to hit up The Original 40 Brewing (especially for Sunday brunch the day after the conference) or TapRoom Beer Co., where the beer board is broad, diverse, and typically filled with fun and interesting collaborations involving other San Diego brewers. 

El Cid Brewing, 2911 El Cajon Blvd; Fall Brewing, 4542 30th St; GOAL. Brewing, 3052 El Cajon Blvd, Ste A; North Park Beer Co., 3038 University Ave; The Original 40 Brewing, 3117 University Ave; Pure Project Brewing North Park, 2867 El Cajon Blvd; Rip Current Brewing North Park, 4101 30th St; Rouleur Brewing North Park, 2899 University Ave; Seek Beer Co., 3052 El Cajon Blvd, Ste C; TapRoom Beer Co., 2000 El Cajon Blvd

Kearny Mesa 

Away from the brightness of urban lights and sunshiny beaches is Kearny Mesa, an industrial-zoned area that’s home to a half-dozen breweries. The most well-known of the sextet is Societe Brewing, a 10-year-old award-winning business with a menu heavy in hoppy fare such as The Pupil IPA and two-time GABF gold-medal-winning session IPA, The Coachman. Those unfiltered, definitively West Coast beers are augmented by several Belgian-style ales and stouts.

A few blocks west is cult favorite Hopnonymous Brewing with its regularly rotating menu of hoppy ales juxtaposed with pastry stouts, adjunct-laced sours, and solid under-the-radar Belgian-style ales. On the same block, Kilowatt Brewing wins points—and GABF medals—for experimental numbers like its Maple Smoked Maibock and Chocolate Macadamia Stout. But wait…there’s more. A secret entrance spirits visitors from the blacklights and psychedelic art of Kilowatt’s tasting room to an island-inspired tiki-cocktail speakeasy dubbed Forbidden Cove.

Those headed to Kearny Mesa needn’t pack a lunch. The community is home to Convoy Street, which is filled with restaurants serving authentic Chinese, Japanese, Thai, Vietnamese, and Korean cuisine, not to mention San Diego’s longest-tenured craft beer bar, O’Brien’s Pub, owned by former WBC Brewer of the Year Tom Nickel and featuring beers from his namesake Nickel Beer Co.

Hopnonymous Brewing, 7705 Convoy Ct; Kilowatt Brewing / Forbidden Cove, 7576 Clairemont Mesa Blvd; O’Brien’s Pub, 4646 Convoy St; Societe Brewing, 8262 Clairemont Mesa Blvd

Miramar

Nicknamed “Beeramar” for its sheer volume of breweries, Miramar is another industrial area where good beer abounds. A unique experience for any homebrewer can be had at yeast company White Labs, with an in-house brewery producing batches of wort that are split fermented using different house strains. The resultant beers are then served side by side at White Labs’ tasting room to illustrate the dramatic role yeast plays in brewing. White Labs also  serves delicious pizzas using dough made with its yeast.

Farther west is legendary local interest AleSmith Brewing, serving fan faves Speedway Stout and .394 San Diego Pale Ale out of the largest tasting room in the county. That two-story venue is home to the Tony Gwynn Museum, a dugout area that’s perfect for catching a game with beer in hand, along with a mezzanine area, outdoor patio, and company store selling beer, apparel, and house-made fromage from on-site side hustle, CheeseSmith. Visitors to Miramar can also visit Ballast Point’s bar-and-restaurant-equipped mother ship, which also serves the English-influenced beers of lesser-known parent company Kings & Convicts Brewing.

The area is also home to San Diego’s only USDA-certified all-organic beer company, Protector Brewery, run by an ex-Navy SEAL who supports active-duty and retired servicepeople via multiple charity beers and fundraising initiatives. Solid IPAs, Belgian-style ales, and beers made with local honey, purple corn, spruce tips, and more can be found at Duck Foot Brewing, while the liquid wares of Embolden Beer Co. share tap space with hard tea, kombucha, and barrel-aged seltzers from sister company New Motion Beverages.

AleSmith Brewing, 9990 AleSmith Ct; Ballast Point Brewing, 9045 Carroll Way; Duck Foot Brewing, 8920 Kenamar Dr; Embolden Beer Co. / New Motion Beverages, 8655 Production Ave; Kings & Convicts Brewing, 9550 Distribution Ave; Protector Brewery, 8680 Miralani Dr; White Labs, 9495 Candida St

Near the Airport

Whether you’ve just landed and are chomping at the bit for some local suds or are camped out and killing time before flying out, the following are your best options for brewery spots close to San Diego International Airport.

Point Loma

There are few experiences more immersive or relaxing than kicking back with a beer on an outdoor patio with a cross-bay view of downtown San Diego. That is what awaits beer fans in Point Loma—along with what are widely considered the finest lagers in the county—at the waterfront biergarten of award-winning Eppig Brewing. Those seeking suds and sustenance can drop in on the largest restaurant in the entire county, Stone Brewing World Bistro & Gardens – Liberty Station, where a menu of upscale pub fare (ahi poke “nachos,” a wagyu “luxe” burger, duck pot pie) pairs with a wide assortment of beers produced on an in-house 10-barrel system that goes well beyond the company’s familiar core lineup.

Eppig Brewing Waterfront Biergarten, 2817 Dickens St; Stone Brewing World Bistro & Gardens – Liberty Station, 2816 Historic Decatur Rd

Ocean Beach

Craving one last stroll on the beach or people-watching in the city’s most proudly weird neighborhood? Chart a course for Ocean Beach. Not only does it have its own Pizza Port brewpub and all the award-winning beers that go with it, it also boasts the three-story eponymous brewpub, OB Brewery, named Small Brewpub of the Year at GABF in 2019. The latter is on Newport Avenue, which packs a whopping four tasting rooms into a single block, including one from off-center, all-sour (except for one lager) concern, California Wild Ales.

California Wild Ales Ocean Beach, 4896 Newport Ave; OB Brewery, 5041 Newport Ave; Pizza Port Ocean Beach, 1956 Bacon St

Downtown

San Diego’s beer scene was born in 1989 when a German master brewer who’d headed production for Pabst Brewing came out of retirement to help his nephew craft the city’s first local beers post-Prohibition. Named for that familiar headman, Karl Strauss Brewing was an instant success, and its OG red-brick brewpub on Columbia Street remains a popular haunt for those who live and work downtown. In addition to classics like Red Trolley Ale and Aurora Hoppyalis IPA, select beers from Karl Strauss Distributing’s partner breweries (Black Plague, Booze Brothers, Duck Foot, Hodad’s, Mason Ale Works, and Rouleur) are also available. Newer but just as notable is The Arbor, a nearby Little Italy taproom and kitchen concept from Burgeon Beer Co., a six-year-old business with a formidable IPA and lager game.

The East Village includes a religious experience from world-renowned Belgian- and barrel-aged beer op and 2007 GABF Small Brewery of the Year The Lost Abbey. That comes care of a tasting room built into a church dating back to 1906. Elements of the brand’s iconic Catholic-inspired artwork meld with historic fixtures to provide a pseudo-monastic atmosphere made even more enjoyable by an incredibly lengthy tap list filled out by beverages from sub-brands Tiny Bubbles (Brett beers), and Khárisma (hard sparkling teas).

Also brewing at historic East Village sites are Mission Brewing, which continues to breathe new life into a circa-1880s Wonder Bread factory, and Half Door Brewing, a family-run operation from Irish immigrants bringing the warmth of an Emerald Isle pub inside a longstanding two-story house. Both of those businesses are one block from Petco Park, home of the San Diego Padres (who will be hosting the Nationals during Homebrew Con), along with a more recent addition, East Village Brewing. Outfitted with a modern aesthetic and a half-dozen serving tanks, East Village is the product of two high-level Ballast Point brewers who exclusively brew with ingredients sourced west of the Mississippi.

Baseball fans may also want to stop by downtown’s Resident Brewing to try No-No Joe, a double IPA brewed in collaboration with the only pitcher to throw a no-hitter in Friar franchise history, Joe Musgrove. Their vaunted hazies also score points with locals, as does Vacation, a coconut-infused West Coast IPA that was first brewed as the winning recipe from an AHA-sanctioned homebrew competition hosted by Stone Brewing.

The Arbor by Burgeon Beer Co., 1326 Kettner Blvd; The Church by The Lost Abbey, 1313 J St; East Village Brewing, 201 Park Blvd, Ste 101; Half Door Brewing, 903 Island Ave; Karl Strauss Brewing Downtown, 1157 Columbia St.; Mission Brewing, 1441 L St; Resident Brewing, 1065 Fourth Ave.

(Editor’s note: Register for Homebrew Con at HomebrewCon.org)

The post Suds Surfing in San Diego: Craft Beer Mecca Hosts Homebrew Con appeared first on CraftBeer.com.

One of the pioneers of the movement is California’s Firestone Walker, which has been making cocktail-inspired creations since 2017. Their series of barrel-aged brews is spearheaded by barrel meister Eric Ponce, himself a lover of complex craft cocktails.

Ponce joined Firestone Walker when the brewery wanted to introduce more range and adventure into its already-successful barrel-aging program. His first beer was Dark & Stormy, in the tradition of the rum-based drink. Ponce has gone on to leverage Firestone Walker’s size and connections to obtain an incredible variety of barrels, from traditional bourbon to absinthe, cognac, and mezcal.

Ponce and his wife both enjoy a complex and nuanced cocktail, and he draws inspiration from flavor profiles they discover. With a notebook full of ideas, Ponce starts strategizing how to get the flavors he wants from beer, natural ingredients, and most importantly, barrels.

At the start of the process Ponce considers, “What cocktail do I love? What cocktail can I make without having to use extracts or oils? What’s the base beer I want to use?”

When deciding on base beers, Ponce considers the fact that certain beer styles naturally pair with certain liquor flavors. For example, blondes work better with gin and rum, while flavorful dark beers offset the strong and boozy flavors of whiskey or bourbon.

From there, he moves on to the nitty-gritty of sampling and blending. “I start pulling samples from different barrels, different base beers until I get the mouthfeel and color that the cocktail has,” he says.

One of Ponce’s secret weapons is bitters. Bitters, which comes in numerous flavors including orange and cherry, is used to add depth to complex cocktails. It also happens to be aged in barrels. By blending small quantities of beer aged in bitters barrels, Ponce authentically re-creates the nuances of classic cocktails.

For Ponce, discovering the potential of bitters barrels was a breakthrough. “It was so intense. It was like you open up a bottle of bitters and only use one drop and it really opens up that cocktail. Once I started tasting through these, I got goosebumps and a smile on my face.”

Ponce uses unadulterated ingredients to create desired flavors, colors, and textures. Instead of syrups and flavorings, he experiments with additions like hibiscus tea, which he incorporated into Tequila Barrel Sunrise to replicate the color, acidity, and flavor of that cocktail.

Some of the beers Ponce is most proud of are Royal Street and Mezca-Limón. Royal Street re-creates a Sazerac and was a huge score for Ponce because of the rarity of absinthe barrels. “I love absinthe. I love Sazerac,” says Ponce. “Sazerac cocktails have been on my mind, but I’d never been able to get any absinthe barrels.” To create the traditional flavors, he blended beer aged in American rye whiskey barrels with beer from absinthe and bitters barrels. He topped it off with fresh, locally sourced lemon zest.

Mezca-Limón replicates a mezcalita, a smoky orange cocktail that was also on Ponce’s wish list for years. It was a dream come true when he finally got ahold of a truckload of mezcal barrels.

Ponce brewed the base beer with no roasted malt to keep it light and added flaked corn for body. “I wanted it to be a big blonde imperial just to showcase the barrels.” He carefully considered what kind of barrel blend would re-create the cocktail he fell in love with, ultimately settling on a blend of 95 percent from mezcal and 5 percent from orange bitters.

At the core, Ponce’s key goal is to make his brews indistinguishable from cocktails in every way. “Every cocktail beer that I make, I want people to visually look at it, close their eyes, and on the first sip be like ‘is this a cocktail or beer?’”

Trial and Error

For Fal Allen, brewmaster at Anderson Valley Brewing Co. in Boonville, Calif., the inspiration for unique flavors came from his time owning a brewery in Singapore, where he fused the flavors of Asian cooking with European brewing.

His first cocktail beer was a gin and tonic gose. Allen painstakingly researched the key ingredients in both gin and tonic, and then layered those onto his gose base. “The light tartness really worked well,” he says.

Allen put equal effort into his next creation, the Old Fashioned. Anderson Valley sourced Wild Turkey barrels and Allen planned to add cherry, orange, and bitters to a base beer after barrel aging. However, initially things did not go according to plan.

To start with, Allen had concerns about the base beer. “We brewed a beer that we thought would work and in the fermenter it was terrible, but you never know until you know,” he says. He persevered and as he built up the cocktail profile by adding orange and cherry, things started to improve.

When it came time to add aromatic bitters, the brewery hit another hurdle. “We realized we’d have to open all these little bottles,” says Allen. As cocktail lovers know, bitters is used sparingly and sold in four-ounce bottles. To solve that problem, the brewery contacted Angostura directly and found that the company was willing to sell them bitters in five-gallon buckets.

Like at Firestone Walker, bitters turned out to be the magic ingredient. “Once that got into the beer it really brought all of the flavors together,” says Allen. He explains the magical transformation from unloved base beer to a great Old Fashioned by saying, “Aging in bourbon barrels can pull out some of the flavors you don’t love and bring out the flavors that you really want. Barrel aging and Angostura bitters really hold all of those flavors together.”

A Light Touch

A brewery with a significantly different approach is Dry Dock Brewing of Aurora, Colo. Its Docktail line targets light, fruity cocktail styles. Dry Dock’s brewers start with a neutral fermented corn sugar base to avoid overwhelming the fruit flavors and then incorporate natural juices and other flavorings.

Using a neutral base differs from how many breweries approach cocktail beers, bringing another dimension to the traditional concept of beer. Of course, like all good cocktails, these pack more punch than typical beer, with 9.5 percent ABV.

Co-founder Kevin DeLange sees Docktails as an adaptation to industry trends. With an increasing variety of flavored beers like hazy IPAs and adjunct-loaded brews, Dry Dock felt it was time to branch out. “There are so many breweries these days, so much competition, and lots of opportunities,” explains DeLange. “We’ll always think of ourselves first as a brewery but we’re open to looking at ourselves as an alcoholic beverage manufacturer.”

Dry Dock chose to focus on fruit-flavored cocktails because of their drinkability and because Dry Dock has had past success with fruit beers. Multi-medal-winning Apricot Blonde is well known in the Colorado market.

Additionally, Docktails were conceived primarily for the ready-to-drink (RTD) canned-beverage market. DeLange saw an opportunity in Colorado, where licensing allows certain establishments to only sell beer and not distilled products. Docktails help those businesses provide a cocktail-like experience while staying legal.

Both DeLange and Allen view the overall RTD market as an expanding pie. “I think whether it’s distilled spirits-based RTDs or the beer-based ones, it’s definitely a segment that’s growing,” says DeLange.

Allen agrees. “I think brewers that are continuing to do that see it as kind of a hedge against those kinds of products (RTD cocktails and seltzers).”

Ponce, however, is more circumspect, saying, “It’s always tough to predict the future.”

The Next Big Thing?

While all three breweries look at cocktail beers as an important component of their product lines, everyone tempers expectations as to whether this movement will take the industry by storm. Says Allen, “I don’t know if I’d go all the way to trend. It doesn’t seem to have caught on the way some people thought it might have.”

DeLange has similar thoughts. “I think you’re going to see people getting into it more and more,” adding, “I certainly don’t think it’s going to be anything like the seltzer thing was.”

One hope is that these beverages will attract people who aren’t typically beer consumers into the craft beer scene. Putting it in the broader context of alcoholic beverages in general, Allen says, “I think it does draw in consumers because cocktails have become a big part of the retail market.”

Regardless of their ultimate market share, cocktail-inspired beers continue the tradition of innovation that has been at the heart of craft brewing from the start. Whether savored by experienced beer drinkers or folks looking for something refreshing and different, these brews provide even more options in an already-diverse beer world.

The post Flavor Forward: Cocktail-Inspired Beers appeared first on CraftBeer.com.

This is especially true for areas of the country where skiing is a part of daily life.

“With ski culture being so central to our community here in Jackson, it has become synonymous with the spirit of aprés ski as well,” says Roundhouse Brewing co-founder Gavin Fine. “We joke that beer is why skiers gather at the end of the day…you ski hard all day so you can enjoy a beer or two to finish, and share beer stories of an epic day.”

Ski-Inspired Beers to Try

Here are a handful of the many brews inspired by the beloved snow sport.

Timberline Tucker Double IPA | Mt. Hood Brewing

For this Double IPA, Mt. Hood Brewing collaborated with Timberline Lodge in Oregon to show some appreciation for the ski area’s iconic snow vehicle, the Tucker Sno-Cat. The label showcases the 1959 classic orange, refurbished model that was locally built.

Patrol Dog Pale Ale | Avery Brewing

Avery is a partner of the National Ski Patrol, and a portion of proceeds from Patrol Dog Pale Ale helps support avalanche rescue dog programs throughout the country. The Boulder, Colo. brewery has supported many other snow and outdoor organizations, including the American Alpine Club, the American Mountaineering Museum, Adaptive Adventures, and Volunteers for Outdoor Colorado.

Face Down Brown Ale | Telluride Brewing

Brewed at an elevation of 8,750 feet, Face Down Brown Ale is an English and American brown ale hybrid. On the can you’ll find an image of a skier, face down and skis up, along with some notable awards, including gold medals from the World Beer Cup and Great American Beer Festival.

Blue Ski Lager | Epic Brewing

Epic Brewing is based in the heart of Utah ski country in Salt Lake City. The Blue Ski Lager is described as a Colorado Rockies lager, perfect for an adventure.

No Friends on a Powder Day Fresh Hop IPA | Sawtooth Brewing

This beer from Sawtooth Brewing in Ketchum, Idaho encourages the same approach to drinking fresh hopped IPAs as to skiing on a fresh pillow of snow: enjoy early and don’t wait around for your friends.

Ski Bum India Pale Ale | City Lights Brewing Co.

Ski Bum is a seasonal release from Milwaukee’s City Lights Brewing Co. adorned with a flamingo on skis. Besides skiing and snowboarding, activity pairing suggestions for this IPA include après ski, sledding, and watching the snow by a warm fireplace.

