The Symbiosis of British & American Craft Beer

On Thursday night, I was delighted to give a short talk to the Northern branch of the Institute of Brewing and Distilling (IBD). The topic that I'd been asked to address was the relationship between British and American craft beer cultures, which is something that I like to pretend I know a bit about. Of course, when faced with an audience of very well-respected brewers and other assorted luminaries, it's hard to remain cool, so rather than major on trifling things like facts, which are either right or wrong, I fell back on the safety net of telling a story anchored to a couple of key points.

To summarise thirty minutes of rambling into a few sentences: a lot of the early American brewers came out of the homebrew scene, and looked to Europe generally and Britain specifically for inspiration; Jack McAuliffe at New Albion was just ahead of the curve; when Ken Grossman brewed an English-style ale with local Cascade hops, he set the blueprint for the industry; for a country whose culture has dominated the world, the craft brewing scene in the US is still mostly about local beer, drunk fresh; there is an ongoing, symbiotic realtionship between American and European brewing traditions; dragging bottled beer from California to Europe is, if you stop and look at it, a really stupid idea.

Let's expand on some of those, shall we?

When Ken Grossman brewed an English-style ale with local Cascade hops, he set the blueprint for the industry.

The beer that became Sierra Nevada Pale Ale was a local interpretation of what brewers in Britain were doing at the time. It was born out of expediency, using local ingredients feremented in converted dairy tanks, a tried-and-trusted route into the game. The key point here is that the beer is about what is available, a bottom-up approach to craft foodstuff production. That Sierra Nevada have become the worlds largest consumer of whole-cone hops is born out of that mindset of wanting to do something in a traditional way, but just do it on a scale that boggles the mind.

For a country whose culture has dominated the world, the craft brewing scene in the US is still mostly about local beer, drunk fresh.

Americans don't mess about. They take everything very seriously, even fun, perhaps down to the fact that they have so little paid holiday that when they are on their own time, they want to have fun RIGHT NOW. Craft beer is an expression of that. But despite the fact that Sam Adams Boston Lager, Sierra Nevada Pale Ale and Brooklyn Lager (or at the very least, one of those three) are available in most UK supermarkets, American beer is still about local production and consumption. For example, Odell Brewing have a wider presence in the UK than they do in the US, but they only export a half of one percent of their output to the UK.

There is an ongoing, symbiotic relationship between American and European brewing traditions.

This just can't ignored. Sierra Nevada Pale Ale is Fullers ESB brewed with local ingredients. Access to cheaper air travel in the 1980s meant that people and brewers (actually, brewers are people too, aren't they?) were able to travel to the USA and discover these new-fangled beers. You can't brew American beer without American hops, and so back over the pond they came, vac-packed and ready for action. British drinkers turn their back on traditional British ales, and the UK hop industry starts to founder. With wonderful symmetry, American craft brewers become interested in traditional British (actually, damn it, they're English, aren't they?) hop varieties, and the UK hop industry is saved via export to the US (This was put forward by Venkatesh Iyer, head brewer of Leeds Brewery - I think it's such a wonderful idea that I'm going to start passing it off as my own).

Dragging bottled beer from California to Europe is, if you stop and look at it, a really stupid idea.
Most beer is around ninety five percent water, and comes in a heavy glass bottle. Why wouldn't you move the key raw ingredients nearer the point of consumption and make the beer there? It will be fresher, tastier, and cheaper in the long run. So while Sierra Nevada are approaching carbon-neutral status by virtue of solar power, CO2 capture and anaerobic digesters, they they squander all that by insisting on refrigerated transport for their beers. You can look it it the other way too - they've earned the right to use refrigerated containers by virtue of being so eco-friendly at the point of production. Of course, this raises the issue of whether a beer brewed under licence is the same beer. Sam Adams Boston Lager for draught dispense is now being brewed at Shepherd Neame. Some moan about this, I'm on the fence about it. Would we feel happier if Sam Adams built a European brewery? What about a generic European American Craft Beer Facility that contract brewed for, say, Sierra Nevada, Brooklyn, Sam Adams and Stone? Or do we need the brewery's badge on the door to make us happy?

A couple more further thoughts. I was asked what I thought future trends would be. I think freshness is going to be a real driver of growth over the next 10 years, and allied to that, I also think that gap between the producer and the consumer will become smaller, and maybe the brewpub will make a return. But simply put, nothing tastes better than fresh beer.

The second point comes out of this. As British consumers come to realise that freshness is important, so understanding will grow about the ingredients in beer, and how those ingredients are key to enjoyment. I've said it before, but what American craft beer is doing to the beer industry in the UK is similar to what happened in the late 80s with Australian wine - it demystified the subject and made it easier to understand. Citra is basically Aussie Chardonnay in hop form, and that's actually good thing. But a lot of the key American hops - Citra, Amarillo, Simcoe, Ahtanum - are owned by individuals and grown under licence as registered brands. The question was asked of me; what to do when the year's crop runs out. My answer is to stop production of that beer, and explain to the drinker why. This was, you reinforce the idea that beer is a natural, agricultural and, to a certain extent, seasonal product, and imbue with all those qualities beloved of foodies the world over. Maybe the reason that BrewDog stopped making Chaos Theory is that it rested solely on a particularly sensational crop of Nelson Sauvin one year? (Thanks to Stuart Ross of Magic Rock for suggesting this to me). If that's the case, why not make a virtue of it?

