Microbrewed Adventures (2 page)

I
WAS TAKING THE F TRAIN
from Manhattan to Brooklyn, on my way to the Park Slope Brewery Pub, in the autumn of 1994. Halloween had recently come and gone. Jack-o'-lantern pumpkins still glowered from neighborhood windows. The evening was cold, inspiring me to walk briskly through the Brooklyn neighborhood as I searched for the newly opened brewpub.

My thoughts dwelled on a conference presentation given earlier in the day where the question was asked, “Why are certain areas of the country hotbeds of microbreweries and specialty beers?” An expert presented his reasoning, citing pseudo-facts about culture and demographics. I thought to myself, those reasons are academic bullshit things you say when you really don't know.

It was a longer walk to the Park Slope Brewery than I had imagined. I asked myself the same question. Could it be that specialty beer and microbrewery beer are especially popular in certain areas because of a handful of key individuals and their enthusiasm, dedication and persistence? I believe microbrewed beer's success in certain areas is a result of people such as Ken Grossman (Sierra Nevada), Fritz Maytag (Anchor Steam), Steve Hindy (Brooklyn Brewing Company), Paul Shipman (Red Hook Ale), Fred Bowman (Portland Brewing Company), Kurt Widmer (Widmer Brewing, Portland, OR), John Hickenlooper (Denver's Wynkoop Brewery), Greg Noonan (Vermont Pub and Brewery, Burlington), David Geary (D. L. Geary's Brewing Company, Maine) and others. Demographics and culture contribute nothing compared to the influence of individual acts of heroism, dedication and per
sistence. But in high-powered industrial economics, never is individual heroism an accepted explanation. It does not fit very well into the academic and economic models at board meetings and learned universities. Big-company marketing departments are uncomfortable with this.

I was still walking. In what seemed to be a strictly residential neighborhood, I was looking around for a brewpub. There were no signs of beer anywhere. A Jack-o-lantern sat in a corner window of a building. I shaded my eyes from the overhead street lamp and peered inside. It was a bar, with gleeful pumpkins alit with flames. There was beer.

I entered and was greeted by the warmth and glow of friendship and microbrewed beer. There was little doubt—this had to be the place. But where was the brewery? Steve Deptula greeted me with recognition and I was quickly confronted with a decision: California ale, porter, blonde, Kölsch (with 30 percent flaked corn), barley wine or pumpkin ale on tap. A pint of hearty ale soon graced my hand.

Owner and brewer Steve explained the unusual circumstances of his business. Steve was a graduate of the “Complete Joy of Homebrewing” School of Brewing. The brewery pub was a complete do-it-yourself project involving a year and a half of renovation. Steve's resources were limited, but his determination obviously was not.

The beautiful mahogany bar, graced by the good cheer of local beer drinkers, was a testimonial to his accomplishment. The small brewery below was retrofitted with equipment. Steve proudly explained how, with limited resources, he had had to place the chilled aging tanks in the same room as the fermenters. How did he keep the fermenters warm enough for ale fermentation? An $18 space heater from Wal-Mart.

The brewery has since closed, but not before pleasing thousand of beer drinkers and turning on countless others to the world of flavorful and passionately made microbrewery beer.

 

THE
1980s
were a turning point for American beer. Microbreweries and brewpubs began opening and new American beer styles were born—American pale ale, American wheat beer and American imperial stout.

Raspberry wheat beers, American India pale ale, stouts and porter, rye ale, whiskey-barrel aged stout and several other creations continue to emerge as brewers continue to embark on their own microbrewed adventures. The flavors and diversity of American beer are unparalleled anywhere in the world, bringing a high degree of respect and creating a proud American beer culture for beer drinkers to enjoy.

American Pale Ale
Sierra Nevada Pale Ale

M
ICROBREWERIES STARTED
popping up in the United States around 1981. This was the year I first tried Sierra Nevada Pale Ale. I knew at once that the guys behind this brew were possessed with a passion for beer and excellence. It was the dawn of what was to become the most popular style of microbrewed craft beer, American pale ale, and the Sierra Nevada Brewing Company of Chico, California, pioneered the way. Ken Grossman and Paul Camusi, the founders of the brewery and originally homebrewers, sought to make a commercial beer that emphasized hops.

Indeed not only were there more hops in their now famous pale ale, but they were the unique citruslike Cascade hops. These hops had never been used in large amounts—in any beer, anywhere in the world—except by homebrewers like themselves.