Yard Sale Winter Lager | Uinta Brewing

Uinta Brewing says its lager is brewed for those who love all things winter, and the love for ski and snow is strong at this Salt Lake City brewery. They previously teamed up with Utah ski resorts to create a seasonal variety pack that raised funds for Protect Our Winters.

Ski Love & Beer Love Collide

ShawneeCraft Brewery Company is located on-site at the Shawnee Inn Resort in Pennsylvania, with close skiing access to Shawnee Mountain (and a complimentary shuttle). Guests who buy a lift ticket even score a free beer from the Gem & Keystone Tavern and the Shawnee Craft Tap Room. There are 16 beers on tap, such as Mosier’s Mosaic New England IPA and the Clubhouse Kolsch.

Mountain Tap Brewery in Steamboat Springs, Colo., offers refurbished gondola cabins for private dining The heated cabins are a great post-ski destination to enjoy wood-fired pizzas and Chasing Sunset Golden Ale, Mountain Macaroon Brown Ale, or Hoppy Hiker IPA. The brewery also supports nonprofit organizations such as Routt County Search and Rescue and other outdoor preservation and education groups.

Nestled right in Beech Mountain Resort and ski area in North Carolina is Beech Mountain Brewing. The resort is the highest ski resort in eastern North America. Year-round brews are predominately ski- and mountain-inspired including Downhill IPA, First Chair Coffee Brown, Mountain Town Amber, and 5506 Pale Ale, named after the peak elevation.

Roadhouse Brewing in Jackson Hole, Wyo. strongly supports Search and Rescue for the unsung work it does to save lives year after year, says co-founder Colby Cox. “Our partnership was primarily designed to bring attention to their organization, and secondarily to support them financially.” The brewery has also previously brewed beer to honor Kings and Queens of Corbet’s (a freeride ski and snowboard competition), and it releases Loose Boots Aprés IPA annually.

Elevation Beer Company in Poncha Springs, Colo. holds an annual “pray for snow” party to celebrate the start of the ski season. Besides plenty of beer and winter-themed games, this event benefits the Chaffee County Search and Rescue. During the festivities, they also accept outerwear donations for SOS winter outreach. The brewery’s Little Mo’ Porter is named for a favorite ski run at the nearby Monarch Mountain ski area.

Sip and Shop

Besides offering a wide variety of gear, Cripple Creek Backcountry has ski technicians ready to help with a custom boot fitting and other services. While customers wait, they can sample fresh beers right on tap at two of the locations. The goal for the rotating brews is to keep it local. For example, the Avon, Colo., location has Telluride Brewing’s Face Down Brown and Elevation Beer Company’s First Cast IPA ready to go.

Meier Ski Shop produces eco-friendly and high-performance skis at its Denver location. Ski enthusiasts or newcomers can do a barstool tour, where they can peek at the manufacturing process while enjoying a complimentary local beer as they shop for skis. Recent offerings included beer from Platte Park Brewing, Left Hand Brewing, and Tivoli Brewing.

Ski & Beer Fests

BrewSki, set for March 11, is a beer and ski festival at the Frisco Nordic Center in Colorado. Nordic skiers wear their most festive costumes and glide along a trail lined with tents pouring samples of local beer.

“In mountain culture, the appreciation for a well-crafted beer runs just about as deep as embracing winter by getting out there on skis,” says Linsey Joyce, Frisco Assistant Recreation & Culture Director/Programs Manager, who organizes the annual BrewSki Fest. “So marrying great beer and a costumed cross-country ski tour into one event is the perfect union in a mountain town like Frisco, which is why we expect another sold out Frisco BrewSki in 2023.”

This year marked the 12th annual BrewSki Festival in Connecticut hosted by the Salisbury Winter Sports Association. The event featured live music and beer from Elysian Brewing Co., Two Roads Brewing Company, Counter Weight Brewing Co., Captain Lawrence Brewing Co., and many more.

Brew & Ski Weekend takes place at Smugglers’ Notch Resort. The festivities showcase Vermont’s beer scene, which boasts the highest number of breweries per capita. There are Vermont brews as well as regional favorites on not one but two weekends this ski season.

Winter Brewfest, held at Snowshoe Mountain Resort in West Virginia, asks the question, ”What’s better than a beer aprés ski?” Festival-goers flocked to the event in December and discovered that rockin’ live music and fluffy, hot pretzels added to the experience.

The post A Beer & Ski Lover’s Guide appeared first on CraftBeer.com.

Crowns & Hops Advances Racial Equity

Hunter introduced craft beer to friend Beny Ashburn, who immediately saw an opportunity. With successful careers in marketing and advertising, Ashburn and Hunter decided to launch a lifestyle brand that evolved into Crowns & Hops Brewing Co. in Inglewood, Calif. Ashburn is co-founder and CEO of Crowns & Hops, and Hunter is co-founder, chief operations officer, and head of brewery operations.

Community is integral to the brewery’s vision and mission and at the core of everything they do. “We wanted to build not only a brand but also an experience where you felt welcome as part of a community and understood what premium quality products tasted like,” says Ashburn. She says belonging and creating community are important because, for too long, that’s not how beer has been presented to the Black community.

Crowns & Hops’ beers celebrate and highlight different communities—from their local neighborhood to the Black community and beyond. We Invented the Fresh double hazy IPA is a collaboration with Hella Coastal, Brewing with Brothas, and HopBay to honor hip-hop culture and its creators. “Hip-hop came from Black and Brown people in the city,” says Hunter. “Giving attribution is important.”

Their flagship initiative is 8 Trill Pils, a Pilsner and a nonprofit of the same name, both dedicated to attaining racial equity within the craft beer industry. The initiative provides capital and resources for Black-owned businesses in and around the craft beer industry and, to date, has awarded $100,000 in grants to five breweries.

Today, Hunter’s introduction to craft beer has come full circle. The owner of Allagash Brewing Co. reached out about the 8 Trill Pils Initiative and wanted to get involved. Crowns & Hops and Allagash are collaborating on Cur-8, a blend of Pilsner and Bourbon barrel-aged tripel. A portion of the proceeds from Cur-8 sales will support the 8 Trill Pils Initiative.

Crowns & Hops’ next big community endeavor is Crowns Inglewood—a 14,000-square-foot pub that will be a full restaurant and brewhouse. Hunter emphasizes that “pub” stands for public house, and Crowns Inglewood will be a community hub—a safe and comfortable space that will belong to the community and be an extension of people’s homes.

City-State Celebrates the Best of D.C.

City-State Brewing Co. in Washington, D.C., also wants its taproom and brewery to be a place of belonging for the community and a focal point of hometown pride. Founder and CEO James Warner calls the brewery a love letter to D.C., celebrating the District’s history and culture. “It inspires everything we do and how we do it,” he says.

He wanted to build a brand to tell stories of the city, shine a light, and lift up D.C. culture beyond the monuments and tourist attractions. All the beers tie to D.C. stories.

“Everyone knows the stories that the USA tells itself,” says Warner. “We know neighborhoods in Chicago, San Francisco, New York, and Boston, but nobody outside D.C. knows the neighborhoods in D.C.—the things that have been happened here, the local civil rights struggles.”

Featherduster Hazy IPA honors the 1873 D.C. legislature protest. The U.S. Congress ended D.C.’s own government that year, and all the local legislators stripped everything from the chamber, down to the feather duster. Equal Marriage Blonde Wheat and Equal Marriage Dark Wheat showcase the District’s marriage equality across race, gender, and religion. Lost Laws Pilsner salutes the civil rights heroes who beat Jim Crow in D.C. using laws from 80 years earlier.

City-State’s Big G partnership highlights go-go music, which originated in the District. Big G’s Flavor from the Pocket is a golden ale made in partnership with go-go musician, activist, and D.C. icon Anwan “Big G” Glover, who created the beer and its label.

City-State is a family-friendly brewery that hosts a range of events, including story time for kids and dog rescue adoption parties. It also serves a venue and platform for artists and entrepreneurship, sponsoring such activities as pop-up stores with local partners like Pop of Culture, a community built for Black entrepreneurs and creatives.

Bow & Arrow Honors Native Communities

Bow & Arrow Brewing Co. founder, president, and CEO Shyla Sheppard first learned about craft beer during her undergraduate studies at Stanford. She was intrigued by the brewing process and its flavor elements. That fascination stuck with her.

After almost a decade in social impact investing, Sheppard left to establish Bow & Arrow in Albuquerque, N.M. She’s a member of the Three Affiliated Tribes (Mandan, Hidatsa & Arikara Nation) and quickly incorporated indigenous ingredients in the brewing process. “We’re giving value to what’s around us,” she says, “and where we can, we support other local businesses.” One example is Denim Tux, a blue corn American Pilsner. The New Mexican blue corn is sourced from a tribally owned business that also has its own mill.

Bow & Arrow also supports many fundraisers. Recent recipients include a PRIDE Rainbow Scholarship on the Navajo Nation and a drone project to deliver medical supplies in Ukraine. The brewery partners with local Native nonprofits on agricultural programs and hosts pop-up markets

Bow & Arrow’s signature community initiative is its Native Land campaign, which, with the help of other breweries, acknowledges and supports Native communities. Bow & Arrow develops a beer recipe, concept, and label. Other breweries are invited to brew the beer, use the label template, and commit to donating the sales proceeds to Native American nonprofits focused on ecological stewardship, access to ancestral lands, and revitalization of traditional agriculture and food ways.

“It creates awareness that Native Americans are not only an important part of this country’s history, but also we are still here,” says Sheppard. “And it generates resources for Native organizations dedicated to strengthening connections for Native people to their ancestral lands and rich agricultural histories.”

The first Native Land initiative began in November 2021, during Native American Heritage Month, with 47 breweries across 23 states and two Canadian territories participating and raising nearly $90,000. Native Land 2.0 launched in November 2022 and runs through the end of October 2023. This year’s recipe will be a Mexican-style lager with heritage corn.

Bow & Arrow recruits Native Land participants through word of mouth, social media, and its website. Participating breweries like The Alchemist in Stowe, Vt., also spread the word on their social media channels. “The Alchemist has a huge following and is very respected,” says Sheppard, “and that helped expand our network.”

Crowns & Hops, City-State, Bow & Arrow, and the breweries that partner with them represent what’s best about the craft beer community. They not only focus on quality, but they create, anchor, and support communities locally and beyond. As Warner says, “Part of being a brewery is serving your community—however you define it.”

The post Beyond the Beer: Three Breweries Serving Their Communities appeared first on CraftBeer.com.

The truth is, not all smoke is the same. Chef Isaac Toups of Toups’ Meatery in Mid-City, New Orleans, uses a large variety of woods for smoking various meats and the results demand different beers. Whether cooking in the ad hoc at-home smoker he built out of firebricks in his backyard—with grill grates and crawfish pot lids on top—or the restaurant’s new custom-made smoker built by Riverside Meat Smokers from Linwood, Kansas, there’s variety in intensity and intention when it comes to cooking with smoke.

At Toups’ Meatery, smoked elements are found throughout the menu. “I’m not a barbecue restaurant making brisket or pork butt,” explains Toups, though all his house charcuterie is smoked: jalapeño cheddar sausage, capicola, and tasso (ham). His food is all about overtones— implying smoke without completely overwhelming the tastebuds, “like a bonfire you hang around, and your clothes allude to its aroma the next day: sweet, earthy, like an expensive cigar,” conjures Toups.

Hot smoked duck is used in a fried rice bowl, topped with blistered shishitos, mushrooms, and pickled plum aioli. “Duck is more elegant and pairs well with Urban South’s Rectify Coffee Porter,” believes Toups, who also suggests Lazy Magnolia’s Southern Pecan brown ale to contrast both fat and flavor, matching the sweetness of the meat, or Gnarly Barley’s Imperial Korova Milk Porter, which Toups deems “delicious without being too perfumey.”

Toups also practices cold smoking, a method that “gives food the flavor of smoke without cooking the ingredient, like we see in smoked salmon,” which he utilizes for his cold-smoked quail perched atop corn maque choux. There are more subtleties when it comes to cold smoked fish, too. “Smoked trout goes great with a lighter refreshing Kölsch,” Toups says. At the restaurant they’ll pour Port Orleans Kennerbräu from the tap or Zony Mash’s Among The Bugs hefeweizen. The combination works because of a lesser ratio of fat to smoke in fish versus poultry (see the Smoked Turkey Leg recipe), which Toups thinks needs something more.

While Toups loves the refinement of Old World beers, he has been into Gnarly Barley’s Jucifer lately, a hazy IPA that uses Citra and Mosaic hops for big, juicy tropical notes, which he finds “so unique and delicious,” but needs a smokier dish to stand up to, like tender beef back ribs served alongside cowboy red beans, root beer BBQ sauce, and slaw. On the more refreshing side, even Toups was surprised to find how well a lime cucumber gose from Urban South paired with his smoky bacon burger—its bright, slightly sour acidity can cut through all that smoke and fat.

Bringing the Smoke

Not all smoky food has to be fatty. In Michigan, an area of the country where micro-regional smoked sausages, jerky, and snack sticks can be found in most rest stops and supermarkets, Chef James Rigato of Mabel Gray Kitchen in Detroit’s Hazel Park spent the summer smoking foods for a vegan menu, including tofu to make soft whipped spread and dark Michigan maple syrup as an accompaniment to cornbread.

Rigato jerry-rigged a method of bringing smoke into his dishes without actually having a smoker. He “sautés” soaking wet wood chips over his Southbend range until the water has evaporated and the pan is dry and “ripping hot,” emitting a thick plume of smoke. He then transfers the pan to a rack in the oven, filling it with sweet, thick woodsmoke. He adds whatever food he’s smoking to the oven, closes the door, and lets it absorb the full flavor of the wood.

Admittedly, his favorite thing to smoke is lamb neck. “We do a pastrami brine and spice, smoke it for 1.5 to two hours, sous vide it at 180° F for six to eight hours (to break down the thick, hard fat), and then hard sear it in a cast iron,” explains Rigato. He serves this smoky set with sauerkraut, pickled mustard seeds, and spaetzle. He’s also done a beer cheese sauce on the side, made with, and served alongside, a slightly sour saison. Be it tofu, maple, or lamb, much of what Rigato looks for in a pairing is mouthfeel.

Whether vegan or carnivore, the drink list relies heavily on clean, crisp lagers and saisons that Rigato equates to “sparkling water, great to have at any meal.” It’s a way of keeping  the palate refreshed and wanting more, without too many competing flavors. He also gravitates toward sour beers from Jolly Pumpkin from Dexter, Mich. for the same reason. “They’re like pét nat [wines], or Spanish-style ciders,” using carbonation to soothe the smokiness. Rigato offers Calabaza Blanca as a great entry-level pairing for any dish on his menu.

The rest of the beer list professes Rigato’s love for Urbanrest Brewing Company in nearby Ferndale, Mich. Next to Suarez Family Brewery in Hudson, N.Y., the lauded Hill Farmstead in Vermont, and Minneapolis, Minn.’s Fair State Brewing Cooperative’s Scope Creep pale lager, “I think Urbanrest is making some of my favorite beers in the country, especially their Odle Pilsner and Kaiser Vienna-style lager,” reveals Rigato, who tends to stay local but foremost cares about quality.

Where Barbecue is King

In Texas, where barbecue is king, beer runs a close second. Blake Robertson and Ryan Cade, co-founders of R-C Ranch in Houston, are looking to reimagine both markets in one fell swoop. “Our customers were used to drinking whatever light beer they had at the gas station,” says Robertson.

The two have an Oyler commercial smoker in their butcher shop and pride themselves on their Wagyu cattle herd. While Cade is the rancher, Robertson’s family started Karbach Brewery in the early 2010s (they sold it to Anheuser-Busch InBev in 2017). He knows firsthand that beer is synonymous with BBQ to Houstonians.

Roberston and Cade sell their Wagyu and smoked meats to many restaurants in Houston, including Georgia James Steak and Bludorn, but they also host beef and beer dinners at the ranch. The menu usually starts with a salad of sliced flank steak, progressing into street tacos with homemade tortillas made with Wagyu tallow, onto big meaty ribeyes with mushroom demi-glace. Each course builds with an intensity of richness through smoke and fat, while beer styles progress in expressiveness.

“We start with blondes and wheat, and move into hoppier styles,” says Robertson, who extrapolates as to how clean malt profiles can be delicately hopped without sacrificing character, augmenting slight smokiness, while the bracing bitterness of an IPA may seem big, but serves a purpose in pairings: to prevent total smoke exhaustion.

SMOKED TURKEY LEGS

Chef Isaac Toups

Serves 4

I don’t love turkey, but I can get down with smoked turkey legs. They’re the perfect outdoor barbecue food and practically beg to be brought to a tailgate. And there is no way to eat one without getting it all over your face and getting your hands dirty. Try it with a bunch of kids. It’s fun to watch them try and take down something that’s the size of their own legs.

INGREDIENTS

• 4 (1-pound) turkey legs (these
• are the big boys)
• 25 cloves garlic, minced
• 6 tablespoons mustard powder
• 6 tablespoons smoked paprika
• 6 tablespoons ground black
• pepper
• 3 tablespoons kosher salt

EQUIPMENT

• Smoker (optional)

DIRECTIONS

• Preheat the smoker (or oven) to 250°F. You can make these in the oven if you need to, but the smoker is where it’s at. Personally, if I didn’t have a smoker, I wouldn’t even bother.
• Score the turkey legs: On the meatier side of each leg, make three slices into the flesh, about an inch apart, cutting all the way down to the bone. Cut two more slashes on the other side, staggering between the other slashes. (That is, do not cut a ring all the way around the bone.) This will expose more turkey meat to the spice rub.
• In a small mixing bowl, combine the garlic, mustard, paprika, pepper, and salt. I like to mix it with my hand, really agitating it. Divide this mixture into 4 equal piles. Rub a pile into each turkey leg, making sure each leg is well covered and the spices get deep into the cuts and crevices.
• Place the seasoned turkey legs in the smoker (or oven) and smoke (or bake) for 2 hours, or until the internal temperature is 155°F. Let cool for about 5 minutes. Eat like the barbarian you are.

The post Smoke and a Beer appeared first on CraftBeer.com.

