BOSTON LA GENO Seasonal Brew SAM Boston Beer Co. founder Jim Koch adapted a family recipe to create Sam Adams Boston Lager in the 1980s. Today there are more than 60 styles of Sam Adams. offering and Avery's Old Jubilation) are released- brewer that used to lead the craft revolution (such malty drinks that are often infused with cinna- as Wicked Weed, Goose Island, Elysian or Terra- mon, nutmeg and other seasonal flavors. pin), they're giving money to a macrobrewer and lowering the odds that an independently owned THE SUCCESS OF craft beer has created some ob- craft establishment can find shelf space at stores. stacles for brewers. State laws, for instance, vary The flip side to that argument is that people wildly and are often restrictive, dictating how who try a "macro craft beer" are more open to try- breweries must handle distribution (which often ing others. And that expands the overall audience means relying on their biggest competitors) and, for craft beer. Right now, 40% of the population until recently in some states, prohibiting the sale over the age of 21 drinks craft beer "at least sev- of their product in their own tasting rooms. eral times a year," according to pollsters Nielsen- A bigger problem is consolidation. Big brewers Harris on Demand. have seen profits dip as people show a preference That number has been going up, on average, one for bolder styles, and, as a result, macrobrewer- or two percentage points per year, which, accord- ies have gone on buying sprees, paying premium ing to Bart Watson, chief economist at the Brew- prices to acquire craft companies. Whether the ers Association, works out to 4 million to 5 million quality of the beers from those outlets has suffered new craft drinkers per year. And as brewery open- is debatable, and, to be sure, there's plenty of de- ings continue to outpace closings and beer makers bate among passionate aficionados. keep creating new, intriguing styles that macro- What irks beers lovers more, though, is that few brewers don't dare take a chance on, that number people realize that by buying a six-pack from a is likely to continue to keep growing. 44Chris%20Morris.pdf v means beer that is distinctly different in taste from esting stuff that it's harder to find that white space the offerings of big macrobreweries. in the marketplace for innovative stuff." Pinpointing the start of craft brewing is sim- As important as those early brewers are, the ilarly challenging. Technically, Jack Mcauliffe craft-beer industry might never have gotten roll- is credited with opening America's first micro- ing without President Jimmy Carter, who in 1978 brewery, in 1976. But two other men truly cleared signed a bill lifting regulations on home brewers the path for what would become today's $26 bil- that had existed since Prohibition. Home brew- lion industry: Jim Koch, founder of Boston Beer ers were making beers before that, of course. And Co. (makers of Sam Adams), and Ken Grossman, they didn't really hide what they were doing. The founder of Sierra Nevada Brewing Co. new bill, though, made it significantly easier for Both brewers went in a vastly different direc- them to get the hops and grains they needed to tion from the big beers of the time, offering bev- make new beers. Once they had access to those, erages that were heavier and had more intense fla- they were able to experiment more and hone vors. And although that eventually turned heads, their skills. they faced significant hurdles in their early days. That same year, Charlie Papazian, a home- "At the beginning, it was a handful of crazy peo- brewing enthusiast and beer-making educator, co- ple," says Koch, who would journey from bar to founded the American Home Brewers Association, bar in Boston in 1984 to convince people to sell giving people a hub from which they could learn his beer. "When I started, nobody made equip- from one another, compete and mingle at events. ment for you. Distributors didn't want you. Retail- Eventually, some of them decided to see if there ers had no clue what you were doing. Hop dealers was a market for their beer. "We didn't know what wouldn't sell you hops. It was totally different." we were doing, but we had the support of this very Hops were essential to Grossman's operation. small and very passionate community that loved Like Koch, he sold his beer door-to-door in 1979. the idea of making quality beer and learning as Sierra Nevada's Pale Ale was the first bitter, hoppy much as it could," he says. "The pro brewers asso- beer that many Americans had ever tasted. And ciation didn't want anything to do with these up- it caught on quickly, forging a path for other pale start microbreweries and people without training ales and India pale ales (IPAs), the highly hopped, or experience. So we were the go-to organization." fruity (and often bitter) beers that have gone on to That organization grew-and is today known as become the most popular style among craft-beer the Brewers Association, the trade group for small drinkers. Today, Sierra Nevada is the country's and independent craft brewers and the host of 10th-largest brewery. the annual Great American Beer Festival (GABF) Calagione got his start a bit later. He became in Denver. smitten with craft beer as a student at Columbia