Microbrewed Adventures Read online

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  …you are doing the right thing by bringing some flavorful beer to life.

  On fizzy yellow beer:

  …if a can of carbonated emptiness falls in the trash and no one hears it, is it a waste?

  Apples in a Big Beer

  New Glarus Brewing Company

  IN A REMOTE STRETCH of southern Wisconsin, a half hour southwest of Madison, lies the small community of New Glarus. As we left the vibrant, beer-savvy college town and approached our destination, it seemed that we had been transported to the rolling foothills of the Swiss Alps: green pastures, forests, cows, farmland and a brewery.

  I’ve known Dan and Deb Carey for many years. Dan, a German brewing university graduate, first found brewery work in the early 1980s at one of America’s first microbreweries, the Montana Beverage Company, a revival of Montana’s old Kessler brewery. In a rustic setting and with limited access to modern equipment and technology, Dan was able to brew the most exquisite German-style bock, pale and Oktoberfest lagers. There were no other breweries in America, large or micro, that were making lager beer of this quality. But the reality of the situation emerged by the late 1980s. Most Montanans were disinterested in quality and diversity in their beers. There were no other microbreweries within hundreds of miles. Helena was briefly an oasis in the high plains, eventually going dry for lack of local beer enthusiasm. Sadly, I never had the opportunity to visit Helena in its microbrewery heyday.

  Dan worked awhile with Anheuser-Busch and eventually managed to start a family-owned brewery with wife, Deb. I tasted their award-winning beers at the Great American Beer Festival and assured myself I was not going to let my beer life slip by without a visit to Dan and Deb Carey’s New Glarus Brewing Company.

  It was blustery and snowing lightly when Sandra and I arrived in April 2002. I felt as though I had made a pilgrimage to a brewery destined to become a model of success—a microbrewery whose success was solidly founded on the quality and diversity of its ales and lagers.

  Though Dan has a German brewmaster’s education, this doesn’t limit him to traditional German beer styles. In fact, besides very traditional German beers such as Uff Da Bock and Edel Pils, at New Glarus you’ll find beers like Belgian-inspired Raspberry Tart and Wisconsin Belgian Red (cherry).

  Deb and Dan Carey, New Glarus Brewing Company

  The small countryside brewery takes care to use local ingredients whenever they can; local cherries, barley malt, wheat, corn and honey are but a few ingredients used to make their expertly brewed ales and lagers. Speaking of ales, cask-conditioned Spotted Cow Ale and playfully inspired Fat Squirrel Nut Brown Ale are but a couple.

  “Drink indigenous” is a theme of New Glarus Brewing Company. Fat Squirrel is explained on their website:

  One deceptively spring like winter day, Brewmaster Dan walked home from the brewery, sat down to dinner and said, “Boy, there are some fat squirrels out there. They’re running all over the place. I think I should brew a Fat Squirrel Nut Brown Ale.” Deb agreed and so another beer legend was born.

  One hundred percent Wisconsin malt of six different varieties impart the natural toasted color to the bottle-conditioned unfiltered ale. Clean hazelnut notes result from these carefully chosen barley malts. Hops from Slovenia, Bavaria and the Pacific Northwest give Fat Squirrel its backbone.

  I could make New Glarus’s pils, bock or spotted cow a regular habit, but while I was at the brewery I wanted to ask about the beers that I would make a special habit. In particular I have always flipped out over Wisconsin Belgian Red, Raspberry Tart and an apple beer no longer brewed. They are all refreshingly fruity and tart, and the intensity of the cherries, raspberry or apple is as true as fresh fruit. How did they do it?

  I’ve made lots of fruit lagers and ales in my day. I’ve tried hundreds of fruit beers made by homebrewers and microbrewers, but none were as fresh and vibrant as New Glarus.

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  NEW WISCONSIN APPLE/RASPBERRY/CHERRY BEER

  Boisterously fruity and fresh tasting, this fruit beer has the character of real beer. A short acidic bacteria fermentation creates complexity not possible with simple fruit additions. This beer is all about using local and indigenous ingredients and incorporating your skills as a brewmaster. The recipe can be found in About the Recipes.

