BREWED 2016
Trends of
Samuel Adams
CAN
NITRO
“Old Ways, New Beer” Sampling America:
Pale Ale
Craft Brewers or Big Beer? What is the prefered beer of
Peyton Manning
Whats Inside...
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Peyton’s Own Beer
See the new brew dedicated to Peyton Manning himsefl that brought two cities together.
Old Ways, New Beer
Traveling back to “old-school” brewing to make a “new-school” taste.
Trends of 2016
Check out what has all the big beer buffs raging abou this years newest trends and tastes in the brewing world.
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David vs. Goliath
Are the underdogs of beer starting to overthrow big coorporate names?
Sampling American Pale Ales
There’s not much more American than a good, cold beer. See what Pale Ales are making it onto our list to try this summer.
Sam Adams Nitro Cans
Sam Adams hits a home run again with their new and improved Nitro Cans for a more sleek look with the same, bold Sam Adams taste in new flavors.
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“OATMAHA”
Peytons’s Own Beer I
t’s not uncommon for brewers to honor their favorite athletes in liquid tributes. For Brett Favre’s induction to the Packers Hall of Fame this fall, Wisconsin’s Badger State Brewing created an IPA called Legendary Pass with Cajun spices and Warrior hops. And over the summer, Duquesne Brewing in Pennsylvania made a lager to honor Joe Paterno’s legacy at Penn State. Now Peyton Manning is getting his own beer, Tow Yard Brewing’s Oatmaha, named after the quarterback’s affinity for shouting “Omaha” before a snap. It’s impressive that Manning is receiving the sudsy honor while still in uniform, but what’s even more striking is that the ale is a collaboration between brewers in Denver and Indianapolis. The idea for Oatmaha was hatched at Colorado’s Factotum Brewing. Siblings and owners Laura and Christopher Bruns originally hail from Indiana and wanted to partner with
an Indianapolis brewer to make the beer. Their friends at Tow Yard were game, and the two breweries wrote up an oatmeal pale ale recipe that honored Manning, as well as both towns. The oats recognize that both the cities have teams named for horses — oats are feed, after all. Then Indiana corn is added with the barley, and Colorado sage brings a spicy touch to the finish. “We brewed it to say thanks for all he’s done to make our cities’ respective teams something to be excited about,” says Tow Yard head brewer Tony Fleming. “The tagline for the beer is actually, ‘tastes like a touchdown in your mouth.’ “ Tow Yard brewed Oatmaha first, and currently has it on tap at the brewery and for sale by the six-pack.
- MATT ALLYN
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I
WAS sitting at a noisy bar on a beautiful fall afternoon, watching the bartender work, and she was indeed working. She pulled down on the tap, then pushed back, pulled down and pushed up, in rhythmic repetition like a farmhand at a well. The ale poured slowly into a mug, at first all foam, then turning translucent before suddenly clarifying into a brilliant suds-topped amber. I touched the faceted glass, cool, but not cold. A floral-citrus aroma rose up, and as I took my first sip I marveled at how soft and delicate the carbonation was, the bubbles giving the flavors lift and energy without aggression. But the beer I was served was unpasteurized and unfiltered. Like the earliest bubbly brews, it was naturally carbonated, or conditioned, in its cask by yeast transforming sugar into alcohol with a side of fizzy carbon dioxide trapped in the cask. And it was served by muscle power pumping the ale up from its cask into the mug. Cask-conditioned ales were standard in British pubs 100 years ago. They nearly disappeared after World War II, replaced with bland, corporate beers. But they have made a huge comeback in Britain in the last 35 years, and are in more and more American bars and restaurants. In the New York area the number of places serving cask ales has shot up since 2005. “It’s been a dramatic increase,” said Robert Hodson, the sales manager of the craft