As the dominant beer style, IPA continues to monopolize draught boards and beer coolers alike, while spawning new substyles. Meanwhile, lager styles find their way into the hearts and minds of the faithful one sip at a time through their diversity, drinkability, and adaptability.

“Lager” refers to any beer fermented with bottom-fermenting yeast, whereas IPA has a more stringent set of identifying characteristics. And while IPA shows no signs of slowing, in select spots around the U.S, a small patch of breweries has decided to place less emphasis on IPAs and their top-fermented brethren in favor of preaching the gospel of lager.

Lagering on the West Coast

Heater Allen Brewing Company was started by Rick Allen in McMinnville, Ore. in 2007 with the idea of brewing only lagers. According to his daughter Lisa Allen, who joined the brewery in 2009 as head brewer, Allen’s initial focus came about because “he wanted to see if there was actually a market for it.” Once he discovered thirsty beer drinkers eager to try his creations, he expanded from a 6-barrel brewing system to a 15-barrel system on the growth spurred by his flagship Bohemian-style Pilsner.

Heater Allen’s core beer is that same Pilsner, called Pils, that Allen initially brewed in 2007, with a few additions. “We still do our Bohemian Pilsner but for the most part our other beers are German-style lagers,” says Lisa Allen. “We have a core Munich dunkel and a schwarzbier, which is a cross between a German- and a Czech-style.” Heater Allen also has a seasonal program that follows the type of beer releases typical for Germany. “We recently released Bobtoberfest, which is our traditional Märzen-style Oktoberfest beer. We also brew a Baltic porter, a smoked bock, and a helles lager.”

One of the greatest challenges in staying lager-focused, says Lisa Allen, is keeping a tight brew schedule—and that means sometimes having to say no. “Our beer takes eight weeks from the day we brew it to the day we release it,” she said. “That’s our biggest challenge, especially during high times. I don’t have an assistant brewer right now, so it’s me doing most of the work.” Because of the nature of lagers and their commitment to giving their beer the time it needs to condition, Allen says that sometimes means not getting the beer to everyone who wants it. “I just haven’t been able to brew quite as fast as I would otherwise. You don’t want to say no to people, but one of those things with the business is that sometimes you have to say no as a smaller brewery.”

Along those same lines, staying lager-focused means making sure every beer is of the highest quality. Allen recounts, “I’ve had people complain on review sites that we only have six beers on tap [in the brewery taproom], and I’m just like ‘We’re a small brewery, sorry.’ I think most people who understand what we do and understand that stuff takes time don’t mind it. I feel like what we do, we do really well. It’s one of those things where I’m not going to half-ass anything, so I may only have six lagers on tap, but they’re all going to be high quality beers.”

An Abby Dedicated to Lager

For the Massachusetts-based Jack’s Abby Brewing Company, the focus on lagers came from founding brewer Jack Hendler’s passion. According to CEO Sam Hendler, the brewery’s lager focus started overseas. “My brother Jack had been to brewing school in Chicago and then in Munich, and he really fell in love with lager production. He had done some extensive travel to the breweries in Europe and felt that lager was underdeveloped and underexplored in the craft brewing space.”

When the brewery opened in 2011, the Hendlers were cautiously optimistic. “Looking back to 2011 when we opened, the feeling was that there were way too many breweries for us to possibly survive, which is obviously pretty comical now,” said Hendler. “The feeling was that we needed something bold to differentiate ourselves.”

Back in 2011, there was also a bit of stigma about lager in the craft beer space, recalls Hendler. “I think a lot of brewers wanted to drink lager; you just weren’t allowed to say it. And you certainly weren’t allowed to let your customers know that you wanted to drink lager because most craft brewers couldn’t make lager and wouldn’t make lager and it wouldn’t make financial sense for them to make lager.”

Lager was still considered “fizzy yellow beer” by many craft brewers and flavorful craft lagers were explored by few, similar to how canned beer was considered something only for large brewers.

“I think from a brand point of view, a lot of brewers tried to make it a story of ‘us versus them’ and ‘big versus small’—Big Beer makes lager and small craft brewers make ale,” muses Hendler. “They tried to make things super simple and easy to communicate to customer between craft and macro beer, and lager kind of got thrown into the gutter from a marketing perspective because of that.”

But the thought of lagers being relegated only to Big Beer is not accurate, Hendler said. “I can tell you our brewers always drank lager and the deep, dark secret of a lot of brewers is that there’s a lot of love for bright, golden lagers.”

That doesn’t always make for an easy sale, though. Hendler says that one of Jack’s Abby’s biggest challenges centers around the consumer’s love for IPA. “Consumer trends like the concentration of craft beer on IPA as a style is really challenging to cut through,” he laments. “If a bar puts our House Lager on tap, it’s probably not going to pull as fast as the IPA they put on next to it.”

But he also believes that the drinker benefits from diversified tap lists. “I think it’s a bad thing for craft beer if the draught lines of that bar end up with seven IPAs and a macro lager, so I think it’s really important for the industry that we do carve out more space for lager and get on board with it.”

Despite the challenges with India pale ale’s hold on the craft beer segment, the IPA drinker is still one of Jack’s Abby’s best customers.

“We see a lot of the craft beer consumer who buys a new IPA every week, but they also grab a 15-pack of House Lager once a month,” said Hendler. “That’s the fridge beer that they crush with barbecue or whatever. Those are our people.”

The Haus That Lager Built by the Bay

While brewing lager is personal for every brewery that undertakes the style, for Tampa’s BarrieHaus Beer Co., the style is in head brewer Jim Barrie’s blood. Barrie’s great-great-great grandfather, Phillip Kling, came to the United States from Germany in the 19th century and started the Ph. Kling Brewing Company in Michigan.

Kling’s daughter carried on the brewing tradition. She married Louis Schimmel, and  the couple founded a brewery in Detroit, Mich. called Tivoli Brewing. The brewery’s Altes Lager became one of the most popular beers in the state. Tivoli survived Prohibition by making near-beer, allegedly running beer to speakeasies, and shipping to Canada.

Barrie and his wife, Brittney, drew on this family history when they established BarrieHaus Brewing with the tagline “Established in 1863, reinvented in 2019.”

The duo decided to follow in the family’s footsteps and establish a brewery in Tampa— the beating heart of craft beer in the Sunshine State. While there were well over 90 breweries in the counties that call Tampa Bay home, Jim and Brittney saw plenty of opportunity for the kind of lagers they wanted to make.

Tampa Bay may be saturated in terms of breweries, but “not for someone who’s making 99 percent lagers,” believes Jim Barrie. “I feel like it’s not even close to what it will be in five years. If you look at Denver, there are three lager breweries in the city among 300 breweries.”

When BarrieHaus opened in 2019, it was Jim and Brittney’s love of lagers that was displayed on the draught board, inspired not only by Jim’s family, but the couple’s  own experience of lager culture.

“We had a really transformative trip when we went to Germany on our honeymoon,” recalls Jim Barrie. “To drink fresh German lager was a game-changer for both of us. When we came back, [lager is] all I’m doing pretty much.”

Brittney Barrie says the camaraderie among all the brewers making world-class beer helped them through their first two years in business.

“Those relationships have meant the world to us; it allows us to be who we are in the heart of Tampa,” she said. “It really has been an incredible beer community in Tampa and in St. Pete as well. Seven breweries within a mile radius. They’re all right here and they’re all making really good beer. They all have their thing and they’re all happy that our thing is lagers.”

Innovation in Lager Styles

It can be hard to convince craft beer drinkers—who are used to seeking out the newest innovations from craft brewers—to try lagers, since many of the styles are brewed with traditional methods and ingredients.

But Lisa Allen says that innovation can be found in switching up beer ingredients and challenging mindsets instead of looking for adjuncts to add.

“A lot of [innovation] has been on the hop side, using hops that are not traditional for lagers and different hopping techniques, like dry-hopping,” she said. “We did an Italian Pilsner that we actually dip-hopped—you put the hops in the fermenter and you essentially knock out into the fermenter on the hops. It was a collab with Wayfinder and Modern Times and one of them suggested it.”

While dip-hopping proved an interesting experiment, Allen says that lager, as a style, can do much more than it gets credit for. “Lager yeast is very versatile, and you can make pretty much any style with it. With lagers, it’s like thinking within the box, rather than thinking outside the box. What can I do within this realm of malt, hops, yeast, methods, and process?”

At BarrieHaus, innovation comes to the taps with twists on the lager tradition. Beers like Endless Zest—brewed with local Florida oranges—shows off some of the innovation in the lager space, using complementary ingredients in the beer. “I personally prefer the little twists, like the citrus zest in our lager,” says Brittney Barrie. “There’s fresh orange zest but it still tastes like an American lager.”

For a traditional lager brewery, BarrieHaus has shown it is open to experimentation within the lager space when it comes to adjuncts—usually, Brittney Barrie says, while working with other breweries. “We’ve done collabs before where their thing is pastry or lactose. We’re not afraid to do some fun stuff like that at their location.” For example, the brewery has collaborated with Georgia’s Pontoon Brewing. “They’re making beer that tastes like margaritas, and creamsicles, and peanut butter and jelly sandwiches,” she said.

For Jack’s Abby, innovation comes in many forms. “We’ve played with lager in a ton of different ways,” said Hendler. “We’ve done hazy hoppy lager and we will continue to do so. We love kellerbier and something that’s a lot of fun for us is experimenting with extremely traditional techniques that aren’t commonly used in the U.S.”

Sometimes, too, innovation in the lager space comes from learning more about the brewing origins and traditions of lager.

“Jack is going to Germany every year to source ingredients,” said Hendler. “It’s not just about the next new thing and innovation. When we build a House Lager consumer, that is a more loyal consumer than the brewery who got someone to buy one four-pack of a new IPA.”

The post Spreading the Gospel of Lager appeared first on CraftBeer.com.

Carson sees his return as a victory. He grew up there, along with all of his Albuquerque friends.

“You got a Black guy going back to his old neighborhood and upgrading a building,” Carson said. “You’d have to be crazy not to appreciate the fact that we’ve been able to redo an old building that’s historical to the Black community and see the faces of people within the community who used to go to that place.”

Carson owns two locations of Nexus these days: the Nexus Brewery & Restaurant and Nexus Blue Smokehouse in his former South Broadway stomping grounds. A third location, the Nexus Silver Taproom, shut down in December 2019.

Despite the closure, Nexus has thrived, but life in the food and beer business wasn’t always what Carson had envisioned for himself.

From Banking to Beer

A common thread in Carson’s life emerged years before opening Nexus: being the only Black person around.

It began in high school and followed him into the professional world when Carson worked his way through college at New Mexico State University as a federal examiner with the Comptroller of the Currency. He moved into banking locally and eventually found himself in a deputy director role, where he led the banking department for the entire state of New Mexico. He was appointed director when he was around 30.

After working his way up to bank president, he intended to retire after a successful career. But being on the wrong side of a shareholder fight meant his role as president was no longer tenable. And then came the financial crisis of 2007-08, otherwise known as the Great Recession, considered by many to be the worst financial crisis since the Great Depression. The bank began to lose money and business slowed.

“I started thinking, this bank’s gonna fail, I’m going to be unemployed,” Carson said. “During the financial crisis, an unemployed banker’s not going to get employed.”

The plan was to start another bank, but Carson thought better of it. Instead, his thoughts turned to a totally different pursuit: beer.

“I became a fan of breweries before it became popular,” Carson said. “In the 1990s, we were in Colorado a lot. It was kind of a habit and a hobby where I would go and hang out at breweries.”

At the time, Black brewery owners and brewers were rare, with Garrett Oliver of Brooklyn Brewery being the most prominent. However, Carson was not deterred. Despite an inauspicious start (his first batch as a brewer was “horrible”), he put together a business plan and knew he needed to find an experienced brewer.

While building out Nexus, Carson began to hear of a lot of other breweries trying to open. So he went against his plans and added a 10-foot kitchen hood. He wasn’t sure what it would be used for, but his first inclination was fried chicken and collard greens.

Combining food and beer became his mission.

A Soulful Beginning

“At the time I would say we were probably the only soul food brewery in the world, back in 2011,” Carson said.

A consultant tried to dissuade him from featuring fried chicken, citing the difficultly level. With a delay in construction and money running low, Carson let the kitchen advisor go. After hiring a brewer, Carson began researching what food would work best.

“I decided to do fried chicken anyway,” Carson said. He visited highly rated spots like the since-closed Gladys Knight’s Chicken and Waffles in Atlanta, Roscoe’s in L.A., and Lo-Lo’s in Phoenix. Each place was famous for chicken and waffles, and each had lines out the door.

Carson’s menu would be headlined by chicken and waffles, but he began incorporating New Mexican soul food using local red and green chiles. His mom’s greens and turnips were added to his hodgepodge menu featuring nachos, red beans, rice, gumbo, fried catfish, and fried chicken.

The eclectic menu caught the attention of Guy Fieri, who filmed an episode of Diners, Drive-Ins and Dives at Nexus.

“His comment was that he hadn’t had collard greens that good on this side of the Mississippi,” Carson recalls.

Brewing Award-Winning Beer in New Mexico

The food isn’t the only thing garnering attention for Nexus.

In 2017, the brewery was awarded a gold medal at the Great American Beer Festival (GABF) for its Imperial Cream Ale. In 2015, it won a silver medal at GABF for Honey Bear, a honey and chamomile wheat beer. More recently, Beam Me Up (Higher), Scotty won a silver in the Old Ale category of the 2022 World Beer Cup.

All three of Carson’s brewers have made award-winning beers. Carson said there really isn’t a method to hiring medaled brewers—it’s more of having them try to match the food quality and giving them the reins to do what they want in the brewery.

When first submitting beers to competitions, Carson looked to his customers for inspiration on what to enter from Nexus’ portfolio.

“When we won the first award, we just knew the beer was good and our customers liked it,” Carson said. “We just picked the strongest selling beers we had at the time. We were really surprised when we won an award.”

Carson thinks the bar is high for beer quality in New Mexico as well, but winning awards validates Nexus’ mission.

“We feel very appreciative,” Carson said. “It’s an acknowledgement that the quality of our beer is up there with everybody else. The staff is proud, I’m proud, our brewers are proud.”

Among the medal winners, Carson recommends the Imperial Cream Ale as it goes with just about anything on the menu.

“It’s very light, it doesn’t have a whole lot of hops or contrary flavors,” Carson said. “It just goes very smoothly with everything.”

What’s Next for Nexus?

As Carson continues to get everything dialed in for the original location, he’s also working on developing the Smokehouse, which he calls a work in progress despite sales doubling in the last five months. He has also signed a contract to serve beer in a local food hall.

When asked what advice he would give to other BIPOC looking to open a brewery, Carson said, “You just have to just keep fighting to do your best to accomplish your dream. There’s two things that I really love that I grew up with: barbecue and soul food. And that’s exactly what I’m doing.”

Recipe

Collard Greens

DINERS, DRIVE-INS AND DIVES

Nexus Brewery and Restaurant

Recipe author: Ken Carson

Serving Size:  8

Prep Time: 30 minutes

Cook Time: 4 hours

Total Time: 4 hours 30 minutes

Ingredients:

• 6 bunches collard greens
• 1/2 large onion
• 1 Tbs. chopped garlic
• 2 crushed chile pods
• 1 small smoked turkey leg
• 2 teaspoons Frank’s Hot Sauce
• 1/8 cup bacon grease
• 1/4 cup diced bacon
• 1 Tbs. salt
• 8 cups water

Method:

Wash collard greens. Start by folding collard greens in half and de-stemming each leaf. Remove the large stem in the middle. Chop leaves at about 1 inch increments.

Boil turkey leg in a large pot for about an hour. Then place greens, onions, crushed chile pods, garlic, bacon, hot sauce, and salt in the pot. Bring to a boil then simmer for about 3 hours until turkey leg and greens are tender.

The post Soul Food and Cream Ale in Albuquerque appeared first on CraftBeer.com.

To get to know a city’s beer scene, it’s important to know more than what’s in your glass. You also need to know the history. Walking to breweries lets you appreciate aspects of a city you may not notice buzzing by in a car, so I traveled to Grand Rapids, Mich. to explore what USA Today has called “Beer City USA.” You can visit 25 breweries and trek 100 miles—all without getting in a car. But the beer isn’t the only thing that captures attention.

On foot, Grand Rapids’ race-based geographic divisions are noticeable. I saw how land use decisions made decades ago affect where I can get a beer and who sits on the barstool next to me. As the craft industry’s demographics change, what can Beer City USA teach us about how history impacts beer today?

A mid-sized city of 200,000 people, Grand Rapids is the second most populous city in Michigan after Detroit. Grand Rapids is 65.5% non-Hispanic white, 18.1% Black, and 16.3% Hispanic—more diverse than Michigan as a state.

In 2015 Forbes ranked it the second-worst U.S. city for African Americans to live based on metrics such as entrepreneurship and homeownership. In May, the police shooting of a Black man sparked debates on race relations in the city. Yet the stories I heard from residents reveal more than what statistics offer.

‘Underserved and Ignored’

Tucked near the interchange of I-196 and US-131, New Holland’s Knickerbocker is the Grand Rapids outpost of Michigan’s largest independent brewery. I fantasized about spending time in the airy multi-floor taproom here on days too cold to play outside.

It is hard to imagine that in 1933 this trendy West Side neighborhood was given a “hazardous” lending rating by the Home Owners’ Loan Corporation (HOLC). They used residents’ race, ethnicity, and religion—not actual creditworthiness—to discourage investment. Appraisers believed Black people—or in the case of the West Side, Polish immigrants—reduced real estate values. A map by Michigan State University shows redlining thwarted people from buying or financing improvements in multiracial neighborhoods.

Although redlining ended in the 1960s, its repercussions linger. Zillow and Redfin report that real estate values in redlined areas across the country can be 10 times lower than in non-redlined areas.

Doug Hoverson, a historian working on a book about Michigan breweries, said that in the 1980s and 1990s, not unlike today, breweries formed in “the cheapest industrial building they could find with a drain.”

Cross-referencing the 17 breweries within city limits with a 1940s map, I find two other breweries in the same redlined neighborhood as The Knickerbocker. Jolly Pumpkin Artisan Ales is across the street. Arvon Brewing and Speciation Artisan Ales are in redlined neighborhoods east of the river. That’s a disproportionate number of breweries on the 6% of the city’s land deemed “hazardous.”