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  Their secrets are not shared. (Otherwise they wouldn’t be secrets.) However, applying some basic brewing principles, homebrewers can begin to approach what Dan has accomplished. It took Dan several years of experimentation. Each time he tried, he came closer to the perfection that has won him several beer competition medals throughout the world. So get brewing!

  Changing How People Think

  About Beer, One Minute at a Time

  Dogfish Head Brewery

  FOR SAM CALAGIONE, president of one of America’s most “explosive” craft breweries, it all began in a small New York City apartment. It was 1992 and Sam, attending Columbia University, dwelled on a future MBA degree. But then he fell in love. Romancing the specialty and microbrewed beers offered at Nacho Mamas, his local Manhattan beer bar, Sam was caught up in the intrigue of such beers as Sierra Nevada Pale Ale, Brooklyn Lager and other cosmically insightful microbrews.

  “It took up half the space in my apartment,” admits Sam of his pursuit of homebrew. Inspired by the unique character of microbrewed beers, he immediately pursued the fringes of craft brewing. His first beer was cherry pale ale. He never looked back.

  Connecting with area beer aficionados such as Richie Link in New Jersey, Sam soon switched his educational track, finding himself shoveling grain at various breweries along America’s eastern seaboard and pursuing course work with such teachers as Shipyard Brewing Company (Portland, Maine) brewmaster Alan Pugsley.

  Sam and I are enjoying his 90-minute India Pale Ales at Denver’s 2004 Great American Beer Festival as he reminisces, “I was 25 years old and nobody was in much of a hurry to invest in my ideas.” He made do with whatever resources he had, essentially setting up a glorified 12-gallon homebrew system and opening up his Dogfish Head Brewpub in Rehoboth Beach, Delaware, in 1995. “I brewed 390 batches of beer the first year,” he recalls. “Before that I had only brewed 70 batches of homebrew. Brewing so often really sucked, but I learned a lot about brewing and about what my customers really liked. Some beers really took off in popularity. It did really suck to have to brew so often but experimenting with so many small batches really provided the foundation for our beer philosophy at Dogfish Head Brewery.

  “We were really small and Rehoboth Beach isn’t exactly the brewery capital of the country, but we are located just two hours from Philadelphia, Baltimore and Washington, D.C. Manhattan was only three and a half hours away. People who had visited the brewpub were calling and wanting our beers in their area, remembering the flavors of our really eccentric beers. Our Chicory Stout is made with roasted chicory, organic coffee, licorice root and St. John’s wort. Our Immort Ale was very popular with our customers, brewed with maple syrup, vanilla beans, peat-smoked malt and juniper berries. People thought we were really crazy when we offered our first pale ale at a price of $12.99 for a six-pack.”

  Sam Calagione, Dogfish Head Brewery, Milton, Delaware

  Sam Calagione, photo by Bruce Weber.

  Sam’s journey toward providing beer drinkers access to his special beers was wrought with challenging times. He does not for a minute think his was an overnight success. The restaurant barely kept the venture afloat in the beginning. First there were six people that were his regular customers and over time there were 12, then 14, and slowly his following grew to a sustainable base. It was five years later that Sam considered his brewing business to be profitable and sustainable.

  After having tried Dogfish Head’s Raison d’ Etre, an extraordinary complex ale made with friendly “help,” malt, hops, Belgian yeast, beet sugar and green raisins, I asked Sam what beer he likes to drink and contemplate with. His “default” beer always seems to be
his 60-minute India Pale Ale, but he admits, “Whenever everyone is asleep in our household and I can’t sleep, I’ll turn to one or two servings of our (18-plus percent alcohol) Worldwide Stout. This beer is really a symbolic beer for me because we would often ask ourselves, ‘What’s stopping us from brewing the biggest beer in the world?’ When I’m feeling a warm buzz, I feel a great deal of pride and at the same time remember how scary it was in the late 1990s when we were really on the edge as a company and how difficult it was. I remember well how the passion of the people who really cared came through during difficult times to get us to where we are today. Being able to enjoy Worldwide Stout makes it all worthwhile. For me it is a reflection of celebrating the pride and journey of the Dogfish Head Brewery and all the other small breweries who have also gone through a lot of tough times to get to their own points of success.”

