EarthTalk®: Beer Brewers & Clean Water

Dear EarthTalk: I heard that a number of beer brewing companies have banded together to support the Clean Water Act. Can you enlighten? — Mitch Jenkins, Cincinnati, OH

In April 2013 the non-profit Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC) brought together two dozen nationally respected craft beer brewers to launch the Brewers for Clean Water Campaign, which aims to leverage the economic growth of the craft brewing sector into a powerful voice for bolstering clean water protection in the United States.

“Whether brewers are creating ales, pilsners, porters, wits or stouts, one ingredient must go into every batch: clean water,” says Karen Hobbs, a senior policy analyst at NRDC. “Craft brewers need clean water to make great beer.”

While hops, malt and the brewing process itself are also clearly important, water just may be the secret ingredient that gives a specific beer its distinctive flavor. “Beer is about 90 percent water, making local water supply quality and its characteristics, such as pH and mineral content, critical to beer brewing and the flavor of many classic brews,” reports NRDC. “For example, the unusually soft water of Pilsen, from the Czech Republic, helped create what is considered the original gold standard of pilsner beers. The clarity and hoppiness of England’s finest India Pale Ales, brewed since the 1700s in Burton-on-Trent, result from relatively high levels of calcium in local water.” Brewers can replicate the flavors of beers like these and others by sourcing freshwater with similar features or by starting with neutral water and adding minerals and salts accordingly to bring out certain desired characteristics.

Of course, clean water is essential to more than great-tasting beer. “It’s critical for public health and the health of a wide range of industries,” adds NRDC. “Now our streams, wetlands and water supply need our help. Without strong legal protections, they are under threat from pollution like sewage, agricultural waste, and oil spills.”

The popularity of craft brewers’ “microbrews” in recent years is another reason why NRDC has hitched its clean water wagon to the industry. “Craft brewers are closely tied to their communities with a very real understanding of the impacts bad policy can have on regional water sources,” reports the group. “While the participants in the campaign include brewing operations large and small, all have demonstrated a commitment to sustainability in their operations and beer development.”

By taking part in the campaign, New Belgium, Sierra Nevada, Allagash, Short’s, Temperance, Arbor, DryHop, Finch’s, Revolution, Flossmoor, Cranker’s, Wild Onion, Right Brain, Half Acre, Goose Island and other craft brewers are helping spread the word in a way that hits home with consumers. For its part, NRDC is urging beer lovers (and other concerned environmentalists) to use the form on its website to e-mail the White House encouraging President Obama to finalize guidelines recently created by the Army Corps of Engineers and the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency that call for greater protections for streams and wetlands in important headwaters regions from coast to coast. And consumers should be glad to know that for once drinking beer can actually be good for the environment. So bottoms up!

CONTACT: NRDC Brewers for Clean Water, www.nrdc.org/water/brewers-for-clean-water.

EarthTalk® is written and edited by Roddy Scheer and Doug Moss and is a registered trademark of E – The Environmental Magazine (www.emagazine.com). Send questions to: earthtalk@emagazine.com. Subscribe: www.emagazine.com/subscribe. Free Trial Issue: www.emagazine.com/trial.

Craft beer brewing company signs Lakeland lease

A rendering of Brew Hub in Lakeland.

Mark Holan
Staff Writer- Tampa Bay Business Journal

Email
 | LinkedIn
 | Twitter

Brew Hub LLC has signed a 50,400-square-foot industrial lease at 4100 South Frontage Road, building 700, in Lakeland.

St. Louis-based Brew Hub is a new business model in the craft brewing industry. It allows craft brewers to partner with the company and brew their beers onsite, and then have the beer packaged and distributed using the Brew Hub distribution system.

This will allow craft brewers to expand their distribution without the overhead costs of building new breweries or transporting beer across the country.

The facility, expected to start construction in May, will be built according to Brew Hub’s specifications. The company also will offer craft breweries services including sales, marketing, logistics, legal and government affairs.

The Lakeland brewery will have an initial brewing capacity of 75,000 barrels, or one million cases, annually.

Edward Miller and Dolores Seymour of Colliers International Tampa Bay represented the tenant in the transaction. Jan Boltres of Colliers International Tampa Bay represented the landlord, Aspyre Properties.

Mark Holan’s beats include commercial real estate and residential real estate.

Lagunitas Brewing Company tasting success

“I don’t think we’re in the beer business … we’re in the tribe-building business,” he said, standing among towering stacks of bottles ready to be filled in his warehouse at Lagunitas Brewing Company in Petaluma. “Beer just happens to be the common currency” of the would-be members of the tribe.

In this case, he’s building the tribe of craft brew fans who enjoy the beer and the quirky, iconoclastic sensibility of his 20-year-old Lagunitas Brewing. That tribe has underwritten an astonishing burst of growth that has propelled the business from a struggling local bit player to a nationally-known brewery on the cusp of full nationwide distribution.

Two years ago, his brewery, in a quiet industrial park on North McDowell Boulevard, was producing 161,000 barrels of beer, or around 5 million gallons, placing him a modest No. 17 on the Brewers Association annual list of craft brewers for 2011. A blast of growth brought that total to 254,000 barrels last year, enough to vault Lagunitas 11 places to No. 6 in 2012. It could pump out as much as 480,000 barrels this year, during which he expects to hire his 350th employee, a growth of about 100 in just 12 months. The expansion is almost certain to push the brewery even higher on the 2013 list.

And it’s hardly finished. Even as he continues to add equipment in Petaluma, Magee is preparing to join the rarified ranks of brewers with production facilities in multiple states, opening an outpost in Chicago this summer. The new brewery will start at about 300,000 barrels but eventually could produce 1.7 million, in addition to the 520,000 barrels from Petaluma when the current expansion is complete. The beer already is distributed in 34 states and the Chicago facility will allow Magee to spread to the rest in just a few years.

