CRAFT BEER IN BOSTON HERALDS OF A NEW BREW

By JORDAN SISEL

Most craft beer enthusiasts fondly remember the turning point when they posited that craft beer way was the way for them. They can regale you with enough descriptive adjectives to make you beg for mercy. The point where I said to myself that craft beer and I are in it for the long haul, however, was not like that. For me, that time was indebted in no small part to Jackie Chan. One day while at the liquor store with some friends, prior to my tasting anything really “craft,” we saw the section of bottles that are bigger than your average 12 ounce containers and are, upon further inspection, higher alcohol content. We all picked some random ones and proclaimed the night “Pint Night.” Never mind our inaccuracy with volume nomenclature; they were actually 750 milliliters, not the 16 ounces that a pint is. We then decided to watch Jackie Chan’s Police Story 3: Supercop. It was awesome—both the movie and the beer. A longstanding tradition was born—Pint Night and Jackie Chan. Now, it may seem heretical to have the hook set in me by a predominately social setting rather than some revelatory tasting. Don’t get me wrong; the beer was amazing (Stone Ruination was my first) and since then I’ve had many amazing tasting moments, but there was something special about Pint Night. Amazing beer, amazing friends, and amazing times—this is what the decidedly unpretentious craft beer scene is all about (oh, and Jackie, of course).

You may be thinking to yourself, sure, good times can be had with beer, but I can do that with the fizzy, watery cheap stuff (I won’t name names). If you are thinking this, there are so many things I want to scream at you right now, but I’ll show my gentlemanly restraint. Let me explain. Beer is a journey, not a means to an end. Each sip starts with visual inspection—color, head formation, etc. Always pour to a glass. Pouring releases CO2, keeping beer from being overcarbonated and scouring as well as unlocking aromatics you would miss drinking out of the bottle. Is the beer a clear, amber ESB, or is it a hazy, golden, effervescent Hefeweizen practically chunky with yeast? Swirl it in the glass and smell the rich tapestry of flavors contained within—hops, malt, yeast, spices . . . Then sip it, whirling it around your mouth, feeling the thickness and body of the beer and teasing the intricacies of flavor out of the beer. The price is so small to pay for the difference between a piece of work that a man slaved over ungodly hours to create for your enjoyment and a piece of drivel that is made to be as cheap as possible and just barely passes the minimum specifications to be legally qualified as beer. Maybe a two-dollar difference at a bar.

The microbrewery is one of the least viable business plans there is. No one is starting a brewery because they want a practical way to make a living. Despite this, there has never been a better time to enjoy craft beer in America. In fact, even though there are richer histories of beer in other countries, it can be argued that America is now the best place to drink beer. In the 80s, the American beer scene was bleak. A handful of macrobreweries produced the same beer (that fizzy, watery cheap stuff). Since then, there has been a cataclysmic explosion of growth. There are now well over 2,000 craft breweries in America and growing.

These brewers are artisans dedicated to a craft. Don’t even try and tell any brewer that beer is not an art. There are bourbon barrel-aged, coffee imperial stouts to sour beers fermented using only yeast floating in the air around the brewery, stored for at least two years, and then masterfully blended back with various batches to create the perfect tart elixir. Even a simple pale ale has the blood and sweat of experimentation as the brewer hones in on the perfect hopping schedule. I’ve visited a few craft breweries and I will say that it’s difficult to imagine anyone working harder. Don’t think these guys are taking weekends off or asking for overtime, and definitely don’t believe for a second that they do it for the money . . . because there is none.

So, what is it that defines the American beer scene? To understand American beer culture, you must understand other beer cultures. The Germans are the rigorous scientists. They predominantly brew lagers. Lagers are

beers that are fermented (sugar is turned into alcohol by magical little beasties called yeast) at cold temperatures. The refrigerator was actually invented upon the request of a brewery. This technological advance allowed more controlled, year-round lager brewing. Germany also claims the Reinheitsgebot—the German beer purity law. In order to fight the trend of adjunct-rich beer (fizzy, watery cheap stuff), this law was enacted to make sure beer remained rich and flavorful. The law states beer can only be made of barley malt, water, hops, and yeast. Adjuncts like rice and corn that are added by large breweries to replace barley and make their beer tasteless, but cheaper to manufacture, are outlawed in Germany. As you probably know, they take their beer seriously. A German beer is generally a malt forward, clean, crisp beer.

