Eastward Ho!

We are currently situated in an interesting slice of American brewing history.  All breweries start small, even Adolphus Busch and Frederick Miller started with modest breweries before becoming the global mega powers they are today.  The key advantage that AB-InBev and MillerCoors currently have in the market, is time.  These brewery empires were built over more than a century of brewing and brand recognition.  American craft brewing as we know it today, is roughly 25-30 years old.  You don't tackle a giant overnight, but you also don't become a fixture in the industry without growing.

Sierra Nevada, New Belgium and Lagunitas have all recently realized that to meet the demand of their products, they have to grow.  Not simply grow the size of their brewhouse, but grow the size of their companies.  This happens in two ways, through contract brewing or through building new breweries.  Contract brewing is cheaper, and has historically been the most popular option with craft brewers up to this point.  Building new breweries is expensive, but it increases the size of the business while still ensuring full control of the end product.  Opening a new brewery is clearly the ideal scenario, but its prohibitive cost makes it difficult.  The Boston Brewing Company, the largest American craft brewery, has done both with a long history of contract brewing and a more recently emphasis on opening new breweries as seen in Cincinnati.

Sierra Nevada

The first brewery to make the announcement of an expansion this year was Sierra Nevada in January.  A location 12 miles south of Asheville, North Carolina was chosen for its water quality and thriving beer culture.  The brewery will initially produce 300,000 barrels with room for expansion.  For reference, Sierra Nevada is currently brewing somewhere in the ballpark of 1 million barrels per year in Chico.  Both flagship beers and seasonal releases will be brewed at the new facility.  The new brewery is scheduled to open in 2014.

Does this affect Indiana?  Probably not.  There's a chance there will be a perceivable difference in the quality of the beer, but it's unlikely.  It's possible they might pass the transportation savings on to us, but that's also unlikely.

New Belgium

Hot on the heels of Sierra Nevada, New Belgium announced last week that they were also planning on building an additional facility in Asheville.  Instead of building outside of the city, New Belgium is developing a brownfield site in the River Arts district of Asheville.  While Sierra Nevada mentioned water quality as a major factor in the location choice, New Belgium cited the city's sustainability, bike paths and greenways.  Of course they were also drawn by the outstanding beer culture.  New Belgium's expansion is planned to have a capacity of 400,000 barrels, exceeding the plans of Sierra Nevada, though it should be noted that Sierra Nevada's primary brewery is larger than New Belgium's.  The new brewery is scheduled to open in 2015.

Does this affect Indiana?  Probably not.  Much like Sierra Nevada, there's a chance that the quality of the beer might change, but it's doubtful.  The bigger impact would be New Belgium's ability to distribute into more states east of the Mississippi River.  Currently 17 of the 22 states New Belgium does not distribute to are east of the Mississippi River.  Of the 5 remaining, 2 are Hawaii and Alaska.

Lagunitas

In a completely surprising move, Lagunitas announced via Twitter earlier this week that they would be building an expansion in Chicago.  Lagunitas' expansion will be built in an existing film sound stage in the Douglas Park neighborhood, just west of Pilsen and a few blocks north of the California-Cermak Pink stop.  The decision to build a brewery in Chicago instead of another city (because Asheville is probably looking for a trifecta) seems to be more of an emotional one.  Tony Magee, founder of Lagunitas, is a Chicago native.  The Lagunitas expansion is the biggest of the 3, weighing in at 600,000 barrels, equivalent to their existing brewery.  The schedule is also more aggressive, with a planned opening of 2013.

Does this affect Indiana?  Most likely yes.  It's hard to imagine a brewery producing 1.2 million barrels of beer annually with a brewery in Illinois wouldn't distribute to Indiana.  Lagunitas is typically priced at the same entry point as Sierra Nevada is grocery and liquor stores, so you'll have one more low cost craft option.

What happens next?
That's a good question, and one up for speculation.  With these 3 expansions, 3 more craft breweries will be producing well in excess of 1 million barrels per year.  It seems like a new classification of brewery is in order.  A brewery producing that much beer can't claim to uphold the same beliefs and practices as smaller, local breweries, but that also doesn't mean that they should be automatically cast into the same pile as breweries that put profits above consumers.  Sam Adams faced the same issue a few years back when they grew outside of the definition of a "craft brewery." Their response was simply to continue brewing good beer and place a focus on their philanthropic efforts towards the craft beer community.  As a result, hardly anyone noticed that they outgrew the classification.