“I don’t know how big the company can be … The way it is is fabulously exciting, but we’re also growing this year at a 72 percent rate year-to-date,” he said. “I don’t know; there is something irrational about that, but yet it’s true.”

Lagunitas has staked out a reputation as quirky and irreverent, with a let-it-all-hang-out ethos including colorful and cheeky labels and promotional material drawn by Magee himself, featuring dogs, circus performers and burlesque dancers.

He dubs brews with self-deprecating names such as “Lagunitas Sucks,” a highly-hopped seasonal beer originally brewed as an apologetic substitute for the popular annual offering “Brown Shugga,” which the company couldn’t manage to get out on time one year.

“The packaging is unique in a lot of ways; it’s designed for intelligent people,” said Ron Lindenbusch, longtime Lagunitas marketing director. (In Lagunitas’ slightly twisted world, the title on his business card is “Beer Weasel,” while Magee’s cards often say “Imperial Warlord.”)

Another beer got the name “Censored” after federal authorities turned down the original name — “Kronik” — saying it was a reference to a popular slang term for marijuana.

Yet another beer commemorates a darker chapter in the brewery’s history: a 20-day shutdown by state alcohol officials in 2006 after undercover agents observed widespread marijuana smoking at the company’s weekly open houses in the days before the public taproom was built. Magee turned that into “Undercover Investigation Shutdown Ale,” a seasonal beer that the brewery describes as “especially bitter … unforgiven … unrepentant.”

“I really do not want the press and beer geeks and chat rooms to tell that story for me,” Magee said, cheerfully admitting that marijuana was once a major part of the corporate culture. “I’ll just tell it myself so that we own it.”

And that’s where “tribe building” enters the picture.

“Another way to put it is story-telling,” Magee said. “A tribe gets built around stories, commonly-held stories that everybody agrees on … we want to tell our story” through the beers.

The success of Lagunitas comes amid an explosion of competition, with nearly 2,400 small breweries operating in the United States today, on top of traditional behemoths such as Anheuser-Busch and MillerCoors.

For all the hectic growth at Lagunitas, Magee is a relatively little-known figure, even within the tight-knit community of brewers.

“For a few years, he’s been something of a mystery man,” said Paul Gatza, executive director of the Brewers Association, a trade association of smaller brewers. “People in the industry didn’t know him really well.”

Magee admits he has little use for the chummy world of brewers, with its conferences, festivals and collaborative beers co-created by multiple breweries.

“If you’re hanging around with the crowd, you’re going to end up making the same beers, thinking you’re all special,” he said. “Me? There is something I like about the idea of taking chances.”

Magee, 52, was born and raised in Chicago, where he studied at New Bauhaus Institute of Design. He eventually dropped out to perform in a Chicago-based reggae band (he remains an avid musician today) and he held a series of menial jobs, none terribly successful, in his retelling.

He moved to California in 1987 looking for what he has described as a “new start,” and tried to apply his art and design training as a printer in the North Bay.

That business, too, was struggling in the 1990s when his brother gave him a home-brewing kit. He soon was hooked.

His wife, Carrisa Brader, quickly evicted him from their kitchen, where he was creating a considerable mess. So despite owing tens of thousands of dollars in back taxes to the state and federal governments, he begged and borrowed enough money to buy a tiny professional brewing setup and opened Lagunitas in Marin County in 1993. He quickly outgrew the septic system on the site and began searching for new locations, settling eventually on Petaluma.

The development of the brewery, outlined in his 2012 book, “Lagunitas Brewing Company: The Story,” seems to consist of a manic quest for growth while frantically trying to hold off suppliers, bankers and tax collectors, all eager for repayment of late bills.

He writes of the first 10 or 12 years of the brewery’s life as “like being chased down the street by a pack of wild dogs.”

Brader, who now heads production and logistics for the brewery (her business cards say “Prime Minister” or “The Plant Lady,” a play on words referring both to her job and to her love of the plants in the office), credits her husband’s tenacity and sprawling intellect for getting Lagunitas through those years.

“He just has this amazing ability to learn anything he needs to learn,” she said. “When you’re starting a business, you have to wear a lot of hats. You have to wear all of them, in fact.”

As the business has stabilized, she said, he has shown a talent for bringing in the right people who have more formal business education to build the brand.

The people he attracts “are independent thinkers, but they get what the brand is about,” so they don’t need close supervision from the top, she said.

Magee expects to generate about $90 million in revenue this year and he says all of those old debts are long-since retired.

“People are like ‘how did you do it?’ and I say, ‘I’m not sure,’” he said. “You try to put it out there, put it in a way that’s honest, not the way people think you should or the way you think people expect it to happen. And you find your own voice, you know?”

Magee credits some of his success to being able to spot future trends early. His flagship India Pale Ale, for example, came out in 1994, a time when the style was in the shadow of the milder pale ales made famous by Sierra Nevada Brewing in Chico. While others dispute his claim to have pioneered the highly-hopped West Coast version of the IPA, he clearly was one of the first craft brewers to make it the centerpiece of his lineup.

The meteoric rise of Lagunitas has come at a price. The city of Petaluma has struggled to digest the burgeoning business, which has outgrown the city’s four-year-old sewage treatment plant. Magee has to truck his nutrient-rich brewing wastewater to Oakland for disposal.

City and county officials, however, say the benefits outweigh the growing pains. Not only is the business generating tax revenue and jobs, it is drawing new business to the area. Two smaller breweries are opening within a few hundred yards of Lagunitas, with several more in the works in other parts of the city, said Ingrid Alverde, economic development manager for the city.

The brewery, along with a few nationally-known competitors in the area, including Bear Republic Brewing in Healdsburg and Cloverdale and Russian River Brewing in Santa Rosa, are drawing new beer-loving tourists to the area, said Ben Stone, executive director of the Sonoma County Economic Development Board.

The board is preparing to release a detailed report next month on the effect that the growing local beer market is having on the economy.

