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2 019 // I S SU E 9

TABLE OF CONTENTS

LETTER from the EDITOR

THREE TIERS for DISTRO

A SOUR CONVERSATION

A WEST TEXAS LOVE LETTER

DIA DE LA MUERTA XI

DIRECTORY of BREWERIES

Harrison Civick Founder/Creative Director

CONTRIBUTORS Harrison Civick

JoMando Cruz Editor in Chief/Photographer

JoMando Cruz Lance Higdon

Alexandria Rutledge Designer

Nathan Martinez

CON TAC T US S A B E E R M AG

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I N F O @ S A B E E R M AG . C OM

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S A B E E R M AG

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2 019 // I S SU E 9

LETTER FROM THE EDITOR “A thing long expected takes the shape of the unexpected when at last it comes.” —Mark Twain The gap between Issue 8 and our latest Issue 9 is the longest period we’ve gone in between print publications. But that doesn’t mean we haven’t been busy. In this period, and after two years exclusively as a print publication, we have developed and devoted a full year to our website and blog. We’ve increased our presence at events and even had the privilege of officially covering several of them. To wit: We started in 2016 as a quarterly, 32-page zine. We evolved in 2017 into a quarterly, 52-page magazine. We expanded in 2018 by adding our website and blog. Now it’s 2019 and we are evolving into a biannual, 100-page magazine. And we are really excited about it. Having 100 pages to work with gives us the larger creative space that we’ve been craving. We have proven to be quite adaptable going into our fourth year, and it has helped us navigate this issue’s many evolutions. We’ve abandoned entire story ideas, modified features to fit unexpected circumstances, and we have traveled far and wide (expanding our coverage in the process). We’re really proud of Issue 9 and hope that you enjoy it as much as we enjoyed creating it. And stay tuned for Issue 10 (or should we say Issue X?). We’ll be fulfilling another couple of longstanding goals with that issue. But that’s a story for another day… ¡Salud! JoMando Cruz, Editor in Chief/Photographer SA Beer Magazine

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T H R E E T I E R S for DI S T RO

THREE TIERS for DISTRO Words: Lance Higdon Photos: JoMando Cruz

Since 2015, Hops and Vines Distributing has been a sterling example of distributors doing right. Repping both local darlings and independent breweries from around the state, this San Antonio distributor marries the nuts and bolts of delivery to an evangelical commitment to craft. “I don’t want to be a brand collector,” CEO and co-founder Tristan Maldonado said in an interview with SA Beer Magazine. “It does not excite me to have 500 brands in my portfolio. What does excite me is to have unbelievable breweries in my portfolio that can do what maybe 500 could do.” But why is this mindset important? The distributor’s job is obvious: to pack up our most beloved beverages and make sure they make it to the friendly neighborhood bar/bottle shop/grocery, cold and fresh. How those brewskis get to market, though, is not so simple; rather, it’s a complex route that traverses redtape roadblocks and shifting intersections of culture and commerce. Luckily for us, dedicated craft advocates and a few independentminded distributors (precisely like Hops and Vines Distributing) are working hard to make that path straight.

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T H R E E T I E R S for DI S T RO cont .

Texas’ beer laws are complicated, but its regulatory structure is not. Known as the “three-tier system,” it divides the industry into those who brew (producers), those who move (distributors), and those who sell beer to the public (retailers). Legislated after the repeal of Prohibition, the system aimed to thwart the return of ill-reputed “tied houses,” saloons or taverns which enjoyed direct relationships with particular producers (and whose 1920s stepchild, the speakeasy, attracted the muscled embrace of the Mafia). Think of it as the separation of powers for suds. There are definite advantages to working with the middle tier. Once a brewery hits a certain degree of production or geographic market footprint, it makes sense to partner with a distributor to do the legwork; if you’re managing a beer section or bar menu, consolidated deliveries are preferable to a daylong stream of brewery vans. The problems arise when legislation fails to keep up with the times— or, much worse, tilts the field in one tier’s favor. It’s a particular problem in Texas, when distributors can legally acquire and sell a brewery’s territorial distribution rights without a cent of compensation to the producer, or secure a contract for beer that never even leaves the brewhouse. To many members of the craft beer community, the most menacing racket isn’t the Mafia—it’s the distributors’ lobby that often favors big beer. Thanks to the efforts of some dedicated industry activists, craft beer has won back some control over self-distribution, direct sales, and licensing permissions. These changes have been a boon to independent producers, but the fight to free the taps continues. Just because the law lets distributors do this doesn’t mean that they do. However, this is where Hops and Vines’ mindset toward their carefully curated portfolio supports the craft beer producers. “I want this to be symbiotic,” he continued. “I’m going to work my tail off, and our company is going to work its tail off, because we know that directly impacts [the brewery]—and our expectation is that you will work your tail off to provide us the best product. It’s the way I think distribution was created to begin with.”