Then you have the Belgians. These guys are the artists. Their brewing is based on age-old traditions and experimentation. Their beer can be wildly unpredictable, but almost always delicious. While people love to pigeonhole beer into styles, the Belgians brew whatever they want, forcing people to try and find the nearest style for it to fit into or give up and just call it by name. These brewers aren’t afraid of a little bit of sugar (this would be considered an adjunct, but is used for flavor instead of economics, making a more drinkable beer) or a medley of spice in their beer, and there is often a nice dose of funk due to mix strains of wild or sour yeast that permeates Belgian beers. Yeast flavors reign supreme in this camp.

Finally, there are the English. English folk are masters of the everyman beer. Their beers tend to be simple, yet refined and drinkable. Porters, bitters and stouts are the name of their game. Traditionally, casks are sent from the brewery, and each pub will have a cellar master to tap and maintain this cask. They must be consumed within a few days because the beer will go bad once it’s tapped and exposed to oxygen. The beer you get on tap in America is kept under constant CO2 pressure to stop this oxidation from occurring. However, a true English gentleman will tell you that the subtle changing of beer over the course of the first few days is part of the magic and will add depth to a beer. These beers are also served warmer—typically around 55o degrees—to avoid shocking the taste buds and allowing you to fully taste the beer (in fact, all beers should be tasted at least slightly warmer than fridge temps for this reason). Your BMC (Bud, Miller, Coors) drinker would probably tell you that these beers are warm and flat. If you are ever at a beer nerd bar and they are offering something on cask, you should really give it a try.

So where do Americans fit in to all this? Well, being the melting pot that America is, the beers native to America consist of an amalgamation of any and all of these types of beer. But, what makes the American scene special is the exuberance and boundary-hopping zeal with which they approach interpretations of classic styles. Take the IPA—India Pale Ale. Traditionally, it’s a light colored beer, native to England, with a large dose of hoppiness and a slightly higher alcohol percentage than an average beer. Originally, they were brewed to withstand long sea journeys for British soldiers occupying India in the 19th century. Prior to the birth of the IPA style, beer would spoil on the journey over in wooden casks. It was soon discovered that hops act as a preservative, and heavily hopped beer would survive the trip. Soon the taste caught on in Europe and beyond. An American IPA takes this style and shoots it to the moon. English hops are earthy and floral. American grown hops are citrusy and bright. An American IPA will be hopped beyond what a traditional IPA is hopped at and boosted to even higher alcohol percentages. This led to the explosion of the IIPA, or double IPA. American craft brewers catered to so-called “hop heads” and put ungodly amounts of hops into ridiculously alcoholic beers, sometimes topping 10 percent. Now that is the American way.

There are now substyles within every major style for an American interpretation—usually taking the distinctive aspect of that style and making it bolder. This isn’t to say, however, that these beers can’t be refined and nuanced; it’s just a broad generalization of the burgeoning American beer culture.

As a dweller of Boston, there is a huge variety of quality craft beer available. Sure there are major regional craft breweries that have excellent offerings—Smuttynose, Dogfish Head, or Brooklyn. There are also some great breweries that ship nationwide such as California natives Stone, Alesmith, or Firestone Walker. And there is craft beer available from anywhere in between. However, I am of the mindset that while you are in one of the best centers of craft beer in the world, one should experience the small, local breweries that can put out unique, innovative products without sacrificing anything for distribution or quantity’s sake. Breweries that fall under this category are located in or just outside of Boston and are very small operations. Some of them are not even big enough to be considered microbreweries. Instead, their production quantity labels them a nanobrewery, or a brewery that produces on a system capable of less than 125-gallon batches.

A great example of a brewery producing fine local beer for the surrounding area is Night Shift Brewing. Considered a nanobrewery, they deftly interlace Belgian, English, and American tradition into their exciting beers. Known for their ability to use unique ingredients to spice and flavor their beer, they are constantly coming up with mad new flavors. Most of their beers are aged on something they find locally, from chocolate (Tazo) to tea (MEM). A highly recommended experience is a visit to their brewery. No red tape, no reservations, no cost; the three owners/brewers/distributors/everythingers open up the brewery almost every night and pour free samples of all their beers. The taproom is attached to the small warehouse of a brewery located in a sketchy back alley in an almost abandoned industrial park. Despite the

ominous location, by the time you make it inside, you will forget all that—it is a haven of hospitality. The guys are always happy to chat and give tours. If you wanna see a brewery in Boston, forget about Sam Adams or Harpoon; this is the one to go to.