beer division for Union Beer Distributors, the metropolitan area’s leading distributor of cask ales. “In 2005 we serviced 12 accounts, and in 2007 it’s up to 39.” In the last few days, I’ve had several excellent cask ales, including that wonderful pint, served at the Spotted Pig in the West Village and brewed by Sixpoint Craft Ales in Brooklyn. The bartender described it as a cross between a lager and a Bavarian wheat beer, which made no sense to me, as it tasted mostly like an English bitter. But if it was a mess in terms of genre, it was delicious in the glass. At the Ginger Man in Midtown, I had a caskconditioned Best Bitter from Sierra Nevada, beautifully balanced and softly carbonated with great depth and purity. The Brazen Head is holding another in a series of cask beer festivals Nov. 2 to 4, with 25 casks. It’s the rare bar in New York today that doesn’t offer alternatives to the insipid massmarket brews. Craft breweries have brought to American consumers every conceivable European beer genre and more than a few that Europeans never imagined. Now, with cask-conditioned ale, Americans have the opportunity to taste beers of unmatched subtlety and authenticity. Because cask ales are naturally carbonated and best served at cellar temperature — about
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The Power in the Cask: Old Ways, New Beer 55 degrees — they have often been described as warm and flat. But as you get to know them, it can become hard to imagine drinking beer any other way. The softness of the bubbles and the gently cool temperature permit nuances that would otherwise be undetectable. Cask ale is made the same way as other good beers, until it is left to mature in tanks. Massmarket beer is filtered and pasteurized for a stable shelf life. Cask ales must be treated with considerable care. They have to be kept cool and handled gingerly, and when it’s time to tap the kegs, they require an experienced, or at least educated, hand. In fact, the biggest obstacle to a wider distribution of cask beers is a lack of training. “I have to take people from start to finish about what to do and what not to do,” said Alex Hall, a beer consultant who has been proselytizing for cask-conditioned ales since he came to New York from Brighton, England, eight years ago. If mass-market kegs are the Wonder bread and Velveeta of the beer world, cask ales are like fresh-baked loaves or artisanal cheeses, with the potential to be glorious but risky all the same. They have a shelf life of two to four days once opened, and if not tapped correctly they can be a big disappointment. “I’ve literally had to go into places and say, ‘That’s it, you can’t have our beer,’” said Garrett Oliver, the brewmaster for Brooklyn Brewery,
which produces 9 to 14 casks of ale a week. “It’s a very touchy thing, because there are people who’ve read about cask beer and want to serve it, but they don’t really understand what it takes and they’re not willing to make the commitment. The galling thing is it doesn’t take that much time.” So why take the risk and bother? “To some extent England inspired me to become a brewer,” Mr. Oliver said. “When done properly, it’s some of the nicest beer we can make.” To a certain extent all beer was cask beer in the pre-industrial age. But today cask ale, with its low carbonation and bright clarity, is largely a British tradition. In the United States, cask ales are unlikely ever to gain more than a sliver of the market. In Britain, cask-ale production is automated at certain breweries. But no American brewery is set up like that; it’s all done by hand. “Ordinarily we can fill 85 kegs in two and a half hours,” Mr. Oliver said. “For cask, we have a guy with a hammer, a cask and a couple of flasks. You can see why it’s a labor of love.”
- ERIC ASIMOV
WITH ANY OTHER BEER IT’S JUST A MONDAY
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2016
Trends of
One of the most exciting things about the craft beer world is its constant evolution. While there are certain flagships most breweries offer – like an IPA, a good porter or stout, or a solid Kolsch – there’s an ongoing sense of experimentation that usually leads to new waves of flavors hitting each year.
will continue to promote its nitro-IPA, which it released last year. And Left Hand Brewing’s recent expansion of its nitro offerings – adding Sawtooth Nitro American Ale, and Wake Up The Dead Imperial Stout Nitro to its already popular nitro Milk Stout – could boost the brewer’s already notable popularity.
2015 saw the rise to dominance of Session IPAs, something that will continue to expand this year. Similarly, sour beers began to edge their way into the spotlight, especially fruit-flavored sours. And brewers dramatically expanded their barrel aging programs, moving beyond just bourbon barrels and seeing how beers fared in the former housings of tequila, cognac and other spirits.
While it hasn’t been hard to find a nitro beer at a bar or brewery, very few brewers have historically sold them in cans or bottles. That starts to change in 2016.