When Speciation Ale’s Mitch Ermatinger moved to the area as a resident in 2008, he was unfamiliar with the history, but fell in love with its progressive culture. Still, he recognized that “many parts of Grand Rapids are still underserved and ignored.” When the brewery relocated in 2019, the choice of community was “100% intentional.” In its former industrial location, Speciation had mainly attracted white men. For the brewery’s new taproom, he wanted something different.

How Redlining Impacted Beer Drinking

Even though descendants of redlined residents live near and drink at Grand Rapids taprooms, they still aren’t the owners of the breweries. Black Calder Brewing, founded by Grand Rapids native Terry Rostic and Michigan native Jamaal Ewing, is one of just two Black-owned breweries in the state.

“I went to different breweries in the area and I never saw anyone like me. I was always the outsider,” Rostic said. With Black Calder, he and Ewing are challenging that narrative.

Rostic said there’s a precedent for how representation can change who drinks craft beer. “I saw this play out in the liquor industry. Rappers drinking vodka and grape juice and talking about Hpnotiq [made from fruit juice, vodka, and cognac]. The culture was like, ‘Oh, somebody drinking that looks like us?’ Before you know it, these things take off.”

In a city saturated with breweries, Black Calder faces unique challenges. Though established in 2020, it is still looking for a brick-and-mortar taproom.

“How property was divided and shifted within Grand Rapids impacts how we operate and try to find a location today,” Rostic said. “A lot of property [in Grand Rapids], at least commercial property, is not owned by African Americans.” For now, Black Calder releases beer through collaborations with Speciation Artisan Ales and other breweries.

A history of redlining impacts fundraising, too: A quarter of new businesses rely on family money to start, and women and minorities are disproportionately impacted by systemic issues that hindered generational wealth. “I have buddies who started breweries and were able to draw hundreds of thousands of dollars from family,” Rostic said.

“Home values in the neighborhoods where my grandparents weren’t allowed to live were maybe $10,000 in the 1970s and now [they’re] worth $600,000,” Rostic said. “Where my grandparents were able to buy a house, overpay for that house, get very high interest loans, finally pay it off—it’s still in a place where their home values are not a quarter of others in the city.”

In Grand Rapids, highway construction for I-196 and US-131 uprooted 4,000 Black families. Those displaced moved in with relatives or rented, which reduced intergenerational wealth. That scenario impacts traditional bank financing, too. Nationwide, inequality in homeownership has contributed to Black Americans holding only 10% of the assets of white Americans.

Without home equity, entrepreneurs can’t come up with collateral. “Since we didn’t have these opportunities, redlining absolutely makes an impact today on business and entrepreneurship in Grand Rapids,” Rostic said.

While all breweries need financing, it’s harder for entrepreneurs of color.

The Federal Reserve reports Black and Hispanic-owned businesses face disparity in funding. “These things are amplified 100 times in the craft beer industry because of all the regulations, no matter what you look like,” Rostic said. “When you add in generational and historical impacts, there’s no reason not to understand why in Grand Rapids, Mich. you’ve never had a Black-owned brewery until 2020. These are all by design.”

In a brewery-dense city, the two-mile walk across southeast Grand Rapids was my longest stretch between taprooms. If I had been in a car, the trek from Brass Ring Brewing to ELK Brewing would have gone by in a blink. On foot, it’s easy to see these neighborhoods have the highest density of Black and Hispanic people.

That’s why Rostic wants Grand Rapids’ 49507 ZIP code to be the future home of Black Calder, “to show minority entrepreneurship—someone from this area—can be a catalyst, the building that invites other businesses to come.”

Funding Diverse Beer

From the city center, I head north on the bike trail for half a mile to City Built Brewing, on the east bank of the Grand River. City Built is the only Hispanic-owned brewery in Grand Rapids. Owner Edwin Collazo’s parents are from Puerto Rico. The brewery reflects his culture in the menu and beer names, like Hola, Mi Nombre Es, a fruited lactose sour.

Before starting City Built, Collazo was a financial planner with a 15-year homebrew hobby. He started getting serious after joining an online national beer exchange group. “I guess they needed someone who could get Michigan beers,” he jokes.

While he wasn’t seeing local beer enthusiasts who looked like him, he found others online “who were leaders, decision makers at different breweries who had developed clout or respect for their skill set.” Collazo saw what could be possible in Michigan. “If you go to places where lots of minorities live, they like good beer. It’s working because of their decision makers—they’re marketing to other brown people.”

When it came time to raise money, networking skills from his prior job were a bonus. Collazo pitched City Built as a culturally diverse business that would add something unique to the city. “We did that, because 10 years ago, I don’t think Grand Rapids was ready, where now it’s almost cool and in vogue to seek out a cultural experience,” he said.

Still, convincing investors was a challenge. “When we talk about a guy who looks like me, trying to open a business in this town, it’s really hard to get past the old guard,” Collazo said. As a financial adviser, he’d seen the advantages that come to “blond, blue-eyed guys.”

“I had a white counterpart and he was seen as the credibility. I was referred to as ‘that brown guy who spoke well,’ which is funny for a guy from Ohio,” Collazo said.” He jokes, but Collazo and his parents were born in the U.S. and he has two degrees from American universities.

As with Black Calder, Collazo sees City Built as a conduit to serve his community and “give Hispanic people an upscale place where they can find familiar food and familiar flavor.”

On my brewery walk, taproom staff often recommended competitors’ beers to me. Collazo says other breweries tell tourists, “‘If you go to one more place [in town], you have to go to City Built.’ I think that happens because it’s so different. You can’t find this anywhere else.”

Education Can Change Who Brews

Hidden in the Applied Technology Center at Grand Rapids Community College (GRCC), Fountain Hill Brewery is the public-serving side of the school’s craft beer program.

Molly Daniels, an adjunct professor in the craft brewing program, said that knowing beer production science is the gateway to the changing beer industry: “If you can have a conversation about beer and brewing, that opens the door to so many things.”

Daniels is a graduate of the program herself. Now she’s a brewer at Railtown Brewing, in the greater metro area.

A full-time student can achieve a certificate in a year, though most students take two years to work part-time in the industry. The program, which has been around since 2016, expects 18 students next fall.

Allison Hoekstra, a professor who teaches beer sensory classes, said that a majority of graduates end up working in beer across a variety of jobs.

While GRCC’s program has yet to attract many people of color, it has provided a path for female brewers. Daniels was one of the first two women to receive a certificate in brewing. Now, 20% of her students are women, compared to 7.5% of working brewers nationwide.

Hoekstra, who also is on the education committee at Grand Rapids’ Beer City Brewers Guild, said that costs can be a barrier to learning. That’s one reason Rostic wants to develop a GRCC Black Brewer’s scholarship, in the footsteps of similar programs elsewhere in the country.

Stepping Up to the Challenge

“People are starting to see that inclusion is real,” Rostic said. “Some people do it because it makes business sense. Some people do it because they want more people to drink good beer.”

How can the industry use its resources to support nontraditional brewers?

Rostic references the difference between equity and equality. “I don’t want a handout. I want an opportunity. I want to compete.” He recognizes that redlining harmed intergenerational wealth in Grand Rapids. That’s why for him, equity looks like financing: “Low interest loans, banks not asking for so much collateral.”

There’s a precedent for the beer community providing access to capital. A program run by Sam Adams and the Accion Opportunity Fund provides loans and business mentoring for women and BIPOC.

“If you want to diversify, you want to be inclusive, you recognize things haven’t been right, you’re going to have to do things that you’ve never done before,” Rostic said.

As I walk through Grand Rapids, I imagine what it would be like if seven of Grand Rapids 40 breweries were Black-owned and six were Hispanic-owned, reflecting demographics.

Rostic says that won’t happen without dedication. “We really need a heart-to-heart and some soul searching as a community of business leaders, banks, and institutions to say, ‘If we want to make this happen, then we’re going to help you by any means necessary.’ That’s what’s needed in Michigan and everywhere across the country.”

The post A Walk through History and Race in Beer City USA appeared first on CraftBeer.com.

The Los Angeles County Brewers Guild counts 95 breweries around greater Los Angeles. Seventy-two of them opened in 2015 or after, most notably in neighborhoods and parts of L.A. historically and culturally associated with blue collar workers, immigrants, and people of color. This includes new businesses in the San Gabriel Valley (44.7% Latino, 25.7% Asian) and in the Inland Empire counties of Riverside (51.6% Latino, 8% Asian-Pacific Islander, 7.5% Black) and San Bernardino (55.8% Latino, 9.4% Black, 9% Asian-Pacific Islander), where the growth of breweries reflects their potential as community-builders and creative centers.

Boomtown Brewery in Downtown L.A., Brewyard Beer Company in Glendale, and Dragon’s Tale Brewery in Montclair are three greater Los Angeles breweries that represent this post-2015 craft beer surge. Open for less than a decade and with strong local followings, each brewery has established itself as a part of their respective neighborhood and the diverse communities they represent and serve. Together, these breweries unlock new ways of understanding the diversity found in local histories, cultures, ingredients, and values that influence craft beer production in greater Los Angeles.

Boomtown Brewing: Creating Space for Beer, Art, and History in Downtown L.A.

Every Wednesday night, Boomtown Brewery hosts Vegan Playground, a street-style food and craft festival that draws Boomtown’s largest weekly crowds. And during L.A.’s professional baseball, soccer, and football seasons, Boomtown becomes a supporters’ heaven, complete with fan camaraderie and games.

“We get the downtown city and federal workers stopping in for a post-work beer, Eastsiders hanging out, and that big vegan crowd on Wednesdays,” says Samuel “Chewy” Chawinga, Boomtown’s co-owner and head brewer. “Our Wednesday night is like a good Friday night. We regularly get 450 to 600 people throughout the evening.”

But the big parties happen when Boomtown drops a new can in its popular Artist Series. Every other month, Chawinga and staff brew between 30 and 60 barrels of a unique hazy double IPA inspired by a featured artist whose work decorates the collectible cans. One beer, Brighter Days Hazy DIPA, was made in collaboration with Russian-Polish artist Bunnie Reiss and featured fruity and herbaceous flavors to reflect the bold, colorful nature of her installation work and paintings. The release parties come alive with music, dancing, and beer flowing in the name of art by local and international street artists, DJs, tattooists, and muralists.

Another “Graffiti” series beer, featuring DJ Neff, remains Boomtown’s bestselling Artist Series can,  and the most-attended party to date honored L.A. graffiti artist Rick Ordonez, AKA “Atlas,” famous for his kitty-cat tags around the city.

The Artist Series is one reminder of Boomtown’s place at the geographical crossroads of urban development, local ancient histories, and the creation of sustainable artist- and community- driven spaces in downtown L.A.

Boomtown opened in August 2015 in a century-old building in a part of downtown hemmed in by railway lines, freeways, and the Los Angeles River. Its front entrance lies several hundred feet from the spot where an ancient sycamore tree grew for over four centuries, when it served as sacred meeting point for the Kizh-Gabrieleño tribe until early Spanish colonizers named it El Aliso. The tree remained an important landmark through L.A.’s Indigenous, Spanish, Mexican, and U.S. statehood eras—until two German immigrants chopped it down in 1895 to expand their brewery.

“It’s the first thing that comes to mind when I think about Boomtown and its location,” said lead brewer Amber Sawicki. “The Aliso Belgian Dark Strong ale names this history of the famous El Aliso tree. We get to know a place through beer.”

Boomtown’s brewery manager, Benjamin Turkel, mentioned the vineyards that once covered the land. “Vignes started wine cultivation right over there,” he said, pointing to the brewery’s main cross-street named for the Frenchman who made wine here in 1831. “We pay homage to these places and stories.” Whether through beers like Aliso Ale, their wine barrel aged saison, or Mic Czech, cleverly named to evoke the microphone as a versatile tool of artistic expression, Boomtown remains committed to its community- and place-based mission.

Sawicki and Turkel said their flagship Bad Hombre Mexican Lager best reflects Boomtown’s community identity. “Bad hombre” re-appropriates a term former president Donald Trump used to describe Mexican immigrants in 2016. The brewery joined many taqueros, bartenders, and others who turned Trump’s words against him in gleeful protest.

“Bad Hombre says the most about Boomtown,” says Sawicki. Beers like Aliso, Bad Hombre, and Chavez Ravine IPA, a reference to Dodger Stadium and its controversial beginnings, “get people talking” about place, time, and these not so past histories.

For Chawinga and crew, these local histories and cultural awareness remain key ingredients for their inspired beers and the diverse communities that enjoy them.

Ube Wan to the Rescue: Nothing Common about Glendale’s Brewyard Beer Company

Brewyard Beer Company sits under the Western Avenue bridge along the San Fernando Road “Craft Beer Corridor,” a 17-mile stretch of breweries north of Griffith Park, just east of the Hollywood Hills and a stone’s throw from Burbank’s famous Warner Bros., NBC, and Walt Disney studios. A restored 1936 Ford flatbed truck greets visitors to the taproom, its chrome grille the inspiration for Brewyard’s logo, a nod to head brewer and co-owner Sherwin Antonio’s former life as a master mechanic.

“He’s the mad scientist around here,” said co-owner and brewery manager Kirk Nishikawa of his childhood friend and partner in beer. When the pair opened Brewyard seven years ago, it was Glendale’s first craft brewery.

They specialize in California Common, or “steam” beers, a unique style with roots in the state’s Gold Rush days before refrigeration, when Germans from the East Coast realized they couldn’t properly cold-ferment lagers in the warm weather. “So they forced the lager yeast to ferment at higher temperatures more suited to ales,” said Nishikawa.

Their flagship, Jewel City California Common, is Brewyard’s most popular and awarded beer. But it was the Ube Wan IPA, made with the sweet purple Filipino yam, that saved the fledgling brewery from the coronavirus pandemic shutdowns of 2020.

“I grew up eating ube in meals and desserts, but I only thought to brew beer with it during the pandemic,” said Antonio.

“What is hard to relay is the overall excitement after we released that first batch of Ube Wan,” said Nishikawa. “Cans flew out the door at a pace that we never saw before. We were being tagged left and right on social media with images of our beer. I was able to catch up on a lot of bills that were stacking up.”

Ube Wan sold twice as much as Kalinga Pilsner, their second best-selling beer made with calamansi, a Filipino lime-orange citrus fruit. The two beers together comprise about 15 to 18 percent of beer sales in Brewyard’s taproom and about half their total distribution sales. “Keep in mind we brewed and sold 25 different beers throughout that year,” said Nishikawa, “so Ube Wan and Kalinga were pulling more than twice their weight in sales.”

With the pandemic success of Ube Wan IPA, Antonio made other beers that reflected the flavors he and Nishikawa grew up with as L.A. kids from Filipino and Japanese-American families. Enter Ube Macapuno Delight, inspired by an ube-coconut dessert and seltzers made with lychee and calamansi, all available at Seafood City, a Filipino grocery chain, and other Asian markets around the county.

“We weren’t prepared for the response to the ube beer,” said Nishikawa. “It seemed like the entire Filipino community in L.A. found us and wiped us out of all our cans. We learned how strong our communities would support us if we ‘went there’ culturally.”

In turn, Brewyard found ways to give back. The U.S. Census shows that Los Angeles County is home to 1.5 million Asians and over a half-million Filipinos, the largest Filipino population in the country. As one of the few Filipino co-owned and operated breweries in L.A. County, they understand the importance of reciprocity.

Antonio and Nishikawa have made beers to benefit organizations such as SIPA, a Pilipino American nonprofit, the Little Tokyo Community Council, and the Glendale YWCA. Their benefit brews are a testament to craft breweries’ valued presence in their communities and the possibilities of meaningful exchange through beer.

Five Years of Blue Beer and Dragon Tales at Montclair’s First Brewery

To celebrate Dragon’s Tale Brewery’s anniversary each year, head brewer Nikki Paternoster makes a beer she calls Errant Ale. She adds butterfly pea tea flowers to a Belgian wit-style ale, turning it blue. For interactive fun, customers can add citrus juice from local Bearss limes to turn it purple—a nod to the signature color of the dragon-themed brewery she co-owns and operates in Montclair with business partner Sousan D. Elias.

Errant Ale exemplifies Paternoster’s playful and creative approach to brewing unique and unexpected beers that pay homage to the region’s agricultural history as a citrus-growing hub, while harkening to a time when women were the primary brewers of styles that pre-existed industrialization.

“Women were the first ones to make beer, and a lot of changes to beermaking through the years were made by women,” said Elias. “It was a natural fit for us to open an all-woman owned and operated brewery,” added Paternoster.

They opened Dragon’s Tale Brewery in 2016, Montclair’s first microbrewery that paved the way for two more breweries to open since then in the relatively small (pop. 38,061) Inland Empire city just over the L.A. County line. Montclair borders the cities of Claremont, Upland, Ontario, Pomona, and Chino—areas most associated with private colleges, suburban sprawl, shopping malls, and a billion square feet of warehouses staffed by armies of workers.

Each of these cities also has at least one brewery, which means Montclair beer drinkers had to drive elsewhere. As longtime residents of Montclair, Paternoster and Elias often wondered why their hometown didn’t have its own microbrewery, so they did something about it.

Paternoster’s connection to the city goes back to the late 1970s, when she was around eight years old and her family moved to Montclair from Monterey Park, just east of downtown L.A. “Back then, it was a small town—just stop signs and citrus groves out here,” she said. Before developers turned it into shopping malls and subdivisions after World War II, Montclair was a 19th-century citrus settlement called Monte Vista.

Paternoster honors her hometown’s citrus heritage with her unique beers. She uses locally grown fruits and other natural ingredients like ruby red grapefruit, Valencia oranges, and wildflower honey. She’ll frequent area farmers markets for organic berries to use in her Mediev-ale Brut Gruit, a hop-less beer brewed with tea. And she’ll often make use of regulars’ abundant harvests from backyard fruit trees, a truly homegrown touch that connects Dragon’s Tale customers to the brews they love.

“Someone will come in with tons of lemons or kumquats and ask if we can use it,” said Paternoster. “It gives customers a chance to be part of the beer making process.”