Another experience that every beer lover should have is a trip to Cambridge Brewing Company – or CBC. They have recently started bottling, but are still most known as an excellent brewpub located near MIT. It is illegal for breweries to serve more than samples of their beer on premise. So, brewpubs, where a restaurant is attached to a small brewery, were formed. CBC’s brewmaster, Will Meyers, is a man of endless ideas. Four nice house beers are always on tap, but the real fun is in the seasonal beers. There are usually six or seven specialty beers available and they are never repeatedly brewed. So this brewer has formulated hundreds of different beers. This experience shows off the boundless creativity and polish of the beers. It’s always fun to grab a seat and share all the seasonals with some friends. There is no style or tradition that CBC can’t or won’t hit. It’s especially exciting to try experimental beers that wouldn’t be viable to bottle and sell because of how labor intensive or just plain crazy they are, but are on tap here. I’ve tried things from what was dubbed as the world’s first “Imperial Kriek,” a 9 percent sour beer fermented with a few capricious yeast strains and aged on cherries, to one of the most earthy, dank beers I’ve drank, brewed with local spelt, an ancient grain related to wheat.

If you are feeling a little more German, hop on over to a liquor store and find some Jack’s Abby brews. Bottled in peculiar 0.5 liter bottles, this brewery produces beers in Germanic traditions, but with the spirit of American craft brewers. Their lagers are the definition of refinement. They don’t use crutches like claims of outrageous alcohol percentages or truckloads of hops to sell beers, but use their amazing intuition to create perfectly balanced, delicate lagers. Recently, they won a medal at the Great American Beer Festival for their smoked beer, Smoke and Dagger. An astonishing beer for sure; however, my heart is forever tied to Hoponius Union. This IPL (India Pale Lager), is one of the most perfect examples of a hoppy beer I’ve ever tasted. It is supremely balanced with a clean bitterness that doesn’t linger and isn’t puckering like many overly hoppy IPAs. Notes of grapefruit, orange, lime, and a healthy whiff of pine forest permeate this sublime beer. In addition, they use as many local ingredients as they can, even sourcing a bulk of their hops from a family farm in Vermont.

If you are feeling something with some serious character behind it, try some beers by “gypsy brewers” at Pretty Things Beer and Ale Project. These ornery folk create beers that I have to come to think of as progressive, yet rustic. Their brown ale, St. Botoloph’s Town, is quite the interesting brew, with a smoky, roasty combination of dark malts and a mixture of English and German yeast strains, this beer is unlike any brown ale I have had. Their flagship Jack D’Or is a saison, a Belgian farmhouse style, made with floral hops, a grainy malt backbone, and a peppery yeast flavor.

Very rarely do craft brewers make it on the hypercreative American scene without something special, so if you find yourself pulled into the beer world, the liquor store becomes quite a wonderland. If you need help convincing still, let me preach the merits of beer with food (wine has absolutely nothing on beer in this department, no matter what anyone tells you). Take a grilled salmon with a dusting of cracked salt and peppercorn and a bit of lemon juice and pair that with a Belgian witbier. The bright, acidic finish will lift the oil from the fish while remaining delicate and elegant enough to not overpower the meat (any wine will overpower, just sayin’). Feeling

decadent? Take a rich doppelbock with deep caramel, malty, rummy, toffee flavors and put that with a pork loin or some venison sausages and you will be in heaven. Feeling less extravagant? Try some quesadillas and an American IPA. The cutting power of the hops cleans the palate of grease and the lemon; citrus, and lime flavors intermingle perfectly with a Tex-Mex dish (don’t even try it, wine). If you’re feeling saucy one night and haven’t tried much in the way of craft beer, I implore you to try to come up with a nice pairing, and I’m sure I’ll have created a convert—all of my ranting will not have been in vain. Cheers! <

What was it that made you decide to start

your own brewery?

Rob Burns [of Night Shift Brewing]: There was no particular moment that was the final catalyst that made us start a brewery. The desire and passion slowly evolved over a long period of time. Starting in college we all fell in love with craft beers and quickly became beer geeks. I bought Sam Calagione’s Brewing Up a Business book my senior year and, shortly after reading it, began brewing in my dorm room. After graduation, we spent the next five years brewing constantly and learning more about the industry. It was mostly viewed as a hobby between some friends, but the thought and possibility of going pro was always there. After 3 years of working real corporate jobs, we grew tired of the cubicle life, and our home brewed beers were tasting better and better. So, we became more serious about learning what it would take to open our own brewery. After countless late nights, writing a business plan, raising money, and building a brewery, the dream quickly became reality.