“Hard” soda flavored beers – Not Your Father’s Root Beer was just the beginning. As consumers have rushed to embrace ‘hard’ root beer, brewers have taken note and begun to expand their offerings. Coney Island Brewing Co., a subsidiary of the Boston Beer Co. SAM 0.80% , has already rolled out Hard Ginger Ale and Hard Orange Cream Ale. Small Town Brewery, maker of the hit Not Your Father’s Root Beer, was offering tastes of Not Your Mom’s Apple Pie, Not Your Mom’s French Toast and Not Your Mom’s Strawberry Rhubarb at last year’s Great American Beer Festival (and may roll some of those out nationally this year). Even San Diego’s Mission Brewery has begun making a hard root beer. Nitro-mania – Samuel Adams hopes to lead the charge to popularize a new style of carbonation in 2016 with its series of nitrogencarbonated beers – a white ale, an IPA and a coffee stout. But it won’t be alone. Guinness, whose stout is arguably the leader in nitro beers,
Crowlers – Canned beers are already hot – and that trend could begin to carry over to more growler stations this year. Rather than storing 32 or 64 ounces of beer in a glass container that lets light in and has a short shelf life, some shops are switching over to one-time use jumbo cans that allow buyers to store them for a longer time. It’s quick, and convenient – and it gives growler fill stations a chance to earn a bit more per fill. More Mergers – 2015 saw a fair bit of consolidation in the craft world. And it doesn’t look to be slowing down. Anheuser-Busch Inbev certainly signaled this during the holidays, buying three craft brewers in five days – the U.K.’s Camden Town Brewery, Arizona’s Four Peaks Brewing and Colorado’s Breckinridge Brewery, the nation’s 50th largest craft brewer. Expect MolsonMillerCoors to start playing catch up once the AB Inbev-SAB Miller deal is done. And look for more craft brewers to band together as well. Curious what some of these trends will taste like? We’ve had a chance to taste a few…
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Samuel Adams Nitro White Ale
As you’d expect from a nitro beer, it’s very smooth on the palate. There’s no overwhelming hops or malt taste as this is a fairly light offering from Sam Adams, but it does carry a hint of orange and subdued spice. (ABV: 5.5%)
Coney Island Brewing Co Hard Orange Cream Soda
You may pick up a little orange in this one, but it definitely leans much more heavily toward the cream soda side of the spectrum (which isn’t a bad thing, by any means). It hides the alcohol adroitly and, like many hard sodas, is something that people who say they don’t like craft beer will happily consume. (ABV: 5%)
Bantam Cider’s The Americain
It’s like drinking a glass of apple pie. You’re hit with rich spices up front (cinnamon is the dominant flavor). The cider itself is refreshing, and not overly sweet (which so many ciders can be). (ABV: 5.4%
Mission Brewing’s Hard Root Beer
This offering is nowhere near as sweet as Not Your Father’s – and it’s a lot stronger. There’s a bit of an alcohol burn going down and a curious bitter note to it. It’s closer to the craft style you may know and love and a step away from the soda you recall. (ABV: 7.5%)
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David vs Goliath The David and Goliath battle in the world of beer is starting to tip slightly in David’s favor. Craft beer production was up 9.6 percent in 2013, while overall beer production fell 1.4 percent, according to Technomic’s “2014 Special Trends in Adult Beverage Report: State of the Industry” report. And that continued popularity of specialty beers is paving the way for a new crop of beer makers. “Over the last couple of years, the number of new brewery openings has been at near unprecedented levels,” said Bart Watson, Ph.D., staff economist at Brewers Association, a craft beer industry group. “We’re seeing breweries open at about a rate of 1.2 per day.” Craft breweries have a few things working in their favor, perhaps the most important of which is a customer base that’s financially well off. Nielsen reports that 58.9 percent of craft beer drinkers have annual incomes of $75,000 or more. Most of those customers have grown tired of light lagers, which is what fueled the craft movement. There are more than 2,700 craft breweries operating in the U.S., the highest total since the 1880s. And every year, hundreds more are opening. In 2012, the most recent figures available, the industry provided an estimated 108,440 jobs in the country, according to the Brewers Association. Holy City Brewing in Charleston, S.C., certainly fits that mold. The company’s “Notorious P.I.G.” is a bacon-flavored smoked porter that was recently praised in Food Network Magazine. Since opening its doors in July 2011, Holy City, which is distributed