Grapefruit Wit, Bloody Beerdless Wheat Ale, and Cal -52 Blonde are just a handful of beers on Dragon’s Tale menu that reflect the local terroir, whether it’s a neighbor’s jar of preserves, a basket of blood oranges, or herbs plucked from a home garden. Paternoster, who attended Serrano Junior High School in Montclair, also plans to make a beer using serrano peppers, widely grown and eaten in this area once home to the Maara’yam people who spoke the Serrano language. Through her use of ingredients, Paternoster’s beers become mini portals to another time and place.

“Breweries add something special to the community,” said Paternoster. “It’s really cool that we have people who come out and say they’re comfortable here. It’s a way for people to gather and be themselves.”

L.A. Brews Diversity

Brewyard, Boomtown, and Dragon’s Tale are just three examples of the growing diversity in the relatively new Los Angeles craft beer scene that in some ways has been there since its inception, when Ting Su and Jeremy Raub opened Eagle Rock Brewery in 2009. Because it’s newer—compared to the decades-old craft brewery cultures that go back to the 1980s and 1990s in northern California and San Diego—greater L.A.’s craft beer culture shows that diversity is already part of the brewing landscape, from the people who make the beer and drink it, to the ingredients, methods, and perspectives that inform each brewery’s mission. They not only check all the race-gender “diversity” boxes, but push L.A. craft beer drinkers to also think about diversity in terms of history, space, place, community, ingredients, styles, and other meaningful ways.

L.A.’s newest breweries, many of which opened during or after the pandemic lockdowns, continue to reflect the region’s demographic diversity through ingredients, styles, and products. Locally popular fermented drinks like tepache, kombucha, and natural wines dot brewery menus around L.A. Breweries like these and others in Los Angeles help to reshape expectations of who can make, drink, and enjoy craft beer. Dragon’s Tale, Brewyard, and Boomtown are part of the colorful beer landscape of Los Angeles, where beer speaks to locals and reminds us of our connections to time, space, and place.

The post Ube Yams and Dragon Tales: Finding Diversity in a New Generation of L.A. Breweries appeared first on CraftBeer.com.

These occurrences and more have been reported at various haunted breweries across the country. If you believe in all things paranormal, visit one of these breweries for your next pint of beer.

Dark tourism has been a popular sensation for ages, usually spiking in the month of October right before Halloween. Travelers flock to locations with haunted histories, longing to experience some paranormal activity for themselves. Many places embrace the influx of visitors, often providing seasonal tours alongside themed items or activities.

The craft beer world is no different. Breweries across the country have noted unusual occurrences, unexplained sounds, and otherwise strange happenings. And the older the original building of the brewery is, the more stories there are to tell, which is why you’ll find more haunted breweries along the eastern coast of the United States. These breweries all embrace the phenomenon in different ways. Some offer beers named in honor of the spirits and tours of the historic premises. Yet others shy away from the attention, hesitant to admit there may be unusual forces at play.

The Phoenix Brewing Company, Mansfield, Ohio

You wouldn’t expect to find a brewery housed in an old mortuary, but that’s exactly where The Phoenix Brewing Company found its home in Mansfield, Ohio. The Charles Schroer Mortuary opened in 1914 as both a mortuary and funeral parlor. Exactly a century later in 2014, The Phoenix Brewing Company opened its doors after the building sat vacant for 70 years.

The five-barrel pilot brewing system is located in what was once the embalming and preparation room. During construction to open the brewery, a few bones were discovered under the floor’s concrete and turned into the police. In honor of the departed, The Phoenix Brewing Company decided to name a series of wheat beers after them. John Doe is a standard American wheat, while Jane Doe, Barb Doe, and Juan Doe are infused with raspberry, rhubarb, and lime, respectively. Several other house beers reflect the history of the building.

In the eight years that the brewery has been open, both customers and staff have reported several unusual occurrences. Guests have said they’ve felt someone brush up against them or bump into their chair, only to find no one there. Many paranormal enthusiasts have discovered orbs in photos taken throughout the building. Professional ghost hunters have recorded EMF (electric & magnetic field) activity and voices. One even claimed to connect with a male spirit, stating that the entity does not like beer, but is happy to have people in the building again.

How many spirits could be in the building is unclear, but one is known for certain. Charles Schroer, the original owner and operator of the mortuary, was diagnosed with a terminal illness. Instead of waiting for the inevitable, he chose to take his own life inside the building. Add to that the many people who came through the building after their earthly lives ended, and there are bound to be lingering spirits.

To maximize customers’ interest in its haunted history, The Phoenix Brewing Company offers ghost hunts by appointment. Carmone Macfarlane, head of creative & marketing, admits, “Being ‘haunted’ is an attraction. It does bring in new customers, especially around Halloween.” Many people travel to the nearby Ohio State Reformatory and often visit other haunted locations—like the brewery—while in Mansfield. The staff also loves to listen to their customers share their own ghostly experiences with people who are visiting the brewery for the first time.

Taylor House Brewing Company, Catasauqua, Pa.

Named after Declaration of Independence signer George Taylor, Taylor House Brewing Company is overflowing with history, located in one of the buildings from the former Milson’s Coal Yard dating back to 1897. Catasauqua, Pa. was a birthplace of America’s Industrial Revolution, after all—and with history comes lots of ghost stories.

Customers and staff have reported a wide variety of odd things occurring at the brewery. People heard a guitar string being plucked when no one was near the guitar. Others watched glasses shake on the shelves. One time, it was reported that a glass came off the shelf on its own, as if someone had pulled it off. Staff members often hear whistling, fingers snapping, and footsteps when no one else is around. Lights have flickered on and off.

Across the street from the brewery is George Taylor’s summer house, built on an old Native American burial ground in 1768. Staff members posit that ancient spirits may have been angered by the construction. Both reenactors and visitors to the house have reported strange happenings. Additionally, Taylor’s stepson drowned near the property, leading to questions about his lingering presence.

To honor—and play nice with—the spirits present in and around the brewery, Taylor House has brewed a beer in their honor. Madame Fantome, a Belgian witbier, has been on tap since the brewery first opened.

Going forward, the brewery has plans to expand. Tours of the property are being considered, which would complement the other tours in Catasauqua nicely. George Taylor’s home even has regular paranormal investigations.

Saranac Brewery, Utica, N.Y.

With over 120 years of history, it’s no surprise that Saranac Brewery has some spooky stories of its own to tell. In 1888, Francis Xavier Matt established West End Brewing Company in Utica, N.Y. Over the years it’s held many names, including Matt Brewing Company and eventually Saranac, a Native American term meaning “cluster of stars.”

During Prohibition, the brewery was well known for its speakeasy—and for serving the first legal beer after Prohibition was repealed. Visitors to the brewery can step inside the former speakeasy on a tour of Saranac. Also on that tour is the portrait gallery, containing pictures of multiple generations of the Matt family. Staff members and customers alike report feeling uneasy while walking through the hallway, which is still decorated in early-1900s style.

Late night and overnight staff also report hearing strange sounds and seeing figures in the shadows when no one else is in the building. Some workers are known to run through a passageway after turning off the lights for the night. There have been talks of doing Halloween-themed events in the future, but for now, patrons can settle for a collectible Brewery Ghost stein. According to the company, “There have been sporadic sightings of these sneaky characters throughout the brewery for years.”

Other Haunted Breweries in the United States

These three are just some of the haunted breweries scattered throughout the country. Many more exist—if you believe in ghosts, that is.

Moon River Brewing Company in Savannah, Ga. is said to have a lot of paranormal activity. Their website claims that it is “One of the oldest, most historic, and genuinely haunted buildings in Savannah.”

Many paranormal enthusiasts claim that NewSylum Brewing Company in Newton, Conn. is an active ghostly site, with its history as an old psychiatric hospital. But the staff is hesitant to admit to the presence of ghosts, stating they are “unsure” if the brewery is haunted.

One of the most notable haunted breweries is Wolfden Brewing in Bloomingdale, Ill. Built in 1851, the property was a Civil War farmhouse where multiple people died. Now, folks at the brewery say there are strange things happening all the time. Batteries drain unusually fast, beer ingredients fall off the shelves, and shadowy figures are seen moving throughout the building.

Across the country in Denver, Colo., Wynkoop Brewery claims to have a handful of ghosts lingering in the basement of the century-old brick warehouse. According to workers, the spirits aren’t malevolent, but the “sort-of-annoying-but-harmless kind.” Customers have also reported feeling a ghostly presence in the restrooms.

The post Enjoy Both Sips & Spooks at these Haunted Breweries appeared first on CraftBeer.com.

Washington, D.C., might be known for its politics, but locals know it has a strong craft beer scene. In May 2022, the city gained its first beer trail. The trail’s success shows how breweries and bars can partner with other organizations to create a destination and drive business.

Recognizing an Opportunity

In Summer 2021, metrobar partners and owners Jesse B. Rauch and John K. Groth noticed groups were arriving at the bar via the city’s Metropolitan Branch Trail (MBT), an eight-mile-long paved trail for bicycles, pedestrians, and scooters. Groups were navigating the MBT for their own beer crawl—enjoying the trail and visiting some breweries and bars along the way. Rauch and Groth saw the potential to create something more official.

They reached out to some neighborhood breweries and bars to float the idea by them, including City-State Brewing Company. City-State had opened in June after years in planning, and CEO James Warner had talked with the metrobar owners in the months before opening the brewery. When he heard their idea, he was excited.

“For a new business, you’re out at sea and it’s nice to see other ships that are sailing in the same direction and smoothing out some sailing for you,” says Warner.

Finding Help

Metrobar and City-State are located near the 35-block neighborhood called NoMa, short for “North of Massachusetts Avenue,” through which much of the MBT runs. In September 2021, Rauch contacted the NoMa Business Improvement District (BID), a nonprofit organization created by the D.C. government to be a steward and champion of the neighborhood. Metrobar had rallied interest from other breweries and bars, and everyone was hoping NoMa BID could help.

“Part of our work involves bringing people to the neighborhood,” says Maura Brophy, president & CEO of NoMa BID. “When the beer trail idea came to us, it was completely aligned with our mission. We recognized it could put NoMa on the map and draw people to neighborhood businesses.”

NoMa BID staff got to work right away, aligning with metrobar to recruit businesses based on proximity to the bike trail. They assembled seven participants—three breweries and four bars—along a 2.2-mile section of the MBT.

Another participating brewery is Red Bear Brewing Co. Bryan Van Den Oever, Red Bear co-owner and director of marketing & events, says NoMa BID has been a huge resource to the brewery and was critical to connecting the businesses and getting the beer trail off the ground. “NoMa BID knows everyone,” he says. “They have the pulse on the whole community.”

Brophy’s team researched technology options to package the trail and allow people completing it to confirm their visits to each of the participants. NoMa BID selected Bandwango’s user-friendly, online passport program for the trail. There’s no app to download, and NoMa BID can customize and design the passport and access the data. Bandwango also offered expertise from similar trails they developed, including an ale trail in Bucks County, Pa.

Each brewery and bar can determine its own offerings, such as discounts, based on their business model and point of sale system. People check in at each participating location using the passport and can take advantage of any trail specials available. After participants check in at all seven locations, NoMa BID rewards them with a Metropolitan Beer Trail-branded T-shirt. Brophy’s team initially ordered 300 shirts and quickly purchased 300 more due to the trail’s success.

Launching the Trail

NoMa BID focused its marketing on social media and word of mouth. They also worked with influencers, offering them T-shirts and stickers. The breweries and bars promoted the trail through their own public relations, online, and onsite channels.

The Metropolitan Beer Trail launched on May 14, and 1,061 people signed up for the passport the first weekend. On the first day alone, 240 people completed the entire trail. Metrobar logged record sales that first day, and other participating locations were packed.

“We knew it was going to be big, but we’ve been blown away how the community has embraced this and is using the trail so far,” says Brophy.

People can complete the trail at their own pace—whether it’s over a day, week, month, or season—however many times they want. NoMa BID and the participating businesses all hope it encourages people to visit and return.

Some of the most effective outreach was an article in the Washington Post, published less than a week after the trail’s launch. “We think that was an important and big opportunity to introduce the trail to people outside of the neighborhood,” says Brophy.

She believes the beer trail could be a major destination for people visiting D.C. Her team plans to work with hotels and tourist offices to notify visitors about the trail. They also have plans for advertising. Marketing plans are a mix of hyperlocal, regional, and national promotions.

NoMa BID and the participating breweries and bars view this as just the beginning and hope it will grow. They’re working together on new ideas to attract more people and gain their return business. There’s also a new brewery in development near the trail that could be added.

Extending the Connection

Rauch and Groth are already talking with breweries and distilleries in other D.C. neighborhoods who want to replicate the Metropolitan Beer Trail’s success. They encourage other businesses to connect with each other. “Don’t be afraid to reach out to your fellow businesses,” says Rauch. “Coming together—especially in light of everything that’s going on in the world—is important. Maybe that one partner does something different than you and you can each help each other.”

Van Den Oever recommends beer trail locations remain in regular communication with whomever is organizing it as well. “Make sure everyone is clear on expectations and knows the process,” he says. “NoMa BID kept us all in line and moving forward.”

Participating locations have their own individual relationships with each other, but NoMa BID distributes a monthly email to keep them all connected, share information, and engage them in conversations around questions or specific issues. Sometimes participants will pose questions to the group.

Another key piece of advice that Van Den Oever, Rauch, Groth, and Warner all offer is having one entity manage the trail. Some believe the trail wouldn’t have been possible without NoMa BID’s involvement.

“Find a sponsoring partner who will view this as a way to bring retail, foot traffic, and prosperity to an area, and can facilitate you and others as a destination and generate economic prosperity,” advises Warner. “Right now, the trail is operating without much involvement from us, which is perfect.”

Proximity of participating locations is also important. Brophy says having a critical mass of establishments near each other makes the trail feel achievable.

“There are lots of ways to think about a brewery as not just coming to a facility,” says Warner, “but also coming to a neighborhood or an area and how that can be connected to other businesses. We can all work together to draw people in and grow the size of the pie.”

The post Metropolitan Beer Trail Increases Business for All appeared first on CraftBeer.com.

There are some excellent examples you can visit throughout the country. The following list is not exhaustive but illustrates a few breweries and brewpubs that have sought to celebrate the brewing process through their architectural design.

Blackstone Brewing Co. | Nashville

The taproom at Blackstone Brewing Co. is a long, somewhat intimate space with clear glazing along two sides which allows dramatic and tantalizingly open views into the more bright and lofty manufacturing floor. It lends itself to a rewarding interaction and successfully affords a discerning beer lover a full appreciation of the beer they are sipping.

At Blackstone, they have always maintained that the brewery should be an interactive experience for the customer. “We began as a brewpub. Our brewery was up front behind large plate glass. The serving tanks were out in the bar; close enough for customers to touch them. We had an open brewhouse policy. People thought that we were crazy putting everything so accessible to customers but in 20 years we never had anyone bother any of the tanks.”

(Related: 12 More Breweries in Historic Buildings: Reviving and Restoring the Past)

Goldwater Brewing Co. | Scottsdale, AZ

Dillon McClelland at Goldwater Brewing Co. spoke about going to taprooms that felt “like an office with a door at the back into the brewery,” and how the place behind the door was where he wanted to go drinking. For Goldwater, they wanted to create a blended experience for patrons so that they felt they were in the brewery as soon as they entered the taproom.

“When we found the spot it was pretty tight,” Dillon says. “Our idea was to use half the space as the brewery with the other half for serving beers we make. The city made us put up the glass but at least it wasn’t a brick wall.”

The spaces still manage to flow, quite literally, between each other with one of the exciting and truly immersive elements being that the beer in the taproom is poured directly into the glass from the brite tanks behind the bar.

 4 Hands Brewing Co. | St. Louis

4 Hands Brewing Co. in St Louis has expanded over time to 20,000 square feet and has been conscious of maintaining an open view from its tasting room into the production area since its early days. The ground floor taproom, in particular, creates a coziness with its use of exposed brick, wood beams and ceramic textures while allowing the industrial tanks to subtly draw curious attention to them.

“We thought it was important for our customers to feel connected to the brewing process,” says Director of Operations, Martin Toft. “We’ve had a lot of the same customers coming in since the day we opened and they’ve been able to watch what was once a completely empty warehouse fill up with tanks over the years. As a result, I think a lot of those customers really feel like they’ve been a part of that growth.”

Bluejacket | Washington, D.C.

The entire taproom and brewing facility at Bluejacket in Washington, D.C. is a soaring and dramatic space. It uses a healthy measure of glass in its facade to flood the space with natural light and illuminate the tanks and the taproom. Everywhere in the triple-height space there are reminders and parts of the brewing process proudly displayed and functioning. It creates an elegance while remaining true to brewing’s industrial nature.

Beer Director at Bluejacket, Greg Engert, spoke about how they deliberately sought out a place with “high ceilings precisely because we wanted a strong connection between the brewhouse and taproom. The idea was to elevate the brewery and fermentation spaces above the taproom so that the guest could feel immersed in the brewing experience while drinking our beers. We were also inspired by the late Victorian Tower breweries of England, where the stages of the brewing process flow downward, by gravity, through multiple levels. By mimicking this setup above our taproom, we arrived at the immersive experience we were after.”

(More: Epic Craft Beer Road Trip: Breweries Along the Great River Road)

Almanac Beer Co. | Alameda, CA

Located on Alameda Island just a block away from the shores of San Francisco Bay, Almanac Beer Co. wanted their taproom to feel connected to the brewery itself so that guests could feel fully immersed in the Almanac ethos.

The repurposed warehouse building retains an industrial feel. Its exposed, clear span truss roof allows for an uncluttered sense of openness whereby you really start to feel you are on the brewhouse floor. In effect, you become the end-point of the artisan process while enjoying a beer in the beer hall.

Workhorse Brewing Co. | King of Prussia, PA

Workhorse Brewing’s slogan is “Beer Made Right.” It is a bold statement which they double down on with a brand and ethos that is all about creating “meaningful connections to their customers.” These concepts delightfully manifest themselves in the layout for their bright and airy taproom which feels like a genuine extension of the brewing process as the u-shaped bar extends proudly from the brewhouse behind.

“We didn’t want our slogan to just be a marketing gimmick,” says co-founder Dan Hershberg. “We didn’t want to open our doors and not showcase our work on the backside, as well as showing our commitment to the brand and the quality. Our goal was to make sure that the space was commensurate with that product. We had to make sure the experience would resonate with people and that it was a place they would feel comfortable in.”