  Dogfish Head’s beers are big and eccentric, but perhaps their very popular 60-, 90-and 120-minute India Pale Ales reflect a lot of the passion and microbrewing craft that is the foundation of this particular brewery. Sam recalls, “Our first 60-minute IPA was brewed in 2000. I took one of those vibrating football games, you know the ones you used to play with as a kid where the players would move as the playing field vibrated. Well, we set a five-gallon bucket full of hop pellets, made a hole at the bottom and set it on the vibrating playing field. As the game field vibrated, the hops would slowly emerge from the bucket and drift down the field and drop into our five-barrel kettle. So the hops are constantly being added to the kettle during a 60-minute period. We called the first batch Sir Hops-a-lot.”

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  65-65-65-6.5 INDIA PALE ALE

  An India pale ale with the Dogfish Head difference, this recipe has been reduced down to homebrew-scale procedures and ingredients. Lots of hops are added at five-minute intervals. The recipe can be found in About the Recipes.

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  Their twelve-plus regularly offered beers join special editions of 15 percent barley wine brewed with dates and figs; Liquor de Malt with red, white and blue corn; Pangea with Australian crystallized ginger, African moscavado sugar and Asian basmati rice; Festina Lente with peaches, aged with oak; and other evolving experiments sure to enliven the palate. They’ve moved from 12-gallon batches to 5-barrel, to 30-barrel, and now to 50-barrel batch sizes in their packaging brewery, established in 2002.

  “We’re the antithesis of industrial homogeneity,” Sam says. “Microbrewing/craft brewing/homebrewing is all about education, knowledge and creating a community. It begins at the table in everyone’s home. Events like the Great American Beer Festival are a culmination of craft brewing where we can all ‘break bread’ together. Brewers, distributors, retailers and beer drinkers. Knowledge and education has brought us to this place.”

  Sam Calagione with his Randall—draft beer dispensed through a bed of fresh hops

  If you have the pleasure of meeting Sam, be prepared to meet him on the run. He doesn’t slow down for anyone. Energetic is a word that does not do justice to Sam’s spirit. Just when you think you “get it” and perhaps have had the opportunity to taste his bewildering array of beers, he’s off on new tangents, a dozen ideas at once, concocting the next generation of ales on the frontier of American brewing on the edge of a continent.

  Purposefully Local

  Flying Fish Brewing Company

  AN EMPHATIC “YOUR book, man!” was the reply I received from Gene Muller, the founder of the Flying Fish Brewing Company, when asked how he ever got hooked up with craft beer. Since 1996 at their microbrewery in Cherry Hill, New Jersey, Gene and his 12 employees have been dedicated to the crafting of beers with balance and flavor. Gene says, “It’s not about the alcohol and not about the most hops. Though we began with Belgian-style beers we’ve evolved to beers created for their likeability, flavor, balance and complement to food. We always emphasize that we are local. ‘Why local?’ we’re often asked. ‘What’s so special about local beer?’ We like to reply, ‘It’s like enjoying fresh local New Jersey tomatoes in August.’ People can relate to that. Local beer is fresh all year long.”

  Recognizing and always appreciative of his company’s roots, Gene quite often reflects, “Homebrewing is our root. If it weren’t for homebrewers I wouldn’t have a brewery today.” Every year on National Homebrew Day (the first Saturday in May), the Flying Fish Brewing Company invites local homebrewers to the brewery. “Bring your beer so we can taste what you are brewing and we’ll give you yeast” indicates the passion Flying Fish Brewing Company shares with homebrewers.

  Gene Muller, founder Flying Fish Brewing Co.

  Gene Muller. Courtesy Flying Fish Brewing Co.

  “We don’t necessarily preach to the converted,” Gene notes. “A lot of the time we focus on quality restaurants and develop great relationships with chefs in the New Jersey, Philadelphia, Washington, DC, and Delaware area. We are a hands-on brewery when it comes to service and making and distributing our own beer. What I love about the craft beer business is that everyone has a different approach for success. Right now we are brewing just under 10,000 barrels of beer a year, and we’re happy to grow slowly and steadily. I still personally reply to all e-mails and publish a monthly newsletter for our customers and fans.”