The dizzying expansion of Lagunitas also has forced the previously low-profile Magee out of the shadows. The process hasn’t always been smooth.

The blunt-spoken Magee, who peppers his conversations with casual profanities that are hard to reproduce in a newspaper, has riled up the beer world by pointedly criticizing several of his fellow brewers, often delivering his broadsides on his stream-of-consciousness Twitter feed.

Among other dustups, he has criticized No. 3 brewer New Belgium Brewing of Colorado for taking public financing to build a second brewery in North Carolina, funding he turned down in his Chicago expansion. He attacked the popular trend of putting high-end craft beer in cans, saying the mining practices necessary to produce the aluminum are harmful to the environment. He mocked a new beer glass co-designed by Delaware-based Dogfish Head Craft Brewery and Sierra Nevada, comparing its shape to a sex toy.

He’s locked horns with the Brewers Association, criticizing its decision to change the definition of “craft brewery,” raising the annual production limit from 2 million barrels to 6 million, a move widely seen as a way of keeping Boston Brewing Company, makers of the Sam Adams line of beers, within the ranks of “craft brew” as it expands.

“Jim Koch is NOT a craft brewer, nope,” Magee wrote on his Twitter feed in late 2011, referring to the high-profile founder of the Boston Brewing Company.

He’s also been vocal in opposing a bill pushed by the Brewers Association to slash federal excise taxes on beer, saying now is the wrong time to be taking tax money away from governments to give to well-off brewers.

“He’s a loose cannon,” said Larry Bell, head of Bell’s Brewery of Kalamazoo, Mich., the No. 7 brewer on the list last year, who has joined Magee in opposing the excise tax bill. “Tony says what he thinks, even if that goes against the mainstream.”

Other major brewery owners, including Koch and Sierra Nevada’s Ken Grossman did not return calls for comment on Magee.

New Belgium CEO Kim Jordan defended the tax incentives, saying it was an appropriate way to help reduce the risk of the huge investment in a new brewery while guaranteeing economic benefits to the city of Asheville, N.C. She declined, however, to respond pointedly to Magee’s criticism.

“Life is too short,” she said. “It’s up to us to make it sweet.”

Magee admits that he has a tendency to speak his mind, but he says he never intended to challenge or attack his fellow brewers.

Citing Ernest Hemingway’s oft-quoted line about his whole career being an effort to write just “one true line,” Magee said he is “just trying to find ways to say one true thing, through the beer, through the business.”

Not to say that he enjoyed the controversy. He compared the reaction to some of his comments to “having someone just tie you up to a stick and throw rocks at you.”

After several widely-reported Twitter controversies in the past two years, he says he’s become more guarded in his personal comments in recent months, fearing that it might reflect badly on the larger company, “because what you say has a megaphone on it” now that the brewery is so large.

Closer to home, Magee’s reputation is less contentious. Since its founding, Lagunitas has made a policy of supporting local charities, usually in the form of free beer or use of the brewery’s space for events.

“If you’ve ever gone to a fundraiser or political event in the last 20 years, you’ve probably drunk some of Tony’s free beer,” said Marin County Supervisor Steve Kinsey, who has known Magee since the early days of the brewery and recently supported him in his successful effort to get permits to build a small hop farm and distillery near his home overlooking Tomales Bay.

Although he turns down offers to join charitable boards and rarely gives cash donations, Magee has made a policy of giving nonprofit groups free access to his brewery at times it is closed to the public.

“It’s very simple: You live in a community and you need to participate in it,” he said. “Hell, you want to participate in it. You get to know people, they get to know you and the beer.”

Although Magee also opens his doors to political fundraising events, he is stridently apolitical, to the point that he says he has not cast a vote in an election in his life.

“Does that make me a bad guy?” he asked with a laugh.

He said the brewery gives away hundreds of kegs per month to worthy causes, and more cases of bottled beer, but he doesn’t keep track of the number.

Petaluma Mayor David Glass said the Lagunitas name is so ubiquitous at charity events and city festivals that “I am at the point that I am looking to see if the logo is missing from anything. And it’s not.”

Trying to maintain that sense of community is important as the business grows, to help maintain its soul, said Don Chartier, events coordinator at the brewery (“Mr. Nice Guy” on his business card).

“As big as we get, you push back against that corporate attitude and structure,” Chartier said. “But as long as Tony’s in charge, it’s not going to have that.”

Magee agrees. He said he has no intention of ever selling the brewery and he is working on grooming a new generation of leaders who can replace him eventually and carry on his quirky and stubbornly independent legacy, no matter how big the brewery may grow.

“I think we could be as big as Coors. I think we could be as big as Anheuser-Busch,” adding a shrug and an unprintable expletive. “It’s just a matter of being sure we’re in tune with people, that we’re recognizable and authentic and resonate.”

No matter how large he grows, he said, his guiding philosophy will remain the same as when he was struggling to put out 500 barrels of beer a year.

“If people like what we’re doing, they will drink it,” he said. “And if they drink it, I will replace that one so they can drink it again.”

(You can reach Staff Writer Sean Scully at 521-5313 or sean.scully@pressdemocrat.com.)

Want to Start Brewing Your Own Beer? Here’s How

At a certain point, fascination can turn into obsession. Fine, everyday folks who discover the wonders of craft beer and become enamored with its complexity and history may soon find themselves researching wort and assessing hop varietals. So what’s next, after you’ve filled your brain with boil temperatures and talked the ears off of every local brewer you can find to chat with? Start brewing beer yourself.

As the rise of craft beer in Los Angeles and beyond has ushered in a new balance between major beer distributors and local brew operations with their own unique profile, so too has the home brewing movement grown. Regional craft brewers like Stone Brewing in San Diego and Hangar 24 Brewery in Redlands have continued to grow their own share of the craft beer market, while still spending time on Pro-Am home brewing competitions that allow individuals to win a contest that pairs their champion beer recipe with the brewery’s facilities to make a mass-batch of locally sold ale. Others, like Firestone Walker in Paso Robles, work closely with individual home brewers to provide the sort of guidance and advice that comes with decades in the beer business. There’s even a Southern California Homebrewers Festival, held annually at Lake Casitas outside of Ojai. Hyper-local beer product hasn’t just arrived — it’s been here for years.