to bars and restaurants around the state, has created 65 different styles of beer. That diversity, said co-owner and head brewer Chris Brown, has helped the company thrive. That confusion—or hassle, to use the term many brewers favor—has prompted some brewers to begin exporting their product beyond U.S. shores as an expansion method. “It’s easier for me to sell my beer overseas than it is across state lines,” said Brendan Moylan, proprietor of Marin Brewing Co. and Moylan’s Brewing and Restaurant, both based in California. Moylan ships his products to 25 states and seven different countries, including Chile, Brazil, Italy, England, Japan, Australia and Canada. “Our focus has always been [to] take care of local first,” said Holy City’s Brown. “My opinion is that if you take care of the locals and support the community, even if your growth is contained [to regional growth instead of national], you’re going to make a bigger impact on those other markets as you expand.” That collaboration is especially important as big breweries are starting to quietly put out craftflavored beers like Shock Top, which is brewed by Anheuser-Busch in Saint Louis, Mo., or Blue Moon, which is a MillerCoors product, though many fans of either beer don’t realize either is made by the industry giants. “The sharing of knowledge has always been there in the craft brew scene,” said Moylan. “The guys who say otherwise don’t know what they’re talking about.” - CHRIS MORRIS
Sampling
I
n popular culture, the Fourth of July connotes hot dogs, hamburgers and cold beer. But the country has changed, and while burgers and hot dogs are still a distinct possibility, so are mofongo and arroz con pollo, or kimchi and kalbi. Cold beer, though, remains universal, and for that we take a moment to thank the founding fathers of the craft-beer revolution. A mere 35 years ago, the domestic beer choices on Independence Day weekend were a dismal lot: bland, flavorless mega-brews, with perhaps a few equally uninspiring beers from dying regional breweries. Today, the American beer world is completely different, thanks to some farsighted brewers who envisioned a better future. Nowadays, American brewers are among the most creative in the world, in the vanguard of pushing and transforming established styles of beer. At a time of only anemic mass-market lagers, the idea of making full-flavored, real beers in dormant traditional styles was indeed revolutionary. Pale ale was a natural place to start. Aside from the psychological desire of these brewers to distance themselves from the dominant style, ales are simply easier and less expensive to brew than lagers, which require calibrated precision as well as extended cold storage before they are ready to sell. Like the United States in 1776, pale ale is largely of British heritage. By adding zestier American hops in place of the earthier English variety, a new style was born. With sudsy thoughts of red, white and blue, Florence Fabricant, Matthew MacCartney, beverage director at Colicchio & Sons, and Kevin Garry, director of operations for Epicurean Management, and I gathered to taste 20 American pale ales. What all these beers had in common, however, was balance and harmony. You could drink them over a long afternoon and still feel refreshed and energetic. The alcohol content is fairly mild, around 5.5 percent, only occasionally going above 6.0. In short, as Kevin and Matthew put it,
Pale Ales they were “highly sessionable.” Sessionable? The word is derived from an English term for beers mild enough that one can theoretically consume multiple pints over the course of a several-hour session without becoming drunk. Sounds reasonable to me, though these American pale ales are a little higher in alcohol than English bitters, the classic session beer. But hey, it’s a holiday! That said, our consensus favorite, the Doggie Style Classic from Flying Dog, was one of the hoppier beers in the tasting, with a clean, crisp, almost bracing bitterness, like a pilsner. For a beer that calls itself “classic,” it pushes the boundaries of the pale ale style. Nonetheless, it was fresh, balanced and a pleasure to drink. By contrast, Stoudt’s American Pale Ale and Sly Fox’s Phoenix Pale Ale, Nos. 3 and 4 on our list, were subtler brews, with more apparent malt flavors than the top two yet with delicate hop accents that merged harmoniously. Other noteworthy brews included Shelter Pale Ale from Dogfish Head, a light and subtle beer from a brewer known for its extravagances. Dale’s Pale Ale from Oskar Blues was our favorite the last time we tasted pale ales in 2005. It’s bigger than the norm, lively and fresh. Sierra Nevada Pale Ale, where the American pale ale style arguably all began, did not finish in our top 10. We liked it, and I’m always happy to see it at a bar. But it was nudged off the list by others that seemed just a touch more complex and interesting. Finally, what would the Fourth of July be without a nod to one of the country’s actual founding fathers? That would be Samuel Adams, whose name lives on as a brewery in the murky zone where craft brewing meets big business. With aromas of flowers and spicy bitterness, the Sam Adams seemed as much pilsner and wheat beer as pale ale. Nonetheless, it was delicious and balanced, and while sentiment plays no role in a blind tasting, we nonetheless could not help but be pleased that it was so good. - ERIC ASIMOV
Flying Dog Doggie Style Classic Pale Ale
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Long Trail Pale Ale
Stoudt’s American Pale Ale
Sly Fox Phuenix Pale Ale
$2.25 Bridewater, Vt. 5% 12oz Complex, spicy and aromatic, with refreshingly bitter hop flavors.