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OAK HIGHLANDS BREWERY

Oak Highlands Brewery is excited to bring our award-winning beers to the San Antonio area. Go to ohbrewery.com to see where you can find OHB on draft and in cans near you!

A SOUR CONVERSATION Words and photos: JoMando Cruz

A SOUR CONVERSATION

Among the many things we intend our magazine to do is educate—even when we aren’t the best teachers. This is why we consult the experts. In an effort to better understand so-called sour beer, we decided to collaborate with two breweries producing exceptional beers with two different approaches. Thank you to Jeffrey Stuffings from Jester King Brewery and Jeff Young from Blue Owl Brewing Co. for their time, generosity, and thoughtful answers to the questions Harrison Civick and Nathan Martinez posed. And a very special thank you for allowing us to explore and photograph your respective breweries. The following conversation is only edited for brevity.

S A B M : What are the main differences between wild inoculation and

forced inoculation? J S : A truly wild beer in my opinion would be one that’s spontaneously fermented without the introduction of any cultured yeast or bacteria. However, I believe a mixed fermentation beer (one fermented with a host of different cultures of yeast or bacteria) could fairly be considered a wild beer. I suppose “forced inoculation” is just a harsh way of saying “pitching yeast.” J Y : I’ve never heard the term “forced inoculation!” Sounds illegal.

I think this idea is better framed by asking what the differences are between pure cultures and unknown cultures.

S A B M : Jeff, would you mind explaining the process of sour mashing

for our readers? J Y : We use naturally occurring bacteria found on malted grain to

acidify our wort before going through fermentation. We control the level of acidity per the style of beer we brew. Our sour beers reflect all the characteristics of their original style, but integrate acidity into the beer as one of the many balanced flavors.

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A SOUR CONVERSATION cont.

S A B M : Is it possible to completely mimic a wild sour with a forced

sour mash? J S : No. J Y : I know what you’re really trying to ask here, but I think it’s not really the narrative anymore. Sour mashes (at least the way that Blue Owl does them) use the naturally occurring bacteria (and all microflora) from grain. So it’s not forced in the way you’re referring to it, but it is an unknown culture. That process of sour-mashing (or wort-souring in general) focuses on lactobacillus as the souring component, but other things thrive in small amounts. So yes, technically a sour-mash beer is a wild sour.

S A B M : Jeff, obviously all brewing is a science, but what type of

educational background led you to such an intricate and specific way of brewing beer at Blue Owl? J Y : I’ve always been in to science. In college I studied electrical

engineering, chemistry, and math. After school, I was an industrial chemist and then a pharmaceutical chemist. All these things made me thirst for more knowledge about beer and brewing. At my first brewery, Black Star Co-op, I started dabbling in sour beers—both pre-fermentation and barrel aging. I found that in an industry where so much has already been done or is known, there’s a small niche where very little was known and very little was experimented with. Other than simple berliner weisses and goses, wort-souring wasn’t done on any of the many other beer styles in the world! That means perhaps we’re one of the first to make a sour Czech pilsner or a sour wee heavy, and that’s exciting to us.

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A L A MO BE E R C OM PA N Y cont.

A SOUR CONVERSATION cont.

S A B M : Outside of making some really fantastic beer, Jester King

has also been expanding and getting its hands dirty, agriculturally speaking. Was this a long time coming and important to embracing the philosophy of your beers representing a specific place and time? J S : First of all, thanks! It was a long time coming. Owning the land to farm took years and years. We strive for more authenticity in what we do, and growing our own ingredients and starting a farm is certainly part of this.

S A B M : Jester King’s collaborations are always really interesting.

What would you say is the most difficult part of brewing with foraged ingredients beyond those you’ve already used before? J S : I would say the most difficult part of brewing with foraged ingredients would be creating balance. It’s easy to overdo it. A beer, no matter what the style, needs to be balanced and drinkable. Also, keeping foraged beers from having too much of a “green” flavor from the plant material is a challenge. Drying and creating tinctures tends to work best for us.

S A B M : With such a wide variety of sour styles, are we seeing the

term “sour beer” used too broadly? J Y : It is used very broadly, but so are terms like “ale” or “hoppy.”

I think it’s adequate for right now and no one has come up with anything better. There are starting to be more and more subcategories of “sour” as the styles develop and mature. I think it’s too soon to get caught up too much in terms. J S : In this context, I’d say no. I think any beer with perceived acidity could be fairly referred to as a sour beer. I do think in general that the term “sour beer” is one that’s too broad or not particularly helpful. A beer can have perceived acidity, but that in my mind doesn’t make it a “sour beer” any more than a wine with medium-tohigh acidity would be referred to as a “sour wine.”

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A SOUR CONVERSATION cont.