Perhaps more importantly, what happens to the craft beer community in Asheville.  In a community with 10 breweries (give or take), what happens when not one but two giants come to town.  Will the community help each other and develop into one of the country's top beer destinations?  Or will the new breweries cannibalize the existing breweries' profits?

Share your thoughts about these new developments and the rapid growth of the industry in the comments!

Beer Diary: Rod and Jess | Craft Beer in South Florida

Jess and I took a much needed tropical vacation to Fort Lauderdale and the surrounding Gold Coast region.  Not content to settle for Yuengling, we quickly began researching our craft beer options.  Turns out, Florida's craft beer selection is fairly similar to Indiana's, with a few notable exceptions.  Exceptions like Cigar City, Oskar Blues and Holy Mackerel.  Here's a brief rundown of some of the beers we drank and places we visited.

Holy Mackerel
Before we left, we found a nice beer event calendar at the South Florida Beer Blog, thanks to Google.  It indicated that we would be arriving in Fort Lauderdale on the same day that a Holy Mackerel "keep the glass" style tapping was going on at Hurricane Grill and Wings (like BW3 but with way more sauces) up in Boca Raton.  Not only was their Special Golden Ale being tapped, but it was also 25 cent wing night!  Double bonus!  The Golden Ale was an incredibly smooth Belgian golden ale, sweet but not cloying or heavy.  At 8.5% ABV it was strong but not boozy.  Holy Mackerel only does Belgian style beers, and as of this year they have 3 beers in their line up (up from 2).  We had a second Golden Ale and on our way out the head brewer told us to check out the tap handles on the side of his car - and we did.

Cigar City
Our adventures brought us to one beer superstore in Fort Lauderdale - Total Wine and More.  Our number one goal here was clear and that was to obtain Cigar City beers.  We picked up a 750 mL of Guava Grove and Big Sound.  Guava Grove is a saison, flavored with one of Florida's favorite fruits.  The guava gave it a nice sweetness not easily reproduced in any other manner.  Banana and strawberry were present against the spicy wheat-like background.  A bit of tartness rounded out this beer and kept it from being too sweet.  This was exactly the kind of unique offering we were looking for.

Big Sound is quite literally the Imperial Stout of Scotch Ales.  Nothing could have prepared us for how heavy and thick this beer was.  Tons of toffee, brown sugar and vanilla in the nose.  It even looked thick pouring in to the glass.  If you can imagine every flavor you expect out of a scotch ale times ten, this is it.  Caramel, toffee, vanilla, molasses, chocolate, brown sugar and even some peat.  Very strong and sweet.  While we both quite enjoyed this beer, it's one to share.  10 oz would probably be enough.

Original Fat Cats
I wish this place had a website.  We almost didn't go just because we couldn't find much info online other than it's THE craft beer bar in Fort Lauderdale.  I'll do my best to do it justice.  This place is a dive in the best sense of the word.  Walls covered in stickers and skateboards.  An old beat up solid wood bar and huge window/door openings that made the entire front end of the bar open up to the street.  Dogs are allowed (I can't stress how awesome this is).  Blues on the jukebox.  Don, the resident craft beer champion, works during the day when the regulars are in and will talk with you about anything.  Super friendly guy.  Over the past 10+ years he has been slowly converting the beer selection into craft.  Starting out with only a few bottles, they're now up to 75 beers, of which 2/3 are craft and hand picked.  Just about everything on tap is craft.  And if that's not enough, most beers are $1 off during Happy Hour and if you come in before 10PM you get that discount all night (even if you leave and come back).  The downtown area they are located in even allows you to drink in the streets, even though that does carry the additional requirement of plastic cups.  This was by far our favorite bar in South Florida.

I started off with a Shipyard XXXX IPA (on tap) and Jess had a custom creation called Dogmilk (half Dogfish Head 90 Minute and half Left Hand Milk Stout).  The Shipyard was great but the Dogmilk was even better.  Someone in Indy should start making this.  In fact, try it out at home, you won't be sorry.  I followed this up with a Cigar City Maduro Brown, which is an awesome brown.  The body is as heavy as a thick oatmeal stout, and the flavor is somewhere between brown and stout with strong roasted notes, a heavy nuttiness, balanced sweetness and even a hint of coffee.  I had another when we came back later that evening. 