$2.70 Adamstown, Pa. 5% 12oz Subtle, with delicate balance of malt, spice and bitter hop flavors.
$2.50 Phoenixville, Pa. 5.25% 12oz Restrained and lively with malt flavors and delicate hop accents.
Two Brothers The Bitter End
Samuel Adams Pale Ale
Dogfish Head Shelter Pale Ale
Oskar Blues Dale’s Pale Ale
$2.75 Warrenville, Il. 5.1% 12oz Pleasing and balanced with complex malt and spice flavors.
$2.40 Boston, Ma. 5.25% 12oz Pilsner meets wheat beer: delicious but pushes boundaries.
$2.25 Milton, Del. 5% 12oz Light, subtle, surprisingly gentle and harmonious.
$2.10 Longmont, Co, 6.5% 12oz Fresh and lively with lingering, refreshing flavors of bitter hops.
$2.50 Frederick, Md. 5.5% 12oz Fresh, balanced and lively with citurs bitterss; almost Pilsner-like.
Otter Creek Wolaver’s Organic Pale Ale
$2.50 Middleburry, Vt. 5.8% 12oz Pronounced malt flavors with wellproportioned hop bitterness.
Lagunitas New Dogtown Pale Ale
$2.50 Frederick, Md. 6.4% 12oz Breezy and lively, with bright citrus and hop flavors.
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Sam Adam’s New Nitro Cans S
am Adams founder Jim Koch has been a leader in beer innovation for 31 years, and he’s not done yet. The wily brewer who brought us both the groundbreaking, nowubiquitous Boston Lager, and the nearly 30-percent alcohol Utopias, has made nitrogencarbonated beer his next frontier for craft beer. Nitro beer has long been the domain of Guinness. Colorado’s Left Hand Brewing stood out as the one brewery with notable success, serving nitro versions of its Sawtooth ESB and Milk Stout. But now you’ll also find the three new Sam Adams nitro beers on tap and sold by the four-pack of cans on store shelves. “This is white space in craft brewing,” says Koch. “Almost nobody is doing this.” Considering the U.S. now supports more than 4,200 brewers, finding room to innovate is a tall order. Koch, however, was able to harness Boston Beer’s resources to spend three years and “millions” developing nitro-specific recipes and a new canning line. Unlike Left Hand’s nitro beers that are packaged with the gas already dissolved, the Sam Adams brews use a Guinness-like widget to pump the beer full of nitrogen when you crack the lid. This creates a much thicker head and, in our opinion, improves the aroma. More than 100 recipes were tested, and after countless rounds of tasting, the brewery settled on three beers to launch the nitro line:
a Belgian-inspired wheat ale, a bold IPA, and a coffee stout — an Irish red ale and a brown almost made the cut. From our early samples, the beers live up to Koch’s promise of delivering a new experience on classic styles. Nitrogencarbonated beers offer two main differences from the standard CO2 brew. First, the lack of CO2 means there’s no bite from carbonic acid. Second, the nitrogen bubbles are much smaller than CO2, which presents a beer with a velvety smooth feel when it would otherwise be crisp and bright. Generally speaking, gentle malt flavors dominate while hops are toned down. The White Ale wheat beer is smooth and bready, and the creamy Coffee Stout drinks pleasantly like an excellent cold-brewed coffee. But the IPA is the surprise standout in the bunch. As Koch pointed out when introducing the beers, nitrogen doesn’t necessarily make a beer better, but it’s fun and different — two perfect words to describe the IPA. The first production batches of Sam Adams Nitro cans are just starting to hit shelves. Currently, only the White Ale is on tap, but the IPA and Coffee Stout will ship out to bars soon. You can use the brewery’s online beer finder to locate stores and bars carrying the Nitro line near you. - TREY TAYLOR
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