In 1880, there were more than 2,200 registered breweries operating in the United States. In 1980–81, there were only forty-four.

However, this was all soon to change. Homebrewers were indulging in their newfound passion for flavor and diversity in beer. With the fermentations of their efforts as inspiration, they were founding small brewing companies based exclusively on their love of beer. This passionate approach to professional brewing would become known as “microbrewing.”

 

THE MICROBREW ADVENTURE
was begun by homebrewers with the opening of breweries such as the New Albion Brewer in Sonoma, California (1976, closed in the early 1980s), the Boulder Brewing Company in Boulder, Colorado (1980, still operating as the Boulder Beer Company), the Cartwright Brewing Company, Portland, Oregon (opened and closed in the early 1980s) and the Debakker Brewing Company, Novato, California (opened and closed in the early 1980s). Others that opened in 1981 included River City Brewing Company (Sacramento, California), William S. Newman Brewing Company (Albany, New York) and Thousand Oaks Brewing Company (Berkeley, California), all closing within a decade.

 

I FIRST VISITED
the Sierra Nevada Brewing Company in 1986, five years after they had opened. At the time there only were a few dozen microbreweries in the United States. Beer choice for most beer drinkers was limited to dozens of brands of same-tasting American light lagers. I came away
from my visit knowing that this brewery, with their original Sierra Nevada Pale Ale, Porter and Stout, was getting it right for America.

Cofounding brewer, Ken Grossman
Founding brewer Ken Grossman. Courtesy Sierra Nevada Brewing Co.

Sierra Nevada was brewing four to six brews a week in their 17-barrel brewery, cranking out 35 barrels on any given day. Co-founder Ken Grossman, a student of chemistry and a bike mechanic, had run a home beer and
winemaking shop before becoming a professional brewer. Steve Harrison, the company's lead salesperson, had worked as a head clerk in a liquor store as well as at a retail service center of Sears. His first job at the brewery was part time on the bottling line and part time selling beer. Ken and Steve wanted to open a small business that made high-quality beer and do something they enjoyed.

In 1986 they were planning and projecting for the future. High profit was not an original goal—survival was. They didn't realize the size of brewery they would need in order to make money. In the beginning, the maximum they could brew was 30 barrels a week. At the time this seemed like a gold mine, but the reality of maintaining beer quality, the increasing costs of packaging and selling beer and keeping and paying their employees well and the need to make a profit in order to reinvest in their growing business became evident as the demand for their beer increased.

 

EVEN THOUGH
they are brewing at a much higher level these days, their goal has stayed the same—to make great beer. Their equipment is larger and better and their processes have become more efficient, but the beer stays true. Their production is approaching 600,000 barrels at the time of this book's publication, and their products have every bit of the “microbrewing” integrity with which they began in 1981. This is not only a tribute to Sierra Nevada Brewing Company, but also to what passion for beer and brewing has done for our American beer culture.

American Wheat Beer
Pyramid Wheaten Ale

T
HE ADDRESS OF
the brewery was 176 First Street, reached by taking Exit 30 off Washington Interstate 5, just above Washington's border with Oregon. It could arguably be called the birthplace of American-style wheat beer. Someone should erect a historic landmark memorial, for there was brewed the original Pyramid Wheaten Ale at the Hart Brewing Company. In 1984, company founder and homebrewer Tom Baune and his wife breathed life back into a building that can only be described at the time of my visit in 1986 as a general store orphaned by the construction of the Interstate.

The brew kettle, keg-washing equipment, fermenters, keg washers and bottling line were all salvaged, reconditioned or self-fabricated. Visiting with a small group of other brewers and aspiring brewers, I was surprised that such a remote brewery in an all-but-abandoned locale could and
did
resurrect the passion of beer and brewing. It was called sweat equity. We were all in awe of owner and jack-of-all-trades Tom Baune, not only for the establishment of such a brewery in such a remote location, but for the quality of his ales brewed in small handcrafted batches.

Tom Baune, founder Hart Brewing Co. and Pyramid brand ale

In the early 1980s, knowledgeable American homebrewers were aware of beers made with a combination of wheat and barley malt, called Weizenbier (wheat beer) in Germany. The recipes were available. The techniques were known. But one important ingredient was essentially inac
cessible to American microbrewers: the wheat beer yeast creating the unique character of German-style wheat beers. Not to be deterred, American homebrewers and microbrewers followed the essential techniques for making German-style wheat beers, but substituted various English-style ale yeasts for the German variety. A new beer style was born: American-style wheat beer.