Tryst
We hit up Tryst in Delray Beach on Yelp and Beer Advocate's recommendation.  This was probably the only true gastropub we stopped by.  The food was excellent, and Happy Hour prices were even better.  Jess had some great fish tacos and I enjoyed a huge bowl of pad thai.  On tap, we enjoyed our fourth, and final, Cigar City beer; Jai Alai IPA.  This beer was a solid, well-balanced IPA.  Great with both our dinners.  We couldn't bring ourselves to buy the $75 bottle of Cigar City Hunahpu.

Brother Tucker's
On the way out of Delray Beach, we stopped at Brother Tucker's in Pompano Beach.  I'm going to take a break and not talk about the beers we ordered.  Brother Tucker's offered a really cool and unique experience.  The place is located in a tiny strip mall and is as small as the smallest strip mall bar you can imagine in Indiana.  Located in side this tiny bar is food renowned across the region.  Originally recommended by Don at Original Fat Cat's and the guys at Beer Advocate, the daily soup is made with locally sourced ingredients and will never steer you wrong.  By offering up this great food, Brother Tucker's is turning on the most unexpected crowd to Belgian and craft beers.  A small tap list of only 4 beers and a lengthy bottle list are the predominate beverages here.  The tables were mostly full of people you wouldn't expect to see drinking craft beer, and yet everyone, men and women, were drinking great selections.  I personally had an Aventinus on tap, served in an official Aventinus glass, and Jess had a Norwegian porter we had never heard of.  But the most important thing going on here is that Brother Tucker's has made craft beer acceptable and enjoyable to people who would never have tried it otherwise.  This, in itself, is an amazing feat.

Dogfish Head
We picked up a bottle of My Antonia from Total Wine, who is supposedly the only retailer in the area that carries this beer.  This beer is billed as a continually hopped Imperial Pilsner, and certainly lives up to that title.  Through the continuous hopping (the same process their IPAs undergo), strong mint, citrus and bitter notes give this beer a much more bold flavor than you would expect from a pilsner.  The light pilsner body gains a lot of flavor from an increased malt bill, which helps it stand up against the huge hop presence.  This was a very enjoyable beer, even though it was a bit too strong for the fish I tried to pair it with.

Lagunitas
Lagunitas 13 was another beer we picked up on our beer run.  13 is a "mondo large red ale" and is one of those beers that ends up exactly like you think it will.  A huge, malty red body completely masks any alcohol present with its caramel and cherry sweetness.  Massive hops push this thing into IPA range, making the end result similar to a red double IPA.  The kind of beer you'd expect from Lagunitas, and that's a good thing.

St. Somewhere
Ok, this is it.  This is the last beer that we're going to cover and it's ending our trip on a sour note.  Quite literally.  I don't know if it's intentional or not, but the St. Somewhere Saison Athene smells like lemon juice.  Literally, like lemon juice.  And it's not just the aroma that carries that acidic citric bite, the beer tastes like someone spiked it with lemon juice as well.  You can trust me on this because I literally drink straight lemon juice.  I tried to push past this and enjoy the apple and black pepper spiciness, but it was difficult.  Jess couldn't manage past the lemon juice character and I had to finish hers.  I struggled, but managed to avoid a drain pour.  There is just simply too much lemon juice in this beer.

I hope this overview helps overcome any assumptions that Florida has a crappy craft beer market.  We had pretty low expectations but the market is actually a blossoming one.  We spent a week in Florida and tried a lot more beers (a crapload of Oskar Blues, for example) and visited a lot more establishments than we covered here, but the article is already long enough.  We were more than happy with the variety of craft beer we experienced along with our relaxing, tropical vacation.

KOTBR #57 - GABF - The Take-Home Game

A trip to Colorado isn't complete without a trip to the liquor stores of Colorado. Our recent trip to Great American Beer Festival and the breweries around Denver has led to a kitchen overflowing with craft beer; Not a problem, but an opportunity.


Believe it or not, calling together the Knights for a Saturday sampling of all sorts of unavailable-in-Indiana beer doesn't guarantee a crowd. But four of us are truly dedicated, so we met at my current home (a van on the banks of the White River on Indy's southside) for a revisit of the GABF experience.


Deschutes The Dissident 2008 Reserve Flanders Style Brown Ale

Mike: With the tart sour nose on this beer, my first instinct was to think "get ready to pucker". But the "brown" elements of this beer keep it from going off the super-tart deep end. Creamy and chewy, this is a beer that works the back third of the tongue. 4.25 Mugs

Chris: Sour lemon nose, sour patch kids hit, but only center of tongue. Sour apple, sour lemon - not normally the biggest fan of sour, but this is GOOD. 4.33 mugs

Matt: Much thanks to Mike and Gina for letting me try this brew.
Appearance: Dissident pours a mahogany brown color with tons of tiny carbonation bubbles, and a small thin head.
Smell: Cherries and blackberries and other orchard fruit with plenty of wild scents coming from the brett, but not quite "horsebarn" in smell
Taste: Tart cherries and blackberries come out very strong with a certain grape quality lingering in the background. I get more apples in the flavor profile as the beer warms a bit. This is delicious.