Corridor Brewery & Provisions | Chicago

Where many venues on this list let the taproom become part of the manufacturing facility, Corridor Brewery & Provisions in Chicago feels more like the other way around. It looks and feels like a cozy bar or restaurant initially but reveals the secret of its operation pretty quickly on entry with the brewing equipment celebrated as a shining contrast, yet still an integral part of the otherwise rustic decor.

Greg Shuff is brainchild and proprietor behind Corridor and also Dryhop Brewing, both of which are in the Lakeview area of Chicago. He has been a homebrewer since his college years, and his vision for both breweries was for them to feel like “hanging out in a brewery; feeling connected to the craft brewing world; and most importantly, feeling a personal connection to a community of craftsmen.”

(Related: 7 Offbeat Places for People Who Like Craft Beer)

pFriem Family Brewers | Hood River, OR

Situated at the confluence of the Columbia, White Salmon and Hood Rivers in Oregon, pFriem Family Brewers (pronounced “freem”) take much of their influence from the beers of Belgium and their location in the Pacific Northwest.

For the layout of their brewery, they felt it was important that beer lovers were afforded the opportunity to “see, feel, and smell the craftsmanship that goes into pFriem beer.” They wanted to establish a strong connection between the customer and the brewing process.

Founder Josh fPriem spoke about the effort that went into making that vision happen: “I would say the biggest change in doing it the way we have is making sure that safety to the guest is our first priority. In the customer-facing part of the brewery, we do all the work in that area before guests arrive to the brewery. We have also had to put a great deal of work into our HVAC system. A brewing environment and a dining experience are very different when it comes to heating and cooling. This was no simple task to get this where we wanted it to be.”

Banded Brewing Co. | Kennebunkport, ME

Banded Brewing Co. features minimal separation between the brewhouse and taproom. Owner and Brewmaster Ian McConnell spoke about how he “personally finds industrial things beautiful, especially that a lot of the beauty is in their function.” Accordingly, he has always found brewing equipment interesting and believed others would too.

The brewery’s name comes from the sense of community it’s looking to evoke by “banding together.” This was an important idea that Ian wanted to foster by sharing the process through the design of the brewery and taproom so that the product could be enjoyed communally.

“It is about opening our space, our equipment, and our experiences to others,” he says.

Trillium Brewing Company | Boston and Canton, MA

The brewing facility sets the backdrop for the bar in Trillium Brewing Company in Boston and is very much the focal point for the taproom experience. Marketing Director Jonathan Tompkins spoke about how the team at Trillium is naturally curious. They expected others would feel the same way and would appreciate the exposure to their creative method. “If we can provide a glimpse into the process it helps us share our story and show the heart and soul of Trillium,” he says.

(Find a Brewery Near You)

“It’s pretty cool to watch beer being packaged that you’re drinking fresh in the taproom! Fans who visit our taprooms regularly comment that being able to see and smell the day’s brew makes for a memorable experience. We get a lot of great feedback from guests that love the sights and smells of an active brewery, which creates a memorable full sensory experience.”

Connecting with Craft Brewing Through Architecture

Visiting a brewery is, in effect, a visit to a factory. There is an innate satisfaction in seeing how things work, how a beer is crafted, and in enjoying a sample at the end of the production line. Being able to easily observe that operation from the taproom offers a special opportunity to celebrate and engage with the craft in a uniquely satisfying way.

The post Form & Function: Brewery Visits with an Architect appeared first on CraftBeer.com.

Located roughly 45 minutes outside of Philadelphia, it’s where northern Delaware meets southeastern Pennsylvania. Here, Revolutionary War battles were waged, country estates belonging to industrial magnates were built, and world-renowned gardens were grown.

Over the last 20 to 30 years, it’s been a place where foodies and wine lovers alike have flocked to impeccable restaurants and rolling vineyards. But recently, there’s another feather in the Brandywine Valley’s tourism cap: beer travel.

And with the crisp fall weather, there’s no better time to go on a brewery road trip to the Brandywine Valley.

Wilmington, Del. Area

We’ll start in the largest city of the First State, the unofficial Corporate Capital of America. Smack dab in the middle of town is Stitch House Brewery, opened in 2018. Frequented by a healthy mix of government workers, corporate employees, and locals alike, Stitch House is as known for its food menu as it is for its beer.

Head brewer Andrew Rutherford says it’s hard for him to pick his favorite dishes, but highly recommends the whole wings with harissa garlic sauce, cheesesteak eggrolls with smoked ketchup, or breaded chicken cutlet with pesto aioli and mozzarella.

As far as the go-to beer, Stitch House has a nice variety, but Rutherford points out Big Stitch Nick, a pale ale with a pleasant balance of hops and malt that is named after former Philadelphia Eagles quarterback Nick Foles, a local hero around these parts.

Heading north out of the downtown area, the road trip takes us next to Wilmington Brew Works on the north end of the city. Located in a 100-year-old former laboratory, Wilmington Brew Works, or WBW as shown on its logo, does not shy away from experimental brews.

While their reputation for New England IPAs precedes them in this area, they’re also known for their tasty line of Duvette sours, tinkering with flavors like Blackberry Vanilla, Strawberry Cookies & Cream, Cherry Vanilla Limeade, and many more. They also have a popular piña colada sour called Vacation Surprise that transports you to summers on the boat.

When the weather gets cooler, WBW knows that the local contingent starts to look to the thicker beers. Umlaut is WBW’s delicious Märzen offering, while the public also heads to the brewery for Gravitational Confection, a substantial Danish pastry quad that warms the insides.

After WBW, it’s time to head west out of town via the Brandywine Scenic Byway and traverse through some of the most pristine vistas this side of the Mississippi. Once you navigate the country roads and hairpin curves of DuPont Country, you’ll find yourself at Dew Point Brewing Company in Yorklyn.

After restoring a dilapidated old building formerly housing the Garrett Snuff Mill, Dew Point is a good, old-fashioned family business. John Hoffman runs the place alongside his wife, Georgiana, while son Cody brews the beer and daughter Alexa coordinates special events.

While the beer is surely a draw to Dew Point, the outdoor space is arguably the most eye-catching aspect of the location. Surrounded by nature on over an acre, the space attracts suds lovers from near and far in warm weather, where it becomes a veritable get-together of Delawareans and Pennsylvanians.

“Picking my favorite Dew Point beers is like picking my favorite child,” says Hoffman. “But the Black Powder, an imperial double black IPA, and Nit Wit, a traditional Belgian witbier, are definitely my go-tos.”

Kennett Square, Pa.

From Dew Point, your Brandywine Valley travels take you through the bucolic country roads across the Pennsylvania state line, into the town of Kennett Square, known as the unofficial Mushroom Capital of the World.

Here, you’ll find Braeloch Brewing directly on the banks of Red Clay Creek. Founded by Kent and Amy Steeves, Braeloch utilizes an old trolley barn for their outpost, complete with a patio overlooking the creek. Braeloch didn’t waste any time fitting into the fabric of Kennett Square, a tight-knit community with a burgeoning dining and entertainment scene.

Braeloch’s beer menu runs the gamut from IPAs to lager, sours, and some fun stouts, like their S’moregasm, garnished with a toasted marshmallow. Locals and tourists alike have come to love Braeloch’s flagships, but the Blue Hen Gold IPA in particular is a go-to for many.

Braeloch’s food has also made a name for itself, partnering with the TBG hospitality group, which runs the popular Tonic Steak & Seafood in Wilmington. Even if you come to Braeloch and don’t have a drop of beer, the food is worth the trip in itself.

West Chester, Pa.

Heading northeast out of Kennett Square— passing the world-famous Longwood Gardens—and up Route 52 brings you into West Chester.

The first stop is an ode to the history of the region and the famous Battle of Brandywine, the largest and longest of the American Revolution. Opened in 2019, Artillery Brewing Company completely immerses you in a Revolutionary War theme.

Co-owner and founder Mike Loveless grew up going to Colonial Williamsburg and dove headfirst into the rich history of the Philadelphia region. After starting out as a homebrewer, he joined forces with Paul Zippel, and Artillery was born.

The history motif extends to the beer, too. One of the many examples is Artillery’s Battlefield Series of beers, each named after a Revolutionary War battle with recipes capturing the essence of the battle’s location, and a portion of proceeds from the beer going to that particular battlefield’s preservation.

“There’s so much history in this area, and my vision for Artillery is to shine a light on it and make good beer while we’re at it,” said Loveless.

When asked to pick his favorite beers, Loveless points to The Volley, a Czech Pilsner, and The Traitor, an English pale ale, as those he’d recommend if you could only drink one or two.

On the other side of the building from Artillery sits Wrong Crowd Beer Company. As you might expect, both businesses benefit from being so close to one another. If you go to one, might as well hit the other, right?

Dan Shaw, head brewer for Wrong Crowd, chose West Chester because of its vibrant bar scene and immediately felt the brotherhood amongst other brewers in town. With its distinct neon green design, Wrong Crowd’s building opened its doors in the midst of the pandemic in November 2020.

Nonetheless, its persisted and survived thanks to dependable brews like their hazy IPAs and a creative food menu. Shaw said Wrong Crowd is arguably best known for its Pilsner, The Borough, which is a nod to the town it’s set up shop in. He also mentioned Drink Deeper, a West Coast IPA, and West Chester Lager as other huge sellers in Wrong Crowd’s repertoire.

Wrong Crowd also has a noteworthy contingent of sour beers brewed with an eclectic line of flavors, like key lime pie and orange zest. Come fall, Wrong Crowd will once again release its popular Strawberry Milkshake IPA, brewed with vanilla beans and a massive amount of strawberries.

Heading toward the outskirts of town for the final stop of your Brandywine Valley brewery tour, you’ll make your way to Levante Brewing Company.

Levante quickly made a name for itself in the tri-state area and beyond after its opening in 2015, and production manager Matt Gilberg says that the brewery has a contingent of dependable, “bang for your buck” beers that are enjoyed by many.

When you ask a local beer lover what their favorite go-to Levante beer is, Cloudy & Cumbersome is a popular choice. The New England IPA is distributed to a large number of area bars and stores, and can be enjoyed on a hot summer day at Citizens Bank Park, home of the Philadelphia Phillies.

Levante also has a reliable stable of Pilsners, lagers, West Coast IPAs, and more, but visitors here are treated to another unique concoction: the Granita. Using one of their beers or seltzers as a base, they add fun flavors to the mix, throw them together, and freeze them. A few examples are Blueberry Cheesecake, Cinnamon Bun, Electric Lemonade, and Screwdriver.

Come autumn, Levante’s Märzen, called Drachenstadt, hits the taps at the brewery, providing the perfect blend of breadiness and flavor that you come to expect from this signature fall beer. Their stouts and porters also have reputations that precede them, like Infinite Obsidian, which, as Gilberg puts it, is their version of Guinness.

“Every pint is an experience,” he said. “Our goal is, and always will be, to allow our customers to get good beer at a good price, and just enjoy themselves.”

So, the next time you find yourself driving up or down Interstate 95 and looking to go off the beaten track of the Philadelphia area for a beer, head toward the Brandywine Valley. This list of breweries merely scratches the surface of what you can expect here going forward, and you’ll encounter some solid scenery and history on the way.

The post The Hills of Beer Are Alive in the Brandywine Valley appeared first on CraftBeer.com.

In fact, all of the assistant brewers here have learning disabilities and need some support to achieve their potential. They are paid the London Living Wage of £11.05 ($13.81 U.S.) per hour to produce beer that is sold at typical market rates for the area, around £5 ($6.25) a pint.

In England, 62 percent of people with learning disabilities want to work, but can’t find a job. According to Mencap, a UK-based nonprofit for people with a learning disability, only 6 percent of people with a known learning disability have paid employment. That compares to more than 80 percent of the population that does not have a declared disability being employed. This level of underemployment is mirrored in the U.S., where the Bureau of Labor Statistics reports that disabled workers generally have an unemployment rate 5 percent higher than the rest of the population.

“Many people with a learning disability can work and want to work. With the right support, they can make fantastic employees, as Ignition Brewery is demonstrating,” said Mark Capper, head of development for Mencap’s lifestyle and work team.

Although minor adaptations at a variety of workplaces could make jobs more accessible, adults with disabilities are chronically underemployed. Along with two other breweries in England—Ivybridge Brewing Company and Norton Brewing—Ignition offers a rare opportunity to tackle the disability employment gap.

Chris’s Story

Chris is one of the longest-serving employees at the small brewery, beginning his trainee brewing journey in 2015.

“I do bottling,” Chris said. “Putting it in the boxes, brewing, working behind the bar, and serving beers to customers.”

Chris and others showcase a range of skills, working as both bartenders pouring drinks and brewers doing everything from mashing in, to bottling and labeling. Alongside the logistics of service and handling payments, there are plenty of opportunities to practice social skills by interacting with customers and answering questions about the products.

Now in his 40s, Chris has never been able to read or write, but dedication and practice allow him to describe every step of the brewing process and the entire range of beers. This is the first job he has ever had.

“I’m talking a lot with the customers there. I say hello, how are you, how’s your day? They like the beer, they come back for more!” Chris said.

Chris’ mother, Jean, is here too, helping her son settle into the routine of work after a recent absence due to illness. From a respectful distance, she has been manually labeling bottles while making sure Chris doesn’t overexert himself. Chris is excited to be back at work, she said, as his work gives him a reason to get up in the morning. A lot of people with learning disabilities can feel overlooked by society. “They’ve all got different attributes to give,” Jean insists.

“[People] think that because he’s got learning disabilities that he can’t do anything at all,” she laments. “A lot of people don’t give them [people with learning disabilities] a chance. It does make me angry; all I’m saying is just give them a try. Whereas one can’t do, maybe another one can.”

Jean’s voice wavers a little as she continues. “They’ve all got different levels, but there’s always something there. They’re always willing to give and they always give their all.”

Focusing on Ability

Michaela, a brewer trainee, talks engagingly about the new things she is learning, like how to calculate ABV. Since starting at Ignition in 2016, she’s learned every stage of the brewing process, working with her colleagues to make two 320-liter batches per week. While she’s had a positive experience since finding work at the brewery, she believes companies and the public are failing her and her peers.

“When it comes to people with learning disabilities, we try not to focus too much on the disability side, but the ability,” she says. “No matter where you are coming from, anyone can be capable of doing something. I try not to put labels on people since it’s not a good thing. Anyone can be good, anyone is valuable, and I’ve proved that I can do things.”

Michaela is uncompromising about the way her life experience has led her to see how people with learning disabilities can be dismissed by employers. Inaccessible application forms and multi-stage interview processes, for example, create barriers that shut disabled people out of the workplace.

“The problem is that when a person applies for a job in a mainstream area and declares a disability, people can turn a blind eye to it and just say, well this person’s application is not successful,” she said. “They can get away with it by saying that person didn’t meet the criteria. That’s what happens.” There is little reported evidence to back up this claim, but one study using randomized field experiments suggests that discrimination is indeed a factor in perpetuating disability-related inequality in the workplace.

The Origins of Ignition

Michaela, who is in her 40s, found out about Ignition through the local branch of Mencap. After meeting Ignition’s founder, Nick O’Shea, Michaela discovered he had spent the past two decades volunteering for Mencap to support people with learning disabilities.

“When he got to know about people with learning disabilities not getting employment because it was always difficult, he thought he would make a difference,” she says. “He started Ignition to employ people with learning disabilities and that includes people who are autistic like myself. I’m very happy here.”

O’Shea is an economist who juggles his day job with running the brewery. He used startup funding from UnLtd, a charity that supports community resilience, to set up the brewery as a not-for-profit organization. Ignition’s mission is to create employment opportunities for neurodivergent people and showcase their talents.

“By working with Michaela, Chris, and the team, I’ve rediscovered what it’s like to truly enjoy your job,” O’Shea said. “We have come so far, against the odds, and now it’s just lovely to be able to brew great beer with great people, for great people to enjoy.”

Breaking Down Barriers

Michaela loves brewing collaborations and hopes to do more in the future to test what she has learned. She once brewed with Michaela Charles at Alphabeta Brewing in Central London. Charles, now working for Beerblefish Brewing Co., said that “working with the Ignition brewing team was an eye-opener and a game-changer. We had to break down the processes and allow for the unique requirements of each individual. It was wonderful to have help appreciating the importance of working in this way.”

One reason that much of the population doesn’t routinely encounter neurodivergent individuals is their chronic underemployment. Consequently, there is a lack of awareness about the broad spectrum of abilities and needs that people with learning disabilities have, and how they might be assisted into employment.

Barriers preventing neurodivergent people from working are considerable. Many non-disabled people have intangible and subconscious reservations about introducing people with disabilities to the workplace. Charles admits to wrestling with concerns that customers might (incorrectly) assume people with learning disabilities would produce substandard work, for example.

“I think people like Michaela have their differences immediately visible,” Charles said. “It’s easy to make a snap judgment about them. We all have strengths and weaknesses, but if you look and act like everyone else, you’re given the chance to prove yourself.”

Inspired by their co-working with Ignition, Beerblefish has since employed a brewing assistant who has learning disabilities. He is supported by a careers coach who helps the team understand the new employee’s specific characteristics and working style. “He is the most diligent worker,” Charles says. “Patient, precise, and always willing to learn. He’s achieved good qualifications and is leading brew days.”

Given the current crisis in hospitality recruitment, people who have learning disabilities are an untapped resource. At Ignition and elsewhere, they have proven themselves to be effective and valuable employees when given the opportunity to show what they can do.

Breweries invest in the sustainability of their product as a matter of course these days. Perhaps it is time they considered investing in the sustainability of their workforce—with whatever support they might need—in the same manner.

The post Brewers with Learning Disabilities: Equity in the Workplace appeared first on CraftBeer.com.

Rooms with a Brew: Brewery Hotels and Inns

Beer lovers in Columbus, Ohio, loved the idea of a brewery hotel so much, they crowdfunded one. BrewDog’s DogHouse features 32 rooms that have their own draft beer on tap and beer fridges in the showers. You can wake up to a beer-paired breakfast and then learn all about brews at the Craft Beer Museum. It’s no wonder they met 70 percent of their funding goal in less than 24 hours!