S A B M : What is the best way to describe the range and variety of

sour styles? We have pale ales, IPAs, and imperial IPAs that describe hoppiness levels (to put it simply) with their name, so is there a way to describe the sour scale? J Y : Kind of, and kind of not. The real question here is “how do

you communicate the expectations that the drinker should have?” Whether an IPA is 45 IBUs or 50 IBUs is generally not differentiable to a beer drinker. And that’s just talking about bitterness, not hoppiness. The brewer tries to set expectations like “really hoppy” and then the drinker largely bases their thoughts on the brew by comparing it to their expectations going in. An IPA that isn’t as hoppy as someone was expecting could get a negative review, but that same beer could be the best pale ale in the world! So with sourness, we can fairly accurately measure the concentration of various acidic compounds in a beer, but what does that really tell you? Well, something, sure, but not everything. There’s perceived sourness, expectations, and frankly, what you had for breakfast, that will make your experience a reality. At Blue Owl, we use a measurement of lactic acid in the beer to give the drinker an idea of what they might expect from this beer as far as sourness and balance. We created “Sour Units” that are % lactic acid x 100. For example, a sour beer that has 0.50% lactic acid in it would be called 50 SUs. If that same beer had 1.0% lactic acid (or 100 SUs), you better believe that the drinker could tell a difference. J S : I think using history as a guidepost is a good way to go. Everything we do is rooted or derived from some tradition. For instance, you have Flanders styles, lambic styles, Berliner styles, etc. I’m not all that crazy about a sourness scale since, once again, I see sourness or acidity as a component part of a flavor profile, rather than what’s dominant. Sour just for the sake of sour isn’t all that interesting or appealing in my opinion.

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S A B M : Has Blue Owl attempted any recipes or beer styles that didn’t

work? Or any that surprisingly did? J Y : We haven’t found a style yet that we couldn’t turn into a sour-

mashed beer. And we really try! With every style we’ve brewed, there’s been some part that we just didn’t know how to make work together. For example, Professor Black, our sour cherry stout, was one of the first beers to be released and it was basically a happy surprise that the high levels of sourness somehow worked with the bitterness and roastiness of a stout. From there, we’ve even tried going to the opposite extreme to combine tartness with the subtle, drinkable elegance of a traditional Czech-style pilsner. We were worried that the sourness would overwhelm the beer or make it unrecognizable as a Czech pilsner. But it worked! If there’s anything that’s been hard to “make work,” it’s having high acidity in a beer with high bitterness—like an IPA. Instead of needing to balance sweetness with bitterness, we now have to balance sweetness, bitterness, and sourness. We have found that there are tertiary ratios that help us keep the body/sweetness of the beer (as final gravity) to make sure the bitterness and sourness plays nicely. For instance, we brewed a beer that was almost 1% lactic acid (100 SUs, or pretty damn sour). That’s very high on both accounts, but with a firm malty backbone and juicy/fruity hops, Can’t Quit You Sour NEIPA came out amazing!

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A SOUR CONVERSATION cont.

S A B M : Is there a more approachable way to describe a beer as

sour or funky? We remember being turned off by the terms when first discovering the style despite being seasoned beer drinkers at that point. J S : As far as the current commonly used vernacular, I’m partial to “wild ale,” or beers that exist outside the realm of pure or monoculture fermentation. “Mixed fermentation” or “mixed culture fermentation” can also be helpful. I think wine is onto something with “natural wine.” Could beer that’s made without using commercial cultures become known as “natural beer?” Perhaps. Impossible to say at this point. J Y : Blue Owl goes to great lengths to present our sour beer as

approachable as we feel it should be made. It’s a balance between breaking any negative associations with these words and reforming new associations. We do that by putting them in a familiar context. For example, “sour cherry stout” uses a word not usually associated with stouts by bridging the ideas with a very comfortable word— cherry. A “sour pale ale” doesn’t necessarily have the bridging concept, but gives the person a jumping off point for expectations. You recognize what a pale ale is and then you integrate sourness into it. All elements are balanced and important. But if it was just dominated by acidity, there wouldn’t be the association with the familiar pale ale.

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A SOUR CONVERSATION cont.

S A B M : How big of a role does sour beer have in the current state of

craft beer and what does the future have in store for it? J S : It’s a niche that has gained more popularity over the past five years—but, it’s still a niche. Mixed culture fermentation has the potential to grow, I believe, as it’s just a return to how all beer was historically. J Y : Imagine this: 99% of beers people are accustomed to only

utilize the tongue’s bitterness, sweetness, and saltiness receptors. What’s missing? The sour receptors! So we’re trying to open up another dimension of the taste buds to craft beer enthusiasts. Now that sour beers are becoming more ubiquitous, we’re expanding the flavor palate that a brewer has to create beer.

