desiderata
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From the Wall Street Journal 8/18/07:
When Beer Takes On Vintners' Airs
By CONOR DOUGHERTY
August 17, 2007; Page W4
Small brewers have long boasted that their beer can stand up to the finest wine. Their new strategy: Make beer that tastes like wine.
Deploying everything from wine yeasts to aging in wine barrels and caves, brewers from Maine to California are turning out golden beers that smell like Chardonnay and dark ales with the essence of port. Delaware's Dogfish Head Craft Brewery recently released Red & White, a white beer brewed with orange peel and the juice of Pinot Noir grapes. Allagash Brewing Co. in Portland, Maine, makes its Victor Ale with a dash of Chancellor grapes, and ferments the beer with a red-wine yeast. And in Santa Rosa, Calif., Russian River Brewing Co. makes a handful of beers that are aged in wine barrels for as long as 2½ years before bottling.
The concept with all of these brews? Add extra layers of complexity to a beverage that many people think of as plain and even watery.
Winey beers are a hybrid of sorts. They are carbonated like beer and brewed with the same malted barley and hops, yet they usually have a stronger aroma, fruitier tastes -- and alcohol levels that, at 10% to 15%, are two to three times that of a typical beer. They're also supposed to be drunk warmer. Port Brewing Co. in San Marcos, Calif., recommends its Angel's Share ale be stored and served at 50 to 60 degrees, the "cellar temperature" of wine. Even the packaging and pricing mimic wine: These beers cost $15 or more for a 750-milliliter (about 25-ounce) bottle -- the same quantity as a standard wine bottle -- that often is secured with a cork instead of a cap.
Pushing the Boundaries
Winey beers are something of a detour for craft brewers. Over the past decade, many of these small outfits have focused on beers loaded with the bitter taste of hops. According to the Brewers Association, a trade group for small brewers, the most popular style of craft beer is the hoppy pale ale, which, together with its hoppier cousin the India pale ale, account for 23% of craft beer by sales. Paul Gatza, director of the Brewers Association, says winey beers are quite new. "There's really not a terminology" for them, he says.
What's happening is an American take on a Belgian tradition. Brewers there have pushed boundaries by incorporating ingredients ranging from fruit to wild yeasts. A popular Belgian style, lambic beers, comes in flavors such as raspberry and peach, and the final product is usually blended from two or more different beers. Blending also is a critical feature of many of the winey beers, because it gives brewers better control over the taste of the product.
In the U.S., winey beers started popping up only a few years ago. Part of the motivation is novelty: In an increasingly crowded field, a distinctive beer can be a big marketing boost for a young brewery. (Most craft brewers remain too small to run campaigns in glossy magazines or buy television spots, so they rely on word of mouth to increase sales.) But selling fancy beer in single bottles is also good business. "Everybody along the [distribution] chain loves the margins on those big bottles," says Randy Mosher, a brewery consultant and instructor at the Siebel Institute of Technology and World Brewing Academy in Chicago.
The $4.7 billion U.S. craft-beer segment -- roughly defined as breweries that make small batches of beer and aren't owned by a big beer or spirits company -- accounts for just 3.6% of total beer sales in the country by volume. But the segment is growing much faster than the broader industry. Total volume rose to about 209 million gallons in 2006, up 32% over the prior three years. That compares with 2.8% volume growth for the overall beer industry in the same period, according to trade publication Beer Marketer's Insights.
For more than a decade, Vinnie Cilurzo, owner of Russian River Brewing, has been known for making bitter, high-alcohol beers with names such as "Pliny the Elder." In 2000, he went in a new direction, releasing Temptation Ale, a blonde beer aged in barrels that previously held Chardonnay and thus impart some of the wine flavor to the brew. Mr. Cilurzo, who grew up at a winery in Southern California, said his idea was to take some elements of lambic beers -- including brettanomyces, a wild yeast that adds an earthy flavor to the beer -- and combine them with wine flavors. (Vintners, by contrast, go to great lengths to keep brettanomyces out of their wine.)
Two Types of Bacteria
Today, Russian River has a handful of winey beers, including Supplication, a brown ale aged in Pinot Noir barrels with sour cherries, and Depuration, made with white wine grapes and two types of bacteria. After starting with 40 aging barrels, Russian River now has about 70, and is building a brewery that will have room for 400 (equal to about 9,600 750-milliliter bottles). "It's helped with our brand recognition, absolutely," he says.
The comparisons to wine go beyond taste. In the marketing material given to distributors, Dogfish Head suggests food/cheese pairings and a wine counterpart for its brews. And because of their high alcohol content, many of these beers can be aged for a decade or longer.
On a recent afternoon, we gathered a panel of reporters and editors made up of both beer and wine fans to sample winey beers from around the country. Our first discovery: These beers aren't for everyone. Comments ranged from "interesting" to "terrible." A number of our testers said most of the brews tasted like neither beer nor wine but made them pine for one or the other. "Is it possible that there is beer and wine and the two should never meet?" asked one befuddled sampler.
Still, enterprising beer drinkers will definitely want to try a few. Our favorite was Port Brewing's Angel's Share, which weighs in at a hefty 12.5% alcohol and is aged in brandy barrels for six to eight months. It tastes and smells like port, prompting one of our testers to say he could imagine sipping a glass of it on a winter evening by the fire.