These aren't finished ideas, or even close to being fully-formed, but I'd still love to hear about it if you agree or disagree with any of them.

Now Drinking: Crown Brewery Brooklyn Heights

Damn. Forgot to ask them to take the sparkler off.

For me, one of the most exciting trends in British brewing in the last few years has been the resurgence of the hop, or more specifically, cask ales with big American C-hop character. I've said it before, but the transatlantic conversation between American and European brewing culture has never been more excitable or exciting. Despite not getting to the pub as often as I'd like, I still think cask ale rules.

Brooklyn Heights wears its affiliations proudly on its pump clip. It's an unashamedly ballsy interpretation of an American Pale Ale. Most American Pale Ales (and IPAs) are designed to be drunk cold and force-carbonated - nothing wrong with that, but when you serve them on cask, that lack of dissolved CO2 makes the whole thing slightly sweet and sticky.

Happily, Stuart Ross of Crown Brewery (for it is he) knows what he's doing when it comes to cask ale. So rather than making a beer better suited to a quick bit of chill and zizz, he knows how to meld the hop-forward character of an APA with just the right fullness of malt body. The end result is a classic English ale that is both traditional and modern. It's trad because there's just enough earthy bitterness to it to please your old man, but at the same time, it's modern in it's marmalade-pith fruity character. There's just enough sweetness to it to balance the big, spicy bitterness in the finish.

Another classic from Crown Brewery. Great work, Stuart. And great work North Bar.

Now Drinking: Moylan's Hopsickle

Look, I'll be totally honest here, the food in this video is what Alfred Hitchcock would have referred to as "the MacGuffin". I happened to be cooking the food that features in the video (yes, I know it seems like a eat merguez more often than is healthy, but I don't), and I happened to have a bottle of Hopsickle. And happily, they happened to be great partners (although the courgette fritters were a bit soggy - too much parmesan, I think).

I'm not really sure what to make of this beer. As you'll see in the video, the first sip goes down OK, and then about 5 seconds later, KABOOM!, a massive wave of bitterness comes out of nowhere and makes me go 'whoah!'. That's what this beer is like - it's one long 'whoah'. It's a 'w w w h h h o o o a a a h h h' of a beer. It's the antithesis of balance and elegance, it's a boot to the olfactory bulb and a punch to the fungiform papillae. In fact now I think about it, Hopsickle has all the grace of a couple of pool balls in a sock, as demonstrated by the young Ray Winstone in "Scum". You can see that scene here, but I warn you, there's an awful lot of violence and bad language in it.

I'm being a bit harsh there. Moylan's Hopsickle is a hell of a lot of fun to drink, but each mouthful stops just short of a physical assault. There is an initially sweet malty hit, then the chocolate/coffee notes hit from the malt (maybe crystal malt, but it tastes much darker). Then you get a burnt Seville orange character, then a wave of bitterness that is almost sensation rather than flavour. It's one of the hoppiest beers I've ever drunk - and that's not meant to sound like bragging, it's just a statement of fact. It's only just all in balance, but then I guess it only just needs to be.

Stand down Ray Winstone - Moylan's Hopsickle is the daddy now.

Over-Hopped, Over-Powering and Over Here*

If you're a fan of American craft beers, you're in for a great couple of months, as there are about to be a few consignments of wonderful, interesting and rare American beers washing up on our shores. Well, not literally washing up - they've been carefully packed and shipped in the conventional manner, rather than pushed into the sea at Cape Cod with with crossed fingers and high hopes.

If you're not a fan of American craft beers, then I'm not sure what to say - why do you deny yourself this earthly pleasure? Succumb.

The American Brewers Association's Export Development Program is again ensuring a bumper crop of beers at the Great British Beer Festival. Not only are there an unprecedented amount of American beers available there (and you can read their full press release here), but the Bieres Sans Frontieres bar list is also looking pretty spectacular too - you can see that here.

As if that wasn't exciting enough, I've also been negotiating with the good people who supply and organise the BSF bar, and it looks as though Beer-Ritz (my employers) are going to purchase a portion of the left over beers. There are more details of that over on their blog.

And while we're at it, let's not forget (as I did for a few hours, and so am now adding this on) that Leeds' Ever-excellent North Bar are having an American beer fest. Bar manager Matt says (in the press release that I've cut-and-pasted this quote from) “We’re expanding our selection again this year and hope to get more draught products as well as loads of new bottled stuff. Alongside favourites from Brooklyn, Sierra Nevada, Goose Island and Anchor we will have brews from Great Divide, Flying Dog, Odell, Stone, Left Hand, Tommyknocker, Green Flash, Uncommon, Moylens, Butternuts, Rogue, Arkadia and Oskar Blues.” Contact them through the usual channels for more details.



*that's a reference to WW2 American GI's being 'overpaid, oversexed and over here'. Only not as catchy or amusing.

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