So where can a suds-inclined soul seek out the necessary knowledge and materials to begin brewing at home? That depends on where you live. Long Beach home brewers have been counting on Stein Fillers on Norse Way for years to provide for their every need. The warehouse-style store sells everything from beginner’s kits to malt mills, with the raw hops, barley, malt and yeast needed to ferment yourself a fine batch of brew. The helpful staff also provides recipes and simple directions on getting started yourself.

Here in Los Angeles, there are sister home brewing stores in Culver City and Eagle Rock that operate under the moniker Culver City Home Brewing Supply. Not only do both locations specialize in setups for novice brewers, they offer frequent $10, three-hour classes to teach the curious about the simplicity of the beer-making process. For anyone with a background in brewing who may lack some of the high-end equipment to finish the job the way they’d like, Culver City Home Brewing Supply also offers daily rentals for things like bottling equipment, wine corkers and more.

In Woodland Hills, the most rustic Wine, Beer and Cheese Making Supplies is a one-stop shop for all of your fermenting needs. Opened in 1972, this shop has been serving the valley and into Los Angeles for more than 40 years, with everything from grape crushing tutorials for oenophiles to an unmatched dry malt supply in the storeroom. Home brewers can also learn the ins and outs of kegging their homemade beers or cultivating their own unique yeast strain for future batches.

Thankfully, the fun doesn’t end there. Enterprising home brewers still need a place to gather information, swap stories, talk shop and get feedback on their finished products. Two of the largest home brew clubs in Southern California are the Maltose Falcons and Yeastside Brewers. Skipping over the punny names, each operation offers unparalleled access to like-minded brewers with a wealth of knowledge about the process, the product and the industry. There are monthly meet ups and membership dues to make sure people stay committed and interested, and in exchange the tips and tricks from the community can prove invaluable for new brewers.

Once you’ve got the information you need, the materials you require and the community you want, home brewing becomes a cinch. The only thing left is finding the room to store your equipment, and the friends who are willing to share a bottle or two with you once its done. There has never been a better, easier time to begin brewing your own beer in Los Angeles.

Eat and drink better by following KCET Food on Facebook, Twitter, and Tumblr.

Video: Remembering When Brooklyn Was The Beer Brewing Capital Of The World

The March of the Rheingold Around the turn of the twentieth century, there were more breweries in Brooklyn than anywhere else in America, and quite possibly the world. At its peak, three of the biggest breweries in the country operated out of Brooklyn, and filmmaker John Weber tells the Daily News the borough “went from having roughly 50 breweries at the turn of the century to zero in 1977.” Weber’s documentary, which he’s trying to finish with help from Kickstarter, covers “the oral history of the beer brewing industry in Brooklyn NY from its very beginning in the 1800s, right up to the present day craft brewers.” Here’s a taste—feel free to bypass the blathering and skip to the 1:10 mark, when the trailer starts:

The fifty minute film, called Brewed in Brooklyn, features vintage footage and excerpts of classic Brooklyn beer commercials, as well as interviews with historians, brewers and beer geeks. In his conversation with the News, Weber recalls how beer “was completely intertwined with the borough in so many ways. Schaefer had a sign on the scoreboard behind Carl Furillo in Ebbets Field. Rheingold sponsored a beauty contest that millions of people voted on every year.” For example, here’s a classic Rheingold TV ad from back in the day:

Now that the borough is experiencing a brewing renaissance of sorts, with more and more microbrewers following in Brooklyn Brewery’s wake, the timing for Weber’s project seems right. Brewed in Brooklyn is already in the can (sorry), but Weber and his collaborators are trying to raise money for post-production. They have until March 10th to raise their goal of $20,000.

TEMECULA: Winery opens beer brewing company | Breaking News | PE.com … – Press

Even before they opened their winery in Temecula six years ago, the Wiens family was fermenting plans for a brewery.

Now that Wiens (rhymes with “beans”) Family Cellars at 35055 Via Del Ponte is so successful, known for its “big reds,” the owners hopped right to the suds. They’ve turned their yeast affection to locally produced lagers and ales crafted at Wiens Brewing Co., which opened Nov. 10 with six year-round styles and a variety of seasonals.

Wiens is the first Temecula Valley winery to open a brewery. The grapes and the grains don’t co-exist, but reside in separate facilities — the 7,500-square-foot brewery/tasting room is at 27941 Diaz Road, Suite A.

“We’re German and we love our beer,” said Dave Wiens, 57, who manages business development. Apparently, the region is fond of the suds. Wiens is the seventh brewery, joining Black Market, Ironfire, Refuge and Aftershock in the Temecula Valley, Craft Brewery in Lake Elsinore and The Locker Room in Wildomar.

The Wiens family, six brothers and three sisters, also figure that the beer business shows no signs of going flat. Statistics show that 1,940 craft breweries operated for some or all of 2011, comprised of 1,063 brewpubs, 789 microbreweries and 88 regional craft breweries

According to the Brewers Association trade group, craft brewers sold an estimated 11,468,152 barrels of beer in 2011, up from 10,133,571 in 2010. Craft brewer retail dollar value in 2011 was an estimated $8.7 billion, up from $7.6 billion in 2010.

Wiens Brewery is starting small, producing 4,000 barrels annually and eventually ramping up to the facility’s 10,000-barrel capacity. The startup’s brews already are flowing from about 28 taps at more than 20 restaurants, including Gambling Cowboy, Sweet Lumpy’s, Scarcella’s Italian Grill and The Edge.

Steve Sillan, owner of Rosati’s Pizza, said Wiens’ Front Street Lager is a hit with customers. “They really connect well with local breweries,” he said.