When Beer Takes On Vintners' Airs
By CONOR DOUGHERTY
August 17, 2007; Page W4
Small brewers have long boasted that their beer can stand up to the finest wine. Their new strategy: Make beer that tastes like wine.
Deploying everything from wine yeasts to aging in wine barrels and caves, brewers from Maine to California are turning out golden beers that smell like Chardonnay and dark ales with the essence of port. Delaware's Dogfish Head Craft Brewery recently released Red & White, a white beer brewed with orange peel and the juice of Pinot Noir grapes. Allagash Brewing Co. in Portland, Maine, makes its Victor Ale with a dash of Chancellor grapes, and ferments the beer with a red-wine yeast. And in Santa Rosa, Calif., Russian River Brewing Co. makes a handful of beers that are aged in wine barrels for as long as 2½ years before bottling.
The concept with all of these brews? Add extra layers of complexity to a beverage that many people think of as plain and even watery.
Winey beers are a hybrid of sorts. They are carbonated like beer and brewed with the same malted barley and hops, yet they usually have a stronger aroma, fruitier tastes -- and alcohol levels that, at 10% to 15%, are two to three times that of a typical beer. They're also supposed to be drunk warmer. Port Brewing Co. in San Marcos, Calif., recommends its Angel's Share ale be stored and served at 50 to 60 degrees, the "cellar temperature" of wine. Even the packaging and pricing mimic wine: These beers cost $15 or more for a 750-milliliter (about 25-ounce) bottle -- the same quantity as a standard wine bottle -- that often is secured with a cork instead of a cap.
Pushing the Boundaries
Winey beers are something of a detour for craft brewers. Over the past decade, many of these small outfits have focused on beers loaded with the bitter taste of hops. According to the Brewers Association, a trade group for small brewers, the most popular style of craft beer is the hoppy pale ale, which, together with its hoppier cousin the India pale ale, account for 23% of craft beer by sales. Paul Gatza, director of the Brewers Association, says winey beers are quite new. "There's really not a terminology" for them, he says.
What's happening is an American take on a Belgian tradition. Brewers there have pushed boundaries by incorporating ingredients ranging from fruit to wild yeasts. A popular Belgian style, lambic beers, comes in flavors such as raspberry and peach, and the final product is usually blended from two or more different beers. Blending also is a critical feature of many of the winey beers, because it gives brewers better control over the taste of the product.
In the U.S., winey beers started popping up only a few years ago. Part of the motivation is novelty: In an increasingly crowded field, a distinctive beer can be a big marketing boost for a young brewery. (Most craft brewers remain too small to run campaigns in glossy magazines or buy television spots, so they rely on word of mouth to increase sales.) But selling fancy beer in single bottles is also good business. "Everybody along the [distribution] chain loves the margins on those big bottles," says Randy Mosher, a brewery consultant and instructor at the Siebel Institute of Technology and World Brewing Academy in Chicago.
The $4.7 billion U.S. craft-beer segment -- roughly defined as breweries that make small batches of beer and aren't owned by a big beer or spirits company -- accounts for just 3.6% of total beer sales in the country by volume. But the segment is growing much faster than the broader industry. Total volume rose to about 209 million gallons in 2006, up 32% over the prior three years. That compares with 2.8% volume growth for the overall beer industry in the same period, according to trade publication Beer Marketer's Insights.
For more than a decade, Vinnie Cilurzo, owner of Russian River Brewing, has been known for making bitter, high-alcohol beers with names such as "Pliny the Elder." In 2000, he went in a new direction, releasing Temptation Ale, a blonde beer aged in barrels that previously held Chardonnay and thus impart some of the wine flavor to the brew. Mr. Cilurzo, who grew up at a winery in Southern California, said his idea was to take some elements of lambic beers -- including brettanomyces, a wild yeast that adds an earthy flavor to the beer -- and combine them with wine flavors. (Vintners, by contrast, go to great lengths to keep brettanomyces out of their wine.)
Two Types of Bacteria
Today, Russian River has a handful of winey beers, including Supplication, a brown ale aged in Pinot Noir barrels with sour cherries, and Depuration, made with white wine grapes and two types of bacteria. After starting with 40 aging barrels, Russian River now has about 70, and is building a brewery that will have room for 400 (equal to about 9,600 750-milliliter bottles). "It's helped with our brand recognition, absolutely," he says.
The comparisons to wine go beyond taste. In the marketing material given to distributors, Dogfish Head suggests food/cheese pairings and a wine counterpart for its brews. And because of their high alcohol content, many of these beers can be aged for a decade or longer.
On a recent afternoon, we gathered a panel of reporters and editors made up of both beer and wine fans to sample winey beers from around the country. Our first discovery: These beers aren't for everyone. Comments ranged from "interesting" to "terrible." A number of our testers said most of the brews tasted like neither beer nor wine but made them pine for one or the other. "Is it possible that there is beer and wine and the two should never meet?" asked one befuddled sampler.
Still, enterprising beer drinkers will definitely want to try a few. Our favorite was Port Brewing's Angel's Share, which weighs in at a hefty 12.5% alcohol and is aged in brandy barrels for six to eight months. It tastes and smells like port, prompting one of our testers to say he could imagine sipping a glass of it on a winter evening by the fire.