The Dogfish Head Inn in Lewes, Delaware, gives the DogHouse a run for the money when it comes to carrying out the beer theme. From in-room growlers and barley coffee all the way to the beer-infused soap, they’ve covered every base. Guests can also get VIP tours of the brewery and VIP seating at two of the brewery’s restaurants.

(More: What to Expect When Your Spouse is Expecting a Brewery)

In Denver, a new hotel and brewery partnership is the stuff of beer lovers’ dreams. New Belgium has opened a brewery on the ground floor of the Source Hotel. We’re talking 2,000 square feet of brewery, including 50 oak barrels for on-site aging of delicious sour beers. And this brewery-plus-hotel combo is not the only one Colorado has to offer – just a couple hours’ drive from The Source Hotel, in Glenwood Springs, you can find Glenwood Canyon Brewing Co. at Hotel Denver.

In Oregon, McMenamins offers a number of hotels that have breweries on site. One of the most notable is the Edgefield Hotel, which has a golf course, movie theatre and quite the package for travelers who are looking to enjoy a few beers. Their Beer 101 Package includes lodging for two, two brewery taster trays to try out six McMenamins ales, and a growler of whichever of those you like best.

If you’re more the adventurous type, the Woodstock Inn Brewery in North Woodstock, New Hampshire, has seasonal events, zipline and ski packages. They also offer a memorable Brewer’s Weekend that includes a two-night stay, a collaboration with the brewers to brew a new beer, breakfast each morning, and more.

Turkey Hill Brewing Co. also offers a Brewer’s Weekend Experience. “It was the dream of the owner’s grandfather to have a brewery or distillery on the property, which has been in Andrew Pruden’s family since the early 1900s,” Nebel says. “There just so happened to be an old bank barn on the property. The two-story, 10,000-square-foot brewpub rests atop the footprint of the original 1839 bank barn, but an entirely new structure that does have some pieces and materials from the barn.”

Pruden met local homebrewer Donny Abraczinskas at a party, and the rest is history. Now, the inn offers beer packages and add-ons. “You can have our beer waiting in your room for when ya check in,” Nebel says. “The Brew Pub offers 13 different styles on tap including a beer engine for cask beer and two specialty taps for our barrel-aged and sour programs. There are year-round staples like our Revelation Pale Ale and Barn Dance Blonde, plus an always rotating selection of four-to-five different IPAs and a stout or porter on nitrogen.”

Bed, Breakfast and Beer

There are myriad bed-and-breakfast locations across the U.S. to give you a side of charm with your beer. Hopkins Ordinary Bed and Breakfast in Sperryville, Virginia, is a great example: the restored property from the 1820s is listed on the National Register of Historic Places and hosts a nano-brewery in the cellar that uses local barley.

At Fredericksburg Brewing Company’s Bed & Brew, guests get a free pint for each night’s stay at the old, restored 1890s building. The brewery has 11 rooms above the restaurant and one on ground level, so there’s plenty of room (and beer!) to go around.

(More: Allagash Brewing Founder Rob Tod Wins James Beard Award)

And that’s not the only Bed & Brew – Pals Brewing Company in North Platte, Nebraska, offers not just a growler but discounted food as well to those staying at their bed-and-breakfast. “We will soon have an add-on option for private brewery tours and a brew with the brewers day where you brew a beer with us,” says Paul Oettinger, head of manufacturing and QA at Pals.

Beer-centric Airbnbs

Breweries across the country are tapping into the Airbnb trend with brilliant rentals just steps away from a pint glass full of bliss. The Brewers Quarters at Sandy Springs Brewing started as a way to make a space that was inviting for travelers. The studio-style room full of exposed brick harkens to the taproom – and best of all, visitors get a full growler of any Sandy Springs beer installed on a kegerator in their room.

Over in Pagosa Springs, Colorado, Riff Raff Brewing Company’s “Got Beer?” Airbnb listing is right above the brewery. Flagstaff, Arizona’s Historic Brewing Company has a similar setup with their “Craft Beer Getaway,” where guests can enjoy over 20 craft beer options on tap as well as a full pub menu at the brewery below. T

The Stones Throw Brewery Guest House in Bellingham, Washington, is one of the more unique brewery Airbnbs. The house has a micro-brewery housed in shipping containers right in the back yard, while the detached garage houses the taproom.

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For a little more space, Oxbow Brewery’s 3-bedroom farmhouse is for rent in Newcastle, Maine. There you can explore the 18-acre property and top it all off with a farmhouse ale. And in Maurertown, Virginia, the Little Ridge Farmstead and Brewery also offers space to hang out on their farm in the Shenandoah Valley.

In the case of Stable Craft Brewing at Hermitage Hill Farm, the farm came first and the brewery later. Owner Craig Nargi recounts the story of how the Waynesboro, Virginia, farm went from horses to hops: “My career as a chef, restaurateur and now farmer was a crash course on agriculture. That crash course included witnessing the birth of one our horses, raising a Clydesdale stallion, learning everything about farm equipment, pasture management, water conservation and construction,” Nargi says. “But farming, tending to horses and generally operating the farm was too much. Someone came along and suggested we grow hops. We gave it shot with 100 plants for the first three years. Now we have upward of 800 hop plants and the growing season down to a science.”

In 2018, the farm opened its four renovated employee residences as Airbnb rentals for overnight guests. It’s a hop enthusiast’s dream to see all those hop plants in action. “AgriTourism is not only educational, it’s rewarding to share with people how we do it and why we do things the way do,” Nargi says.

(More: Seek the Independent Craft Brewer Seal)

“We could easily access the taproom from our two-bedroom suite,” Brittany Wilmoth, a recent guest at Stable Craft, says. “Not only was the food and beer amazing, but we were able to sit on the porch and see the luxurious Blue Ridge Mountains which included relaxing and breathtaking views.”

The list of Airbnb breweries doesn’t stop here. Check the map above for the full rundown!

Brewery Resorts Fit for Royalty

For a truly relaxing resort vacation, look no further than Blackberry Farm in Walland, Tennessee. An unforgettable food menu paired with a brewery tour is the ideal way for a craft beer-loving foodie to spend a weekend.

“Our farm and destination resort in the Foothills of the Smoky Mountain National Park have been in operation since 1976,” Blackberry Farm’s founder Roy Milner says. “Guests come from all over the world to experience our unique setting and brand of hospitality.” Blackberry Farm’s epic culinary and wine program laid the foundation for their brewery program, which makes a stay at this resort all the more appealing.

(More: Stories Behind 10 Strange Beer Names)

“We offer a full selection of our beers at both of our hotel properties, while also operating the original brewery for small batch projects and our production brewery in Maryville,” Milner says. “Our Barrel House & Taproom opened in January 2019 to offer a place for all to come experience our beers and purchase items to take home.”

Travel up the East Coast to the Von Trapp Family Lodge for a different kind of unforgettable family vacation. The lodge has its own brewery whose beers will have you hearing the sound of music – because, yes, it’s the same Von Trapp family that was featured in the classic movie!

At the Northern Outdoors Adventure Resort in The Forks, Maine, guests can enjoy craft beer on tap at the Kennebec River Pub & Brewery. “We launched our brewery in 1996 because a few of our river guides were beer fans crafting home brews, and we had the perfect setting for a microbrewery on site,” the brewery’s website reads. “Our handcrafted beers are extra tasty after a day rafting, hiking, ATVing or snowmobiling.”

Lagers at Lodges, Cabins & Cottages

Overlooking Seneca Lake in the Finger Lakes region of Upstate New York, family-friendly and dog-friendly Grist Iron Brewing Co. is centrally located on the Seneca Lake Wine and Beer Trails. The brewery purchased the land and the lodge with the goal to create the perfect vacation spot.

“Our team’s main goal was to create a relaxing, fun atmosphere and provide a little bit of everything our guests would need: beer, food, entertainment, and a place to sleep it all off. It just made total sense to have a lodging facility on property to help cater to the future guests of the brewery,”  Grist Iron’s guest relations and marketing manager Kate Fuller says. Both the brewery and the lodge have fueled the success of the other, but while the lodge offers a relaxing getaway, the real attraction is the beer.

(Learn: CraftBeer.com Beer Styles)

“We want people to love craft beer as much as we do, so we feature a 10-tap system and brew a variety of year-round, seasonal, and specialty small batch beers on site to appeal to every type of drinker,” Fuller says. “We have an in-house kitchen that turns out a seasonal menu of casual pub-style food that perfectly pairs with all our brews.”

And that’s not all. Grist Iron is 100 percent committed to becoming a beer lover’s paradise.

“We’re also excited to announce that we’re nearing the end of a major renovation of our onsite lodging facility and, once complete, will offer a ‘beer-centric’ lodge with nine modern rooms located less than 100 yards away from the brewery,” Fuller says. “Each guest will receive a free beer when they check in at our reception bar, enjoy a daily continental breakfast, and have canned Grist Iron beer available 24/7 in their in-room mini fridge.”

Boothbay Craft Brewery’s cottages are the essence of a Maine vacation.

Cheers to Camping & Glamping

If you’re looking to connect even more with nature, there are plenty of options for the outdoorsy beer lover, whether you prefer hammock camping or kicking back in a yurt.

“On the farm we have horses-winter greenhouses and a yurt,” says Paul Lorrain, co-founder of Funky Bow Brewing, just outside of Portland, Maine. The brewery is conveniently situated on local snowmobile trails, so it only made sense that they open a brewery. “My wife and I came up with the idea for the yurt together as we have four bands [playing] every weekend and people were always asking if we had campsites. We have been renting the yurt for three years now and are very busy on the weekends. We have guests from all corners of the earth,” Lorrain says.

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“We had a wonderful time in the yurt,” recent guests Clare and Alissa wrote in the guestbook. “We especially enjoyed sitting by the fire and enjoying a few of your delicious brews!”

If you want to completely unplug and go off the grid, pack up your camping gear and head over to the Lilly Pad campground in the woods of Morgan County, Tennessee. There you’ll find log cabins, campsites and plenty of beer.

“Hiking, primitive camping, climbing, whitewater boating, photo opportunities, the peace that comes from being in nature – almost all the encouragement an outdoor enthusiast would need to find themselves in the woods,” Suzi Sutton, manager for the Lilly Pad Hopyard Brewery, says. “The twist in this story is that not only can you find those things but there is also a micro-craft brewery as well!”

Before it was a campsite, the Lilly Pad was a little house in the middle of nowhere owned by Del and Marte Scruggs, next to the Obed Wild & Scenic River National Park. A college friend of theirs needed a place to stay after climbing at the Obed. Twenty years later, this diamond in the rough is becoming ever more popular, especially since it started serving craft beer in 2016.

“Del had always enjoyed brewing his own beer and decided to turn one of the rooms in the newly acquired house trailer into a brew room,” Sutton says. “He only did it for the love of the process and the final product, he was just so good at it that his friends and guests kept drinking all the beer!”

A community fire pit, lawn games and a food trailer that serves pulled pork that Del smokes himself make this campsite more like a home than a place to string a hammock. Last year, they built a stage for monthly live music events, and the campground has hosted “craft-ivity” nights and fundraisers. Even more incredible, the Lilly Pad will soon have its first bath house, complete with three flushing toilets.

“The beers are always good, with eight rotating taps it is hard for a beer lover to not find one they like,” Sutton says. “Blondes to browns and wheats to stouts, always a good IPA or APA on tap, every now and then we get a seasonal surprise brew like a shandy or honey rye ale. The brewers are having fun; it shows in the product and they are always happy to talk brewing with people.”

(More: A Beer Geek’s Travel Checklist)

Can’t decide between a campsite or an inn? Whetstone Station in Brattleboro, Vermont, offers it all: an inn, campground and even an Airstream with a shuttle to take guests to the brewery a few miles down the road. All of these options come to no surprise to anyone who knows the owners.

“We started our hospitality and beer career in lodging,” owner Tim Brady says. “My wife and I purchased an old home in Brattleboro in 2006 and built out a hip boutique inn with a small craft beer bar. Ultimately the success of that small beer bar led to our bier garten, then the restaurant and finally the brewery!”

We know a lot of love goes into crafting a tasty beer, but just as much love goes into the temporary homes these breweries have created for their guests. We can write about them all day, but the best way to truly experience the hops and hospitality at these brewery hotels is to pack your bags and see for yourself. You can download and save the entire guide below to help you plan your brewery getaway.

The post AirbnBeers: Breweries with Hotels, Inns, Camping and More appeared first on CraftBeer.com.

When envisioning a beer that’s been aged in a barrel or inspired by another non-beer beverage, initial thoughts usually turn to bourbon or whiskey. But there are plenty of beers on the market that have been carefully aged in rum barrels, brewed with the addition of wine grape must, boosted from spending time in a tequila barrel, or even inspired by the ancient Japanese beverage sake.

Wine

Dialed-In IPA (with wine-grape must) | Trillium Victor | Allagash Brewing Temptation | Russian River Mixed Media | Dogfish Head Craft Brewery Golden Canary | Block 15 Brewing Co. The Road Less Traveled | Two Roads Brewing

For Vinnie Cilurzo, owner and brewer at Russian River Brewing Company, wine barrels have always been his first choice when it comes to aging beer because of a drive to use local resources. That means partnering with nearby business owners in the bustling Sonoma County, Calif. wine scene.

Cilurzo believes that in general, wine barrels have a more subtle contribution to beer than spirit barrels such as bourbon or whiskey. “It is more finesse driven, which I like,” he says. “When using wine barrels, there typically is not too much of a rise in ABV like you’d see with spirit barrels.”

Along with imparting some subtle wine flavor, the wood acts as a home for the secondary yeast and bacteria the brewery uses for these special beers. “Aging beer in wine barrels is a process that typically takes longer than spirits barrels. This is also because it takes some time for the Brettanomyces yeast and bacteria to do their work,” Cilurzo explains.

For his first barrel-aged beer, Temptation, Cilurzo opted for Chardonnay barrels for an understated influence on the blonde ale. The brewery’s Consecration, a sour dark ale with black currants, is aged in bolder Cabernet Sauvignon barrels.

At Trillium Brewing in Canton, Mass., wine grape must is added at the end of fermentation for all versions of Dialed-In Double IPA. “This step allows for the retainment of complex vinous aromas and flavors that accentuate and complement the different hop varieties in each iteration while also providing for a lighter, drier DIPA experience,” explained Matt Garstka, communications manager.

The concept for Dialed-In began in 2016 to celebrate Trillium’s third anniversary. “Having previously experimented with the integration of wildflower honey in another one of our hoppy offerings, we recognized the huge potential for innovation and flavor impact in the wide variety of wine grapes available,” says Garstka. One of their all-time favorite aromatic hop varieties is Nelson Sauvin, grown in New Zealand and named after the unique Sauvignon Blanc-like white grape character imparted during brewing. “Naturally, we saw this undeniable connection and landed on our first iteration of Dialed-In to feature Sauvignon Blanc grape juice in a heavily dry-hopped Nelson Sauvin DIPA.”

Sauvignon Blanc grapes enhance the depth of tropical, fruity aromas and flavors the brewery aims for in this version of Dialed-In. Additionally, simple sugars in the wine must are fully fermented out, providing for a crisper finish. Pinot Gris, Chardonnay, Gewürztraminer, Moscato, and Riesling have also provided unique flavor profiles in some of the brewery’s favorite recipes to date.

Rum

Imperial Dark ‘n Stormy Ale | Great Divide Brewing Co. Rum Barrel Aged Porter | pFriem Dragon’s Milk Rum Barrel-Aged Stout | New Holland Black Tuesday | The Bruery Hunahpu’s Imperial Stout | Cigar City Imperial Awakening | Angry Chair Death by Coconut | Oskar Blues

At pFriem Family Brewers in Hood River, Ore., casks for their rum-aged beers are sourced from Barbados, Puerto Rico, and St. Croix. “Rums from these locations tend to be more neutral and provide a consistent and classic rum flavor profile,” believes Kyle Krause, pFriem R&D brewer and lead blender. The oldest barrel they’ve ever encountered was from 1955.

Rum barrels present a unique challenge in that they are generally old and in rough condition by the time they are received at the brewery, Krause says. “Rum distillers most often use ex-bourbon casks that, once filled, spend the entirety of their lives in open-air rickhouses in a tropical climate,” Krause says. Rum distillers aren’t bound by labeling laws to use new oak, so casks are reused over and over, he explains.

Additionally, these casks are often stored upright, drying out one of the heads, potentially for decades. Krause says it takes a good amount of effort to coax these barrels back into shape before they are safe to hold clean beer. “Even then, the percentage of casks lost to leakage is significantly higher than other brands,” he says.

New Holland brewer Mark Erickson echoes Krause in lamenting that the rum barrels themselves are a little challenging to work with since they are often warped and prone to leakage. “Sometimes the rum producers try to get extra life out of a barrel, so they add wood chips to it,” he says. There are special pumps with screens on the inlet for those barrels.

Erickson believes there are certain beer styles that pair nicely with rum barrels.

“I do think the Belgian and saison-type styles are better in rum than bourbon because they tend to have a little banana flavor from the yeast, and more tropical flavors work better with rum,” says Erickson, who leads the barrel program at New Holland.

Sake

For the Sake of Ale | Angel City Brewery Banryu Ichi | Cambridge Brewing Company Stillwater Extra Dry Sake Style Saison | Stillwater Artisanal Sunset Kura | Five Boroughs Brewing Co.

Banryu Ichi from Cambridge Brewing Company is a hybrid of beer and sake, brewed in collaboration with the brewery’s friend Todd Bellomy, founder and Toji (brewmaster) of Farthest Star Sake in Medfield, Mass..

“Our idea was to create a true hybridization of sake and beer, both in technique and ingredients,” says Will Meyers, brewmaster at Cambridge Brewing Company.

They began by brewing a 500-liter batch of sake—washing, soaking, steaming, and cooling the rice in batches over several days, adding koji, water, and sake yeast. “We fermented for about two weeks, then transferred 300-plus liters to a CCV [cylindroconical vessel] and added that day’s wort, which was about 6 barrels of high OG [original gravity] wort.” The beer wort was comprised of malted barley and rice that were mashed at very high temperatures so that regular brewer’s yeast would be unable to ferment it properly.

From there, more koji was added to the fermentation tank to break down the complex starches from a high conversion temperature. Fermentation took several weeks, followed by a month of maturation, then clarification. Banryu Ichi is served with low carbonation in a five-ounce glass set inside a small wooden box called a Masu.