Wiens’ Insomnia India Pale Ale, Front Street Lager and Plateau Pale Ale are selling “wonderfully” at the Crush Brew, said manager Spencer Szczygiel. “They’ve been making great wines for years and the same high-quality has carried through to their brews.”

Brother Doug Wiens, now 55 and the family’s winemaker, sowed the winery’s seeds in 1996 when he began planting grapes on property he bought in Northern California near Lodi. After the first harvest in 2001, he leased the land and then moved to Temecula where most of his siblings lived. All of them pitched in to help launch Wiens Family Cellars in October 2006.

Since then, the winery has expanded to four buildings totaling 15,000-square-feet on 70 acres, produces 15,000 cases a year, boasts 4,500 wine club members and ships to 18 states. Since its debut, Wiens Family Cellars has grown 10 to 15 percent annually in sales and profits, said Dave Wiens.

He ascribes much of their success to family teamwork, 15 of whom are part of the 50-member staff. “It takes a lot of beer to make good wine, so we figured why not make the beer, too?” he quipped.

They even had a brew master in their midst, brother Peter Wiens, 37, who has a degree in fermentation science from UC Davis and worked for Anheuser-Busch for 12 years. The family invested $500,000 to gut, remodel and equip a former warehouse on Diaz Road as a brewery and tasting room that seats 130.

“It’s a bold experiment,” Dave Wiens said. “So far, we’re doing great.”

Right now, the brewery only serves draft beers, but will start a barrel program in February. The hours are 3 to 8 p.m. Mondays through Thursdays, 1 to 8 p.m. on Friday and noon to 8 p.m. Saturday and Sunday.

Follow Laurie Lucas on Twitter @laurielucas

Check her blog on http://blog.pe.com/retail/

Craft Beer: More Than What’s in the Bottle – Jew and the Carrot – Forward.com

By Rabbi Baruch Rock

Craft beer brewing is an art. The craft brewer is self-mandated to blend the complex flavors from water, malts, hops and yeasts into a harmony of delight. There is also a creed of the craft brewer as described by the Brewer’s Association:

• The hallmark of craft beer and craft brewers is innovation. Craft brewers interpret historic styles with unique twists and develop new styles that have no precedent.
• Craft beer is generally made with traditional ingredients like malted barley; interesting and sometimes non-traditional ingredients are often added for distinctiveness.
• Craft brewers tend to be very involved in their communities through philanthropy, product donations, volunteerism, and sponsorship of events.
• Craft brewers have distinctive, individualistic approaches to connecting with their customers.
• Craft brewers maintain integrity by what they brew and their general independence, free from a substantial interest by a non-craft brewer.

Technically, a craft brewery produces no more than 475,000 gallons of beer per year (I am using craft brewery and microbrewery interchangeably, an obvious generality that glosses over the complexities of the industry, but sufficient for this posting). Culturally, these small scale breweries forsake size to allow for greater care and attention to be paid to the quality of ingredients and the nuances of the brewing process. What speaks to me most from the creed is the commitment to integrity and relationship: relationship with the ingredients, history, individualism, community and innovation.

Never thought of beer in this way before? You are not alone. When I made Aliyah in 2002, the craft beer industry in Israel was well … non-existent. Even homebrewing equipment was nearly impossible to find. It was several years later in 2006 that Dancing Camel appeared not on the scene, but to create the scene. By now, there are 20+ registered microbreweries in Israel. But do not mistake quantity for quality…or craftsmanship. This past summer on a return to trip to Israel, I made it a point to try as many Israeli craft beers as I could find, albeit from the bottle (draft beers are in a different league, unfortunately the dynamics of the visit didn’t allow for that kind of luxury). Besides, if a brewery has the courage to put their product in a bottle, then that should be proof enough that they have something worth tasting. While on the whole the experience was a delight and some tasty brews were discovered, there is certainly room for improvement. The sum of it, craft brewing is form of art, craft brewing in a bottle … a fine art that few, at least in Israel (or more aptly, from the beers tasted), have mastered.

Throughout the course of two beer tastings my friends and I sampled six different breweries and 18 different beers. The list of breweries and beers included the following:

NEGEV BREWERY – AMBER ALE
NEGEV BREWERY – PORTER
CANAAN BREWERY – PALE ALE
CANAAN BREWERY – CARAWAY
CANAAN BREWERY – WHEAT
EMEK HAELAH – BEVARIAN WHEAT
EMEK HAELAH – BLONDE
EMEK HAELAH – IRISH RED ALE
JEM’S WHEAT, JEM’S AMBER ALE
JEM’S DARK LAGER, JEM’S STOUT
JEM’S 8-8, ISRA-ALE BLONDE
BIRA BRABUA – PILSNER
BIRA BRABUA – RED ALE
BIRA BRABUA – BOCK
BIRA BIRABUA – AMBER

Other beers sampled but not included in the beer tastings were various styles from PAVO BREWERY in Zichron Yaakov, as well as various styles from the GOLAN HEIGHTS BREWERY.

Each beer evaluation considered the following six aspects (as expanded upon in the publication “How to Hold a Tasting at Home” by The Brewer’s Association): 1. Appearance — color, head and carbonation; 2. Aroma; 3. Taste; 4. Mouthfeel or Texture; 5. Overall impression; 6. Beer Whispering.

This last category is my favorite. The beer whisper is essentially what you, your totally subjective self, have to say about the beer. What is its story? What does the beer remind you of? You will see in the evaluations (what I like to call developmental criticism) that a beer may whisper some unusual things. In this case the beer tastings were much more a celebration than an attempt at critique. My love for Israel, craftbeer, comraderie and plain old fun is what I was going for in these tastings. I hope that you will have the opportunity to hold a beer tasting of your own, in a rebuilt Jerusalem, speedily in our days.

In this first post, I share the write ups for two of the six breweries and their respective beers. A disclaimer, this is a completely subjective evaluation. Coming up in the posts to follow, more evaluations and the stories behind the breweries/brewers themselves. L’Chaiim!