Jack Hendler [of Jack’s Abby]: It’s not a coincidence that Jack’s Abby is a family business that I started with my two brothers. Where else can you find 110-percentdedicated, 110-hour-a-week employees who don’t get paid? Not to mention the countless part-time family members. To this day my in-laws still show up on bottling days, my wife works the tasting room, and my parents, brother in-law, and others devote their time and labor as well. It’s a true lager of love! The whole business startup was a collaborative effort by my whole family with the hope to brew great beer and work together.

Can you tell us a little about what makes your brewery special or unique to the craft brewing scene?

RB: There are so many breweries in the US and even more in the planning stages. It was pretty critical when writing our business plan to determine what made Night Shift special. I think it boils down to a few things. First, we fuse unique ingredients into an array of rich, complex flavors that result in innovative beers. We do not follow traditional style guidelines or mirror existing beers, but set up to create totally unique beers. This makes it a challenge with designing beer recipes and sourcing ingredients, but the end result is totally worth it. Second, our major focus is on being local. This translates into us using local ingredients, collaborating on beers with local businesses, suggesting food pairings on our bottles with dishes from local restaurants, and having a taproom for locals to fill up growlers of fresh beer and tour the brewery.

JH: We’ve carved out a niche for ourselves with brewing unique variations on lagers. We’re not afraid to take risks, try something new, or push any boundaries. While some might argue that the concept is extreme and the beers don’t regularly fit defined style guidelines, they are for the most part approachable and sessionable. For many of our beers we see our use of lager brewing as a vehicle to truly highlight the special ingredients that we add to our beers. We’ve created out own line of IPL’s (India Pale Lagers) including Black IPL (Cascadian Schwarzbier), Ginger & Juice IPL, Rye IPL (RIPL Effect), Kiwi Rising Double IPL—not to mention numerous other creations to push standard style guidelines. We’re only beginning to explore the possibilities of lager brewing.

What beers are you currently producing, and do you have any upcoming special releases you are excited about?

RB: We have released nine beers to date and have about four more beers coming out this year. Our regular lineup consists of Trifecta (a Belgian pale ale fermented with three Trappist yeast strains and aged on organic

vanilla beans), Viva Habanera, (a rye ale brewed with agave nectar and aged on habanero peppers), Rose (a saison brewed with rye, honey, rosemary, rose hips, and pink peppercorns), Somer Weisse (a Berliner weisse stye sour beer brewed with lemongrass and ginger), and seasonally available, we have Bee Tea (wheat ale brewed with orange peel, orange blossom honey and aged on green tea leaves) and Taza Stout (Belgian stout brewed with chicory root, ginger and aged on Taza chocolate). Next up, we have several beers that we are pretty excited about. The first being a Taproom Exclusive beer (meaning it is only for sale at the brewery) called Mainer Weisse, which is a sour wild-Maine-blueberry ale with cinnamon and lemongrass. The second one is a beer called Fallen Apple, which is brewed with apple cider and a touch of spices and then aged in rum and brandy barrels. Both those beers are perfect for the holiday season.

JH: We currently just released our “Fire in the Ham” Smoked Lager as well as our Pumpkin Crop Lager. All the pumpkins in the Pumpkin Crop Lager were grown on our family farm. All our beers use locally grown grain as well. In November we will release our Kiwi Rising, Double India Pale Lager. Check our descriptions on our website).

What has been the biggest hurdle you’ve had to overcome in your brewing career?

RB: There are numerous challenges when trying to start a new business, especially one in a highly regulated industry. I think our biggest challenge has been learning to brew on a professional scale. The general process is the same as home brewing, but the large batch sizes and the new equipment felt like we were back to our first days as home brewers. Our first two batches at the brewery were disastrous; it took eight people brewing a small 20-gallon batch 12 hours to complete. Now one person can brew 200 gallons in the same time.

JH: We have so many first timers who come to our brewery who say, “I don’t like lager,” “Lagers are boring,” or something to that effect. Our goal at Jack’s Abby is to completely change people’s perception and attitude toward lagers. Lager beers have been tainted by the macros, and people almost always associated ales with craft beer. We want to prove that lagers deserve the same credit and energy as their ale counterpart.

If you had to choose one meal and one beer paired with it, what would your ideal feast be?

RB: Thanksgiving feast paired with the turkey brined/ marinated in Rose Saison and then paired with the same beer. Can’t wait for this year’s feast!

JH: Can’t really help you with your last question. It’s the exact opposite thinking that motivates me to be a craft brewer. Infinite flavors and possibilities!<

JORDAN SISEL

With guzzlers in church, with saints in the tavern.