I loved this beer and was imagining how to pair this beer with food. I would love to get ahold of more of this beer. This is my highest rating ever as a KOTBR, and I stand by it! 4.7 Mugs

Gina: Tart and appple. GOOD GOOD GOOD. 4.5 Mugs

Deschutes The Dissident Total Score: 4.44 Mugs



Lagunitas Brewing Co. We're Only In It For the Money 40th Anniversary Zappa beer

Mike: Trying to figure out the name of this beer was almost more rewarding that drinking it. A Belgian Tripel with a burnt sugar candied fruit nose, the first drink wasn't rewarding enough to warrant a return to the glass. It wasn't that the beer was particularly bad, it just wasn't good. I couldn't get that burnt sugar taste out of my mouth/head. 2.43 Mugs

Chris: Buttery, butterscotch up front, cotton candy, bubblegum, burned sugar. 3.2 Mugs

Matt: Appearance: Pours and Amber orange with decent staying power
Smell: Overpowering of bubblegum and Candy sugar sweetness
Taste: The sweetness carries over in the taste with more orchard fruit like apples and grapes, but the syrupy sugar sweetness is quite overpowering in this offering.

I love a good tripel, but this doesn't cross the threshold into my favorite tripel territory. 2.5 Mugs (+.1%)

Gina: I got more hints of pine than candy or fruit from this. 3 Mugs

Lagunitas We're Only In It For The Money Total Score: 2.78 Mugs



Ska Brewing Decadent Imperial IPA

Mike: A wax sealed bottle that once opened gave an earthy sort of dirty taste. Oddly enough, this beer seemed almost freezer burnt. Although the bottle says "Imperial IPA", we didn't get an IPA elements. Weird. And a letdown. 1.75 Mugs.

Chris: Apricot, piney (subtle) smell, tastes fruitier than any DIPA I've had. Sweet, almost too sweet, hops not present enough for DIPA. 2.33 Mugs

Matt: Appearance: Pours a deep and very clear golden hue with a minimal head
Smell: There wasn't really much in the way of hop aroma for an imperial IPA, but I do get some slight apricot and apples with only a touch of caramel malt
Taste: I was looking for a hop explosion that never came on this beer, and this doesn't represent what a IIPA should taste like. I get apricot and hot fussel alcohol in the flavor profile, some fruity esters and only a small touch of piney hop bite on the back end.

I don't know if this was a bad bottle, but there wasn't anything really to speak of in the hop department, and the hot fussel alcohol didn't jive with me or my palate. 2.8 Mugs

Gina: Something about this reminded me of pizza. Maybe like basil or rosemary? It didn't pack quite the punch I would expect from an IIPA. 2.6 Mugs

Ska Decadent Imperial IPA Total Score: 2.37 Mugs



Russian River Blind Pig

Mike: I broke all sorts of Russian River laws getting this one home - I took it from a cooler and put it in a box in a warm car. The bottle specifically notes that heat and light are the enemies of hops - though I've had plenty of beers that have survived worse. A peppery and hoppy nose, a golden body, bitter, peppery, soapy. Considering Russian River's reputation, I expected more. 3.2 Mugs

Chris: Very piney smell, pine hops taste with a nice touch of citrus. I love the hops, but is this balanced? Hoppity hops...seriously, only for hopheads. 3.6 Mugs

Matt: Appearance: Nice clear golden hue with a rather fluffy white head
Smell: Lots of ripe citrus fruit and pink grapefruit rind with a good shot of pine stickiness. Daddy likey!
Taste: Citrus fruit are again center stage with ripe tangerines, oranges, and lemon zest. There is a slight "soapy" quality to this beer as well that isn't really doing it for me at the moment.

If the "soapy" quality I was tasting could be taken away this would be one of my favorite IPAs to drink. The nose was very nice and the flavor profile started out really nice, but really lost points once I picked up those other flavors. 3.3 Mugs

Gina: I mostly get the aforementioned soap and pine flavors, which usually would be a negative. This time, however, they work well together and I quite like it. 3.22 Mugs.

Russian River Blind Pig Total Score: 3.33 Mugs