  I recently had the pleasure of sharing a few beers with Gene at a beer garden in Italy. We were both participating at Slow Food’s Salone del Gusto (Great Hall of Taste) and were blessed with some time to enjoy some wonderful Italian microbrewed beers. Gene passionately conveyed the story of his brewery and his courtship with beer and brewing. After about 30 minutes of effervescent recollection, I interrupted his train of thought with the most important question: “Gene, where does the beer take you? I mean, when you really have the opportunity to relax and appreciate what you are involved in?” There was only a brief pause and he was on a roll once again: “Being a brewer is a wonderful job and passion. But it is a lot of work and having a beer is sometimes like taking a vacation. It takes you to places that are what the beer is all about. A particular beer might take me back to memories of sandstone cliffs in New Mexico, or I always seem to reminisce about the desert when enjoying a Belgian Tripel, because these are my experiences.

  “One of my most favorite beers is our Flying Fish Farmhouse Summer Ale. It’s a 4.4 percent alcohol-by-volume sour mashed beer that’s great with spicy food or sprayed on chicken barbecues. I love the spicy character that Styrian Goldings hops adds to this ale. When the summer comes to an end and the last bottle-conditioned beer leaves the brewery I always feel a sadness and silently reminisce, ‘Good-bye, friend, see you next April.’”

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  FLYING FISH BABY SAISON FARMHOUSE ALE

  This mildly tart, refreshing summertime ale is brewed in the tradition of the Flemish countryside. Wheat malt adds dry refreshment and the earthy tones of Styrian hops are a favorite of brewer Gene Muller, who shared his recipe with me. This recipe can be found in About the Recipes.

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  Gene assessed the beer culture in New Jersey: “The laws here regulating the sale of beer are very prohibitive for small business owners. New Jersey and much of the mid-Atlantic area of the United States have always trailed behind the craft beer movement in the western part of the United States.”

  I can assure you that Gene is one of many quality-oriented craft brewers in the mid-Atlantic area that are doing all they can to bring great locally brewed fresh, flavorful ales and lagers to beer lovers in the New Jersey area.

  Beer in the Big Apple

  Brooklyn Brewery

  THERE HAVE BEEN several breweries that have come and gone in New York City. The Manhattan Brewing Company and the New Amsterdam Brewing Company were ambitious brewery projects that succeeded only for a brief time. The oldest of the active breweries and brewpubs in the New York City area is the Brooklyn Brewing Company. Founded in 1988, at first it had its beer made exclusively in Utica, in upstate New York, at the F. X. Matt Brewing Company. Stephen Hindy, co-founder and st
ill active CEO and president, made homebrew before leaving his job as an Associated Press Middle East correspondent, taking the plunge into the world of microbreweries.

  Based on a pre-Prohibition Brooklyn brewery’s all-malt light lager recipe, Brooklyn Lager has become New York City’s best-selling draft beer. That’s quite an accomplishment. As Steve emphasizes, “New York City beer drinkers want the best and they don’t necessarily care where it comes from. That’s a tall order. An important element that differentiates Brooklyn Brewery’s beers from all the others available in New York City is that we’re a local brewery. People really take quite a bit of pride in having the opportunity and choice to enjoy locally made beer.”

  Steve, like most every other microbrewer in America, was inspired by his homebrewing hobby and the popularity of his beers. He says, “Good dark beer seemed easier to make at home than lighter beer and in the beginning I really took a liking to roasted barley and chocolate and black malt. My chocolate stout quickly became my résumé. Once I brought a case of what I thought was our Brooklyn Lager to a beer tasting and by mistake I had 12 bottles of my own homebrewed chocolate stout in the box. The stout was all that anyone wanted to talk about.” Steve is quick to give his brewmaster, Garrett Oliver, all the credit for the success enjoyed by the brewery-versioned Brooklyn Black Chocolate Stout.

  Steve Hindy, Brooklyn Beer