Rabbi Baruch Rock, born and raised in NY, first learned of craft brewing while serving in the Student Conservation Corps in the Bitteroot Wilderness of Idaho at the age of 16. Since then, Baruch has been an avid homebrewer both in the US and for the ten years he lived in Israel. Baruch Rock now resides in Fairfax, Virginia, where he gladly sips his favorite craft beers from across the country to those close to home.

Researcher to explore science behind beer brewing

A University of Canterbury (UC) researcher will spend her summer months exploring the science behind brewing to meet the needs of the booming craft beer market.

UC summer scholarship student Jennifer Crowther said her research was an opportunity to explore the science behind brewing in an effort to improve the taste and quality of beer.

The taste of beer characteristics are influenced by a range of factors including the variety of hops and the types of yeast used. Research will be conducted into the biochemistry and genetics of yeast towards manipulating the flavour profile of beers.

This is a really exciting time to be studying beer with the rapidly growing craft beer market shifting emphasis towards brewing flavoursome, distinctive beers.’’

Crowther will be working alongside the Christchurch company Three Boys Brewery which has been operating out of Christchurch for more than eight years and is one of the premium microbreweries in New Zealand. Three Boys is run by former UC academic plant biochemist Dr Ralph Bungard.

The craft beer market is booming in New Zealand and in many traditional beer drinking countries around the world. Our overall beer consumption has been in decline for many years. In contrast, the craft beer sector, although small in terms of volume, has been rapidly increasing, both in terms of the number of breweries and the volume of beer produced.

This increase in popularity can be attributed to the more interesting flavours and styles of beer that the craft sector offers and the desire of consumers for choice and variation. The UC research project pulls together two of my favourite subjects in biochemistry and beer making.’’

The huge range of beer styles worldwide is a result of the almost endless combinations of many varieties of malt, hops and yeast strains. NZ has traditionally had an innovative hop and malt producing industry which has allowed craft brewers in NZ to produce beer with very unique, NZ-style flavours.

The biological modification of these malt and hop flavours and aroma in beer is driven by yeast in the fermentation. However, in the past, brewers have been less innovative in terms of the yeast use, sticking with traditional strains that have been used over many decades and even centuries of brewing.

The UC project will look more closely at the role of yeast in the biological modification of the flavour profile in beer. We want to particularly focus on how yeasts alter the end-product flavours that are derived from malt and hops.’’

Dr Bungard said he hoped the study would allow them to develop brewing techniques that would encourage brewers nationwide to manipulate flavours in beer in a predictable and favourable fashion. It was possible that New Zealand may become internationally recognised for innovative yeast strains and fermentation management techniques, he said.

Crowther’s supervising lecturer Dr Grant Pearce said the project would run for 10 weeks through to February.

She will be carrying out research looking at measuring some of these characteristics of particular beers using specialised equipment at UC that can measure compounds at the molecular level, aided by expert supervision by Industrial Research staff.

Jennifer will gain familiarity with microbiology and protein science techniques, using research methodology to study the biochemical and microbiological aspects of beverages, food samples and biological extracts. The project also provides the opportunity to understand and engage with the process of research within an industry environment.’’

He said UC’s Biomolecular Interaction Centre provided expertise in how compounds interacted with each other and a suite of state of the art equipment that could measure these interactions at a molecular level.

Small breweries being crafted to quench beer lovers’ thirst

Mike DiCicco brews his beer at home, his setup piled on a wooden stand that sits next to the cherry red Mercedes parked inside his garage.

His love of craft beer ignited with his first sip of Shiner Bock. And after tasting the sudsy fruits of his own labor, there was no going back.

Brewing has consumed DiCicco’s life for more than a decade, and now he looks to go from hobbyist to professional with plans to open Busted Sandal Brewing Co., a small craft brewery.

It’s just one of several brewing operations planned to open in the coming months in San Antonio. Currently, the Alamo City has two brewpubs and one craft brewery.

Texans, like the majority of Americans, still prefer to throw back highly commercialized light, fizzy beers, but craft brewers are confident that tastes are changing.

“Nowadays, there’s nothing off limits when it comes to beer,” said DiCicco, the company’s founder and head brewer. “It’s wide open.”

Already this week, the brewpub Granary ‘Cue Brew opened, offering brown and blonde ales, an India pale ale and a rye farmhouse ale, which uses Belgian yeasts to produce tropical fruit and pepper flavors and aromas.

Toward the end of the year, the craft brewery Branchline Brewing Co. will be in operation. By next year, Busted Sandal and Alamo Beer Co. will join the ranks.

It’s a small step, but breweries such as Alamo Beer, which will build its $8 million brewery east of downtown near the Hays Street Bridge, are reawakening an industry that has a deep history in San Antonio.

“There’s more than 100 years of brewing history in San Antonio. It’s great to see the craft growing,” said Eugene Simor, president of Alamo Beer, who hopes to be brewing his Alamo golden ale at the East Side facility by next summer.

“Texas is very under brewed and San Antonio is as well,” he said.

In Texas last year, the economic impact of craft beer totaled an estimated $608 million — a fraction of the state’s total beer industry, which is estimated at nearly $20 billion, according to a study by the Texas Craft Brewers Guild.

Craft beer made up less than 1 percent of beer consumed in Texas, but craft breweries employ about 1,250 people on a full- or part-time basis. That makes up more than half of all brewery jobs in the state, the study mentions.

“When we were opening, people were skeptical that more than one brewpub in the city could work. We’ve proven it can,” said Scott Metzger, founder and CEO of San Antonio’s Freetail Brewing Co. “People’s palates are changing, and the numbers reflect that. San Antonio is a great market for craft beer. We’re small now, so to double in size doesn’t take much, but it’s a step in the right direction.”

And it’s a fun step, too.

“Brewing craft beer is an experience. You can have a good time without beer but it does help,” Robert Garza, 39, the beer architect and partner at Busted Sandal.