Tequila

Uber La Luna Margarita Gose | Cheluna Brewing Magarita Gose | Great Divide Brewing Benny Tequila Barrel-Aged Mexican Lager | Broken Bat Brewing Metzli | Dos Luces Brewery

Great Divide’s Margarita Gose is partially aged in tequila barrels and gets an extra kick from Makrut lime leaf, lime puree, and Himalayan pink salt.

Director of operations Jeff Martin explains that the process for aging in tequila barrels is the same as whiskey, but the timeline is different. “The biggest difference we see is the extraction of flavor,” Martin says. While Great Divide ages its Barrel Aged Yeti Imperial Stout for a minimum of one year in whiskey barrels, it can reduce tequila aging to one month on oak.

“Since we are aging a more delicate beer in tequila barrels, we also reduce aging and oxygen ingress—thus preserving the flavor of the final product,” Martin added.

The post Beyond Bourbon: Wine- and Spirit-Inspired Beers appeared first on CraftBeer.com.

Nearly 10 years ago, Scratch Brewing Company set out to make beer with ingredients from the land in a way that modern American craft brewing hadn’t seen much of before: locally sourced not as a limited offering, but as principle. “Carrying on the heritage of ancient traditions brings us closer to the long life cycle of the plants we briefly live with side by side,” the Scratch team declared in The Homebrewer’s Almanac.

Since then, more craft breweries have launched with a similar daily mantra of creating consciously and locally. For these brewers, “local” isn’t a seasonal trend—it’s a culture. So why do they bother foraging in the forest, purchasing fresh produce, or growing their own? Here’s a look at how six Northern California breweries are crafting conscious, sustainable beers, and why they do it.

The Good Wolf Brewing Company

Truckee, Calif. teeters on the edge of the snowy Sierra Nevada mountains and Nevada’s high desert. Conifers crowd one side, shrubs speckle the other. Moving from the outdoors into The Good Wolf Brewing’s flora-filled taproom is like crossing a seamless threshold from one space into another.

It’s not just for show. The Good Wolf’s Forest Beer program combines locally sourced and ethically foraged ingredients with grain from nearby maltster 40 Mile Malt “to represent the unique terroir of the Tahoe National Forest,” explains brewer Neil Moroney. Each glass attempts to offer the full sensory experience of hiking through the forest and every forage is an opportunity to be curious and responsible stewards of the land.

Take Needle & Resin, for example: a black lager with fresh pine tips. Or Dirt Candy, a springtime ale brewed with foraged and locally cultivated mushrooms. Forest Beers combine seasonality with creative flavor combinations for a final product that’s unique to the rugged Reno-Tahoe terroir.

“Forest Beer is a love letter to our moment in place and time,” owner Matt Petyo says—a way to explore the transitory experience of being alive. He hopes to share this experience with his community by using “the universal language of flavor to inspire a joyful connection with the world around us.”

Mindscape Fermentations

Consciously creating is the foundation of what Lauren Price, Charlotte Crott, and Lauren Houston do at Mindscape Fermentations in Rocklin, Calif. These three women decided to put a spin on the craft beer industry by focusing on sustainability and health consciousness with an emphasis on probiotics.

Much like how every individual’s gut microbe is unique to what that person consumes, Mindscape’s makeup is fueled by its surrounding environment—and Rocklin’s Mediterranean climate (and proximity to farms and orchards) is ripe for hyper-local brews.

“When peaches are in season, you might see a fermented peach hot sauce, a peach chutney on our charcuterie plates, peach kombucha on tap, and maybe even a peach sour beer fermenting in the tanks,” Lauren Houston proposes. “Consuming seasonal, local ingredients dates back centuries and is really what your body thrives on and craves.”

“We want to have intention with everything we touch, feel, taste, and put out into the world,” Houston continues. Tangibly, Mindscape accomplishes this by showcasing its region’s soft and clean water profile, producing food fermentations with only the natural yeast and bacteria found on fresh ingredients, and using the bokashi method of composting.

By “having beneficial microbes as the core of our creations,” Houston says, “we hope to perpetuate well-being in our community and in the environment.”

Ruhstaller Farm

“Farming is hard work,” a heartfelt manifesto explains on Ruhstaller’s website, “but we haven’t found anything to replace how it makes us feel.”

The team was determined to grow hops in tribute to Ruhstaller’s namesake, the foreman of a turn-of-the-century brewery when Sacramento was one of the largest hop-growing regions in the world.

“People are excited about different varieties of hops, but no one ever talks about where those hops grow,” general manager Jan-Erik Paino laments. Ruhstaller, based in Dixon, Calif., even crafted a beer with homegrown hops called “Does It Matter?” Of course, it matters.

Beyond hops, the brewery takes advantage of its surrounding agricultural abundance by keeping track of when crops go into production. One example is a beer brewed with lavender from nearby Araceli Farms. Historically, “beer being local was always about where the factory was, not the ingredients,” which Paino believes is a missed opportunity.

Ultimately, Ruhstaller’s mission is to leave things better than they were found with as little intervention as possible. “Nurturing and taking care of the land is more about what you don’t do than what you do,” Paino says. “We have three rules: explore, respect, and hug your mother.” That’s how to make the world a better place—along with keeping chickens out of the brewery.

Fox Tale Fermentation Project

Before the tech campuses and STEM graduates of Silicon Valley, there were the orchards and cannery workers of The Valley of Heart’s Delight. Some of those workers included the Mexican grandparents of Felipe Bravo, cofounder of San Jose’s Fox Tale Fermentation Project with Wendy Neff.

“This is not my history,” Bravo says of Silicon Valley. Rather, Bravo and Neff intend to “look past the current landscape of buildings and tech, and reach back out to the farmers, growers, and local community that still embrace local and sustainable food” in an effort to merge culinary concepts with beer brewing.

Collaboration is the key ingredient here; Fox Tale is first and foremost a community space. Its main inspiration is the Bay Area’s cultural diversity, and Bravo and Neff aim “to create products that reflect the real face of this area,” ranging from specialty fermented foods to projects with nearby breweries.

One example is a mixed fermentation saison conditioned on San Jose-grown Japanese ume plums, brewed in collaboration with Salinas-based brewery Yeast of Eden. Another is a beer made with Admiral Maltings malt and beets from a neighboring farm.

“There is a special relationship and flavor we experience when using local ingredients that wouldn’t be the same if sourced elsewhere. It feels powerful to support farmers and maltsters in our area,” Bravo says.

Mad Fritz Brewing Company

Upon first glance at Mad Fritz Brewing’s whimsical bottles and origin story, one might expect a focus on grape-based liquids. Heavily influenced by their region’s wine industry, cofounders Whitney Fisher and Nile Zacherle make beer from scratch through the lens of a winery—as a reflection of the ingredients, not the recipe. “Grains are the grapes of beer,” Zacherle muses.

The St. Helena brewery’s Terroir Series is an expression of how beer is grown rather than produced. Napa Ale, brewed with 100 percent Napa Valley barley, hops, and spring water, “is a testament to the many people it takes to grow truly local beer,” Zacherle says—from growing and harvesting to malting, brewing, and fermenting.

“We have plenty of commodity-derived beers, and while they are good and enjoyable, they do not help promote local/young farmers or take beer as a product to the next level,” he continues. Mad Fritz’s main goal is to show how ingredients drive flavor, and Napa Valley farmers are an integral part of that mission.

Zacherle argues that locally grown really is the best trend. “We need space and opportunity for farming in our local communities. The more we can build infrastructure in communities to assist each other in the goal of growing local, the further we can go.”

Humboldt Regeneration Brewery & Farm

As the owner and brewmaster of the first California brewery to make a 100 percent house-grown and -malted beer since Prohibition, Jacob Pressey knows a thing or two about growing beer.

The idea for Humboldt Regeneration was an “educational, sustainable farm that happens to have a brewery on it,” Pressey says in a clip on the website. Even the distribution of its beer aligns with local farming—instead of a CSA, regulars can participate in its Community Supported Brewery growler program for fresh weekly refills.

In a mission to “raise awareness about the importance of re-localization of our food system and to promote regenerative agriculture,” Humboldt Regeneration grows hops (including regional heirloom varietals that trace back to the 1800s), malts homegrown barley, and ferments non-traditional Belgian sours with wild-sourced and harvested bacteria (alongside a few non-wild ales). Pressey has also been blending in-house barrel-aged malt vinegar since 2012.

Having studied soil science and alternative agriculture at Humboldt State University, Pressey is passionate about sustainable food systems. “Supporting a diverse local food system is one of the best ways an average person can help us move toward a post-carbon world,” he says. “The more types of foods and products that are produced in a bioregion, the more resilient that community will become.”

Localization, Nationally

From social responsibility to superior flavor, these Northern California breweries have various motivations for localizing ingredients. The one thing they have in common, however, is that they don’t see any reason not to.

Todd Boera, cofounder of Fonta Flora Brewery in North Carolina, puts it plainly: “Craft beer is not fast food. A beer brewed in North Carolina should not be made with the same ingredients as a beer brewed in California.”

Furthermore, while he recognizes that breweries operate for many different reasons, he agrees that it’s hyper-local or bust. “Why wouldn’t a business choose local over everything? If not made with local ingredients, I really don’t see the point in doing it at all.”

The post The Localization of Beer Marches On appeared first on CraftBeer.com.

“I was confident in our recipe and the quality of the beer,” Modi says. “But I was nervous about the mechanics of beer sales, like the terms, how these tastings typically go, and other logistical details. Tiffany helped me focus on the beer while taking care of the other factors.”

Azadi Brewing reflects the Indian-born Modi’s heritage, incorporating Indian fruits, spices, and flavors into his beers. Modi landed the business at ROOH Chicago just a month after he’d started brewing at Pilot Project. Today his beer is available in more than 300 locations across the city.

The Chicago-based Pilot Project’s goal is to provide women- and BIPOC-led companies with the kind of investment, production, and marketing opportunities they have long been excluded from in business. Pilot Project has worked to diversify beverage alcohol in the past three years by helping launch and nurture a dozen new brands. For example, Pilot Project helped Modi navigate the buying process and sales cycle for retail accounts such as Whole Foods and Binny’s.

“We have been consistently encouraged to be our authentic selves and not apologize for leaning into being an Indian-inspired brewery,” Modi says, noting the assistance Pilot provides in sourcing ingredients from India, hosting events geared toward Chicago’s Indian community, and encouraging the use of traditional names like Kavi (a cardamom golden ale) and Gin (a Kesar mango IPA). “There can be a tendency as an entrepreneur of color or a different cultural background to westernize your brand, so we appreciated that we could be authentically Indian,” said Modi “It’s allowed us to not shy away from our culture and background and create a much more inclusive community in craft beer.” Modi plans to open a tasting room for Azadi Brewing in spring 2023 and is currently scouting locations.

Financial Obstacles

Historically, it’s been harder for women and minorities to launch small businesses. According to the most recent stats from the Federal Reserve in 2017, minority-owned firms experienced higher turn-down rates than white-owned firms when applying for business loans and lines of credit.

• Banks turned down 39 percent of minority credit applicants compared to less than 25 percent of white applicants.
• Women were turned down at a rate of more than 32 percent compared to less than 26 percent of men.

The brewing industry is not immune to these challenges. In a benchmark survey in 2021, the Brewers Association found that just 5.4 percent of member brewers were owned by a non-white, non-Hispanic person (1.1 percent declined to answer). Woman ownership was almost as scarce, with 23.7 percent of respondents identifying as female. A 2022 study by the Alliance for Entrepreneurial Equity reveals how women and people of color are disadvantaged throughout various stages of building a business. The result is that men own three times the number of small businesses as women; only 2 percent of businesses with employees are Black-owned; and only 6 percent are Hispanic-owned.

“Unfortunately, women and BIPOC historically haven’t had financial education and discipline at a young age,” asserts Kimberly Clements, managing partner and co-founder of beverage advisory firm PINTS, LLC. “Oftentimes, women and BIPOC, especially, don’t show financial independence because they have relied upon a spouse, partner, or their family and didn’t think it was important. It’s so important!”

Clements recommends that all of her clients have solid business plans and proven financial independence to present to banks, along with due diligence and market research to predict future success. She advises her clients not to commingle finances and to build good long-term credit for a better chance of securing loans.

A Record Label for Beer

Addressing discrepancies such as these has become core to Pilot Project’s mission. Co-founder Dan Abel said his company’s goal is to lower the barrier to entry for aspiring businesses by providing mentorship and resources, including assistance securing business loans and distribution placements. The latter can be particularly tricky when an upstart company is trying to get enough attention to put their brand on shelves where competition is fierce, but that’s a space in which Pilot Project thrives. With its own distribution license, Pilot Project can distribute incubating brands to more than 600 retailers in Illinois and connect brands with other distributors out of state.

“We’ve launched a lot of really great brands really quickly,” Abel says. “It took time to build those relationships, but now retailers know the Pilot Project team when we walk in. The risk still sits with a brand that people may not know, but they know that the liquid is good.”

In his previous career, Abel spent  almost five years in marketing strategy and strategic partnerships at YouTube and four years in various music industry marketing and creative marketing roles. His experience in beer was solely as a homebrewer, which he started doing in 2013. It was enough to see parallels between craft brewing and music in how people approached the business and creative side of things.

Pilot Project brews its own line of beer—Brewer’s Kitchen—and operates its Logan Square tasting room like a bar for additional revenue streams. Pilot brewed 400 barrels in its first year, and by 2021, reached 2,500 barrels, split among the company’s incubating brands.

As in the music industry, new brands “audition” to become part of Pilot Project. Abel and his team evaluate each pitch, looking for a great product, marketing plan, and business plan. More than 400 applications have been submitted online in three years, leading to 30 in-person “auditions” and partnerships with 13 brands with people from a range of demographic, personal, and professional backgrounds. Pilot Project charges a contract brewing fee to incubating brands but can reduce the fee in exchange for small amounts of equity.

“The expectation on our side is not that each piece gets an A+,” he says. “But if you have a narrative for what you’re trying to do, then it’s clear enough to us—with a full suite of resources at our fingertips—which areas we can either support or lead you.”

Rising Stars

At any given time, Pilot Project incubates about five different breweries, and also works with folks making other beverages such as hard kombucha and cider. In fact, one of Pilot’s biggest commercial success stories has been Luna Bay Booch. The hard kombucha company’s focus on probiotics, gluten-free, and low sugar helped its low-ABV flavors like Palo Santo Blueberry, Raspberry Rose, and Grapefruit Jalapeño become fan favorites, with placements on store shelves at major retailers such as Albertsons, Target, Whole Foods, BevMo, and Kroger.

In 2019, when CEO and co-founder Bridget Connelly officially launched Luna Bay, it would have been impossible to meet the production demand for chain retailers. While production was once managed from home, Luna Bay grew to the point where it needed to produce a couple cases a week for 17 different stores in Illinois.

Connelly found the solution right in her hometown of Chicago. A brewing consultant put her in touch with Pilot Project, which gave her the space and capacity to take her company to the next level.

By the time Connelly connected with Pilot Project, she had already been turned down by breweries for contract production. “We’re so grateful they took a chance on us,” she said, noting that Pilot Project co-founders Abel and Jordan Radke were key in supporting her ideas and innovation. “It was a very collaborative space and they fostered a strong community.”

In 2021, Luna Bay grew its dollar sales 35 percent in chain retail stores, three times the rate of the flavored malt beverage category. The scale and ability to secure placements in its earliest years offered a rare opportunity for a nascent company on the way to earning just over half a million dollars last year, according to market research company IRI.

Funkytown Brewery is one of Pilot Project’s current incubating breweries, a Black-owned brand founded by three childhood friends. They launched their first beer through Pilot Project in October 2021 and have now released six in all, including five rotating seasonal brands and a year-round pale ale, Hip-Hops and R&Brew.

“We didn’t understand the lead time needed to produce seasonal beers, and we didn’t have any prior insight into the wholesale buyer’s perception when it comes to seasonal names and when they are most open to making that purchase,” said co-founder Richard Bloomfield. Funkytown is now available in more than 150 locations in the Chicagoland area, including larger chains such as Whole Foods, Jewel-Osco, Foxtrot, and Binny’s.

Funkytown was brewing 20 barrels a year when it first started with Pilot Project and they’re now up to 100 barrels a year across two facilities: Pilot Project and Miskatonic Brewing. “Pilot saw the need for us to expand beyond their brewing capabilities, so they started working on that relationship with Miskatonic at the beginning of the year, including the legal stuff,” Bloomfield says. “They didn’t want to hamper our growth.”

Bloomfield says their goal upon “graduating” from Pilot Project is to increase production to 200 or 300 barrels and deepen relationships in Chicagoland through partnerships, collaborations, and community service. Bloomfield’s day job is as a non-profit project manager, so philanthropy and giving back to the community is a core value for Funkytown. Recently, they donated profits from their Black is Beautiful beer to The Gray Matter Experience and they’re planning more events where they can support non-profits like Coffee, Hip-Hop & Mental Health as a beer vendor.

“The goal is to build a dope, unique brewpub experience in Chicago that brings in more Black people and women craft beer drinkers along with other races and sexual orientations that have been under-served by the industry,” Bloomfield says. “We’re still figuring out what the path to that looks like, but we’re confident that Pilot Project has helped us build a solid foundation to stand on.”

Pilot Project’s incubator and taproom have been so successful that they have reached maximum brewing capacity and are currently subcontracting to other breweries across the city. They plan to consolidate operations into a new, larger production facility soon, with hopes to ultimately expand nationally and even internationally, breaking down barriers in craft brewing globally.

“We saw Napster break down those barriers in the music industry, where all of a sudden anyone’s music could be heard,” Abel says. “All you had to do was upload it and download it.”

YouTube did the same thing with videos and Pilot Project is doing the same for craft beer.

“When you’ve stifled the growth of so many different cultural groups within an industry for so long and you open that door, a lot of really cool ideas come to the forefront.”

The Brewers Association and Craftbeer.com are proud to support content that fosters a more diverse and inclusive craft beer community. This post was selected by the North American Guild of Beer Guild Writers as part of its Diversity in Beer Writing Grant series. It receives additional support through a Diversity and Inclusion Grant by the Brewers Association Diversity Committee and Allagash Brewing Company.

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