S A B M : It was only 10 years ago or so that you couldn’t find an

IPA, pale ale, or stout in a more public setting, yet now they are pretty readily available. Is sour beer next? J Y : Sour beers are certainly easier to find nowadays and especially

in forms other than traditional lambics and berliner weisses… J S : No, I don’t believe so. Most commercial sour beers are pretty extreme in acidity, which plays a role in keeping them relegated to a niche product, in my opinion. Also, in terms of barrel-aged wild ales and spontaneously fermented beers, they take years to make and necessitate a higher price point. You can make an IPA in a week or two at a much lower cost.

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A SOUR CONVERSATION cont.

S A B M : Are we going to see lager and pale ale drinkers (mainstream

drinkers, for lack of a better word) flocking to find sour beer on shelves, in restaurants, and at bars? J S : Of those instances above, I think restaurants present the best opportunity. Beers with complex fermentation profiles and acidity tend to pair well with food. J Y : We’re seeing that. It’s natural in any maturing beer scene that

enthusiasts look for different and perhaps more challenging styles. Heavily hopped beers were that. Bourbon barrel-aged beers were that. The pendulum swung the other way and session beers and pilsners became the thing to flock to. At least at Blue Owl, we have all those things covered, only soured!

S A B M : With so many breweries and beers to choose from in the

Austin and larger central Texas area, what are the difficulties in focusing on sour and funky beers while continuing to educate people on the styles and your respective methods? J Y : It’s exactly because there are so many breweries to choose from

that specializing in sours works so well for us. J S : Paradoxically, the challenge for us is often convincing people that we don’t just focus on sour beer. We were inspired by the classic farmhouse breweries of Europe such as Blaugies, Dupont, and Thiriez, as well as makers of elegant Belgian pale ales like De la Senne and De Ranke. These beers are known for being dry, bitter, and drinkable. Our Le Petit Prince farmhouse table beer and Noble King hoppy farmhouse ale are directly inspired by these breweries and have little to no acidity.

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A SOUR CONVERSATION cont.

S A B M : Both Jester King and Blue Owl have some of the best looking

taprooms, merchandise, and branding. Are those parts of owning a brewery difficult or take a lot of careful consideration to keep up with or do the ideas for those thing just happen a little more naturally based on y'all's ethos? J Y : I think the image of the beer and brewery are critical to trying to

convey who you are to the beer drinker. Ignoring branding would be a massive disservice to your beer, no matter how good it is. At Blue Owl, we don’t separate our beer from our taproom, merchandise, or branding. It’s all part of the experience we’re trying to craft. We have a lot of games, coloring books, puzzles, art, and creative activities in our taproom. Why is this important? Because we want people to create just like we create. Beer is just our medium for trying to be creative. Also, our branding is meant to be clean and inviting. We try to say the most we can with the least amount of words. So we use carefully selected colors and patterns to give an abstraction of the beer inside. Our sours are, in fact, clean and inviting! J S : I personally love Blue Owl’s entire aesthetic. Yes, I consider these parts of owning a brewery to be very difficult. We have a fulltime artist on staff (Josh Cockrell) and it’s even more than he can handle by himself. Ethos fuels it, but it’s an enormous operational undertaking.

S A B M : What are your best suggestions for turning more people on

to sour beers? J S : Make them drinkable. Make them balanced. J Y : I think if people have a taste for these kinds of beers, then it

will organically spread. We don’t need a sour Miller Lite to make the nation drink more sours or farmhouse beers. We need people honestly and earnestly exploring their passions and avoiding gimmicks and hype.

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A WEST TEXAS LOVE LETTER Words and photos: JoMando Cruz

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We often look for ways to expand the reach of our humble magazine. We cover beer in San Antonio and the surrounding area, sure, but the beer story consists of more than the beer in the glass and whatever rating it gets on Untappd or awards it does (or doesn’t) win. Frankly, we shudder at that sort of talk. We mean to capture the human element, the rustic and industrial qualities of brewing, and we love to establish a sense of place with everything we present or highlight. And in the process, we get to satisfy an urge to travel, if we’re being honest. Big Bend Brewing Co. had been on our extended radar for a good while. We were fans for a long time and felt compelled to feature them once San Antonio started receiving distribution. Then came the announcement that Big Bend was building a large production facility in San Antonio, essentially making a second home here. We didn’t even need an angle anymore (not that we needed one at all, but still). Big Bend was now a fully fledged member of San Antonio’s beer community, so of course we were going to venture into West Texas to tell their story. We started by attending one of their November anniversary parties with the intention of returning for their Valentine’s in Valentine event—an annual party in Valentine, Texas on Valentine’s Day. Our plan was clear: We were going to introduce Big Bend to the San Antonio market by telling their story with the focal point being this charming West Texas desert party. We would follow that up in another issue by featuring their brand new production facility, which would be complete by that issue’s printing.

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