Beer’s past

Austin, which has more than a dozen breweries and brewpubs, remains the state’s craft brewing capital, but the industry is making a comeback in San Antonio, a city that has a brewing history that began in the mid-1800 with the influx of German immigrants into the area.

Beer brewing was among the first industries to blossom in San Antonio.

There are some accounts that beer brewing was the first industry established by William A. Menger and Charles Degen, who opened the Western Brewery next to the Alamo in 1855.

The brewery produced about 1,600 barrels annually and became the state’s largest brewery in 1878, the same year it closed. Compare that to the more than 1 million barrels Lone Star Brewing Co. was producing annually by the mid-1960s.

Other late-19th-century and early-20th-century San Antonio breweries include Peter Bros. Brewery along East Commerce Street, Schober Ice and Brewing Co. near Josephine St., and William Esser’s brewery, which was located on North Flores Street, according to texasbreweries.com.

“San Antonio has deep brewing roots, and I’m happy to be a part of that history,” said Jason Ard, owner of Branchline Brewing, a manufacture brewery expected to open by year’s end.

The Alamo City’s dominance as a brewing town withstood the hand of Prohibition but ended when the Lone Star brewery was closed in 1996 and Pearl Brewing Co. was shuttered in 2001.

Those brewery buildings still stand. The Pearl has become a mixed-use development effort that has encouraged investment along the Broadway corridor near downtown.

The Lone Star brewery remains vacant along the Mission Reach portion of the San Antonio River. The company’s original building before it moved farther south on the river, which was built in 1904, now is the San Antonio Museum of Art.

In the 1990s, there was a craft beer resurgence in San Antonio with the opening of establishments such as Blue Star Brewing Co., Frio Brewing Co., Laboratory Brewing Co. and Yellow Rose Brewing Co.

Of those, only Blue Star, which opened in 1996, still is in operation, serving standard beers such as pale and amber ales, roasty stouts and high-alcohol barley wines.

Joey Villarreal, owner of Blue Star Brewing, said that string of breweries mostly failed because the public’s tastes hadn’t matured.

“Today, the acceptance level is a lot higher. It took a while for people to accept what we were doing, that it’s not about pounding beers. It’s about drinking less and drinking better,” he said.

Plus as the trend continues for all things local, demand for more locally brewed beer will continue to grow.

“People want something local,” he said. “The connection with a locally grown product is very powerful. So there’s room for growth.”

Beer’s future

Although the predictable trio of Miller, Budweiser and Coors still rule the market, craft brewers are confident that drinkers’ tastes are changing, fueling the confidence to continue a tradition and enter a market where they are the underdog.

DiCicco, an IT professional by day, will team up with some friends and long-time brewing buddies to assemble a nearly 2,000-square-foot brewery with a tasting room in an industrial warehouse at Fredericksburg Road and Loop 410.

The near $100,000 project is expected to get off the ground early next year, said DiCicco, 40.

For now, DiCicco and his team are brewing test batches in his garage, mostly ales such as hop blasted India pale ales, a chocolate peppermint stout and an American wheat beer infused with basil.

“There are a lot of people in San Antonio who don’t know good beer,” Ard said. “But that just means there are more people to educate.”

After Ard, 31, gave up playing music in bands, he searched for another way to fill his free time. He enjoyed craft beer, so home brewing seemed like a good fit, he said. Ard has been home brewing for about three years and it didn’t take long before he got the idea to turn pro.

“My first beers weren’t great, but I drank it,” he said. “What people don’t understand about craft beer is that it isn’t just a social lubricant. There’s a romance to it. It’s an art.”

For the past year, Ard has been working to piece together his 10-barrel brewery, which will be located in an industrial park near International Airport.

The operation cost about $300,000 and the 3,600-square-foot facility will have a 600-square-foot tasting room with 10 beer taps. The breweries initial offerings will be a hoppy amber ale, a wildflower honey blonde and a rye India pale ale.

While Ard is putting the finishing touches on his operation, Mad Pecker Brewing Co. still is early in the process.

The Mad Pecker crew still is in the planning phase of their three-barrel brewery, which they’re looking to open by fall 2014, said Jason Gonzales, a home brewer and co-founder.

Currently, the Mad Pecker team is saving pennies and looking for investors for their $50,000 venture. Exactly what they’ll brew hasn’t been determined, but Gonzales said that will focus on hop-forward India pale ales and small specialty batches.

“We want to start small and keep our home-brewing mentality,” said Gonzales, 34. “… The craft beer scene in Austin has blossomed into something great there. We just need to get people involved, and San Antonio can take off, too.”

vlucio@express-news.net

Beer! New wave of microbreweries coming to SA

Mike DiCicco brews his beer at home, his setup piled on a wooden stand that sits next to the cherry red Mercedes parked inside his garage.

His love of craft beer ignited with his first sip of Shiner Bock. And after tasting the sudsy fruits of his own labor, there was no going back.

Brewing has consumed DiCicco’s life for more than a decade, and now he looks to go from hobbyist to professional with plans to open Busted Sandal Brewing Co., a small craft brewery.

It’s just one of several brewing operations planned to open in the coming months in San Antonio. Currently, the Alamo City has two brewpubs and one craft brewery.

Texans, like the majority of Americans, still prefer to throw back highly commercialized light, fizzy beers, but craft brewers are confident that tastes are changing.

“Nowadays, there’s nothing off limits when it comes to beer,” said DiCicco, the company’s founder and head brewer. “It’s wide open.”

Already this week, the brewpub Granary ‘Cue Brew opened, offering brown and blonde ales, an India pale ale and a rye farmhouse ale, which uses Belgian yeasts to produce tropical fruit and pepper flavors and aromas.

Toward the end of the year, the craft brewery Branchline Brewing Co. will be in operation. By next year, Busted Sandal and Alamo Beer Co. will join the ranks.

It’s a small step, but breweries such as Alamo Beer, which will build its $8 million brewery east of downtown near the Hays Street Bridge, are reawakening an industry that has a deep history in San Antonio.

“There’s more than 100 years of brewing history in San Antonio. It’s great to see the craft growing,” said Eugene Simor, president of Alamo Beer, who hopes to be brewing his Alamo golden ale at the East Side facility by next summer.

“Texas is very under brewed and San Antonio is as well,” he said.

In Texas last year, the economic impact of craft beer totaled an estimated $608 million — a fraction of the state’s total beer industry, which is estimated at nearly $20 billion, according to a study by the Texas Craft Brewers Guild.

Craft beer made up less than 1 percent of beer consumed in Texas, but craft breweries employ about 1,250 people on a full- or part-time basis. That makes up more than half of all brewery jobs in the state, the study mentions.

“When we were opening, people were skeptical that more than one brewpub in the city could work. We’ve proven it can,” said Scott Metzger, founder and CEO of San Antonio’s Freetail Brewing Co. “People’s palates are changing, and the numbers reflect that. San Antonio is a great market for craft beer. We’re small now, so to double in size doesn’t take much, but it’s a step in the right direction.”

And it’s a fun step, too.

“Brewing craft beer is an experience. You can have a good time without beer but it does help,” Robert Garza, 39, the beer architect and partner at Busted Sandal.

Beer’s past

Austin, which has more than a dozen breweries and brewpubs, remains the state’s craft brewing capital, but the industry is making a comeback in San Antonio, a city that has a brewing history that began in the mid-1800 with the influx of German immigrants into the area.

Beer brewing was among the first industries to blossom in San Antonio.

There are some accounts that beer brewing was the first industry established by William A. Menger and Charles Degen, who opened the Western Brewery next to the Alamo in 1855.

The brewery produced about 1,600 barrels annually and became the state’s largest brewery in 1878, the same year it closed. Compare that to the more than 1 million barrels Lone Star Brewing Co. was producing annually by the mid-1960s.

Other late-19th-century and early-20th-century San Antonio breweries include Peter Bros. Brewery along East Commerce Street, Schober Ice and Brewing Co. near Josephine St., and William Esser’s brewery, which was located on North Flores Street, according to texasbreweries.com.

“San Antonio has deep brewing roots, and I’m happy to be a part of that history,” said Jason Ard, owner of Branchline Brewing, a manufacture brewery expected to open by year’s end.

The Alamo City’s dominance as a brewing town withstood the hand of Prohibition but ended when the Lone Star brewery was closed in 1996 and Pearl Brewing Co. was shuttered in 2001.

Those brewery buildings still stand. The Pearl has become a mixed-use development effort that has encouraged investment along the Broadway corridor near downtown.

The Lone Star brewery remains vacant along the Mission Reach portion of the San Antonio River. The company’s original building before it moved farther south on the river, which was built in 1904, now is the San Antonio Museum of Art.

In the 1990s, there was a craft beer resurgence in San Antonio with the opening of establishments such as Blue Star Brewing Co., Frio Brewing Co., Laboratory Brewing Co. and Yellow Rose Brewing Co.

Of those, only Blue Star, which opened in 1996, still is in operation, serving standard beers such as pale and amber ales, roasty stouts and high-alcohol barley wines.

Joey Villarreal, owner of Blue Star Brewing, said that string of breweries mostly failed because the public’s tastes hadn’t matured.

“Today, the acceptance level is a lot higher. It took a while for people to accept what we were doing, that it’s not about pounding beers. It’s about drinking less and drinking better,” he said.

Plus as the trend continues for all things local, demand for more locally brewed beer will continue to grow.

“People want something local,” he said. “The connection with a locally grown product is very powerful. So there’s room for growth.”

Beer’s future

Although the predictable trio of Miller, Budweiser and Coors still rule the market, craft brewers are confident that drinkers’ tastes are changing, fueling the confidence to continue a tradition and enter a market where they are the underdog.

DiCicco, an IT professional by day, will team up with some friends and long-time brewing buddies to assemble a nearly 2,000-square-foot brewery with a tasting room in an industrial warehouse at Fredericksburg Road and Loop 410.

The near $100,000 project is expected to get off the ground early next year, said DiCicco, 40.

For now, DiCicco and his team are brewing test batches in his garage, mostly ales such as hop blasted India pale ales, a chocolate peppermint stout and an American wheat beer infused with basil.

“There are a lot of people in San Antonio who don’t know good beer,” Ard said. “But that just means there are more people to educate.”

After Ard, 31, gave up playing music in bands, he searched for another way to fill his free time. He enjoyed craft beer, so home brewing seemed like a good fit, he said. Ard has been home brewing for about three years and it didn’t take long before he got the idea to turn pro.

“My first beers weren’t great, but I drank it,” he said. “What people don’t understand about craft beer is that it isn’t just a social lubricant. There’s a romance to it. It’s an art.”

For the past year, Ard has been working to piece together his 10-barrel brewery, which will be located in an industrial park near International Airport.

The operation cost about $300,000 and the 3,600-square-foot facility will have a 600-square-foot tasting room with 10 beer taps. The breweries initial offerings will be a hoppy amber ale, a wildflower honey blonde and a rye India pale ale.

While Ard is putting the finishing touches on his operation, Mad Pecker Brewing Co. still is early in the process.

The Mad Pecker crew still is in the planning phase of their three-barrel brewery, which they’re looking to open by fall 2014, said Jason Gonzales, a home brewer and co-founder.

Currently, the Mad Pecker team is saving pennies and looking for investors for their $50,000 venture. Exactly what they’ll brew hasn’t been determined, but Gonzales said that will focus on hop-forward India pale ales and small specialty batches.

“We want to start small and keep our home-brewing mentality,” said Gonzales, 34. “… The craft beer scene in Austin has blossomed into something great there. We just need to get people involved, and San Antonio can take off, too.”

vlucio@express-news.net