University in search of his master of fine arts. He PRETTY MUCH EVERY great craft brewery starts started home brewing in 1993, wrote a business with a home brewer-a hobbyist whose skills grow plan in 1994 and opened Dogfish Head (which, to the point that people seek them out. And it's at the time, was the smallest commercial brewer usually got at least one secret weapon. For Koch, in the country) the following year. To stand out it was his great-great-grandfather's recipe, which against the competition, he knew he had to quickly became Samuel Adams Boston Lager. Vinnie differentiate his company-and decided to do so Cilurzo of Russian River Brewing rose to fame as by committing Dogfish Head to making the ma- one of the first people to brew a double IPA, which jority of its beers outside of the Reinheitsgebot became Pliny the Elder. (the German beer-purity law that allows for only Such unique offerings have helped craft beer hops, barley, water and yeast in a beer). "When we grow at the rate that it has. Innovation is one of started out, our challenge was public indifference the hallmarks of the industry, whether it's a new and lack of interest from consumers in trying ex- take on the ever-popular IPA, the resurrection of otic, flavor-forward beers," Calagione says. "Now, the long-dead sour style of the German beer called the bigger challenge is there are so many breweries gose or the blending of unusual ingredients (rang- brewing with exotic ingredients and doing inter- ing from grapefruit to bacon to peanut butter tobreakfast cereal) to develop something unique. while at the same time supporting their commu- "I want to keep shocking people a little bit nity. Buying a national label at the store doesn't [and] open them up to explore the brewer's art," carry that guarantee. says Koch, whose most unusual offering is likely . The breweries also serve as gathering spots not Utopias, a non-carbonated beer that carries a price just for beer lovers but for families as well. (A large tag of $199 for a 750-ml bottle and a whopping number even welcome children and pets, with 28% ABV (alcohol by volume). "[I want to] expand special play areas for one or both.) That creates the boundaries of the brewer's art. My approach word of mouth, which brings in locals who might has been, if you make interesting, delicious bev- not normally frequent a brewery. Those locals, in erages that are a pleasure to drink, you will bring turn, post about the brewery on social media (in- in drinkers." cluding apps and websites such as Untappd, a beer While there are certainly a few beers meant to check-in and review service with more than 7 mil- shock, many brewmasters obsess over their in- lion users), which extends the brewery's reputa- gredients, experimenting to find the right mix tion far beyond what its limited marketing bud- and coming up with something that moves a beer get could do. "This is the first generation that style in a new direction. Mad grew up with craft beer as a Fritz Brewing Co. in Cali- given, that it was something fornia's Napa Valley region, their parents had as an op- Jester King in Austin, Texas, tion," says Calagione. "That's and the Rare Barrel in Berke- really changed the tenor of ley, Calif., all make beers that "My approach has the marketplace. Consumers might technically fit into a are educating themselves to commonly known style but been, if you make such a degree that they can taste nothing like their com- find whatever beer their pal- petition. "We approach interesting, delicious ate is into." things from a liquid artist per- beverages that are a A beer drinker's prefer- spective," says Nile Zacherle, ences can change over the founder and master brewer at pleasure to drink, you course of the year, a char- Mad Fritz. "The canvas we're painting is the beer style." will bring in drinkers." acteristic that craft brewers have been particularly at- A good place to sample tuned to, engaging customers some of the more popular with rotating seasonal beers. and unusual styles is one of the many beer fes- Spring and summer see an influx of session IPAS, tivals held throughout the country year-round beers that have the taste qualities of an IPA but a (though largely in the warmer months). On any lower alcohol content. As summer turns to fall and given weekend, there's a craft-beer gathering hap- the annual hops harvest comes in, fresh-hopped pening in some city, but the biggest of them all is beers-styles made with just-harvested hop cones, Denver's GABE. Launched in 1982 by Papazian, rather than hop pellets-hit the shelves. Fall also the gathering attracted 60,000 people in 2017 brings about the annual crop of pumpkin-spiced and poured more than 3,900 different craft beers. beers (such as Rogue Farms Pumpkin Patch Ale "You can experience the flavors that craft brewing and Firestone Walker El Gourdo, among many is all about," says Papazian. "Then you can make others), a seasonal favorite that has seen surges of your choices in the real world outside of the GABE interest so high in September and October that the dreamland. Also, more and more, you can meet the style outsold IPAs for a brief period. brewers and the people making the beer. That's As the weather gets colder, bourbon-barrel- pretty unique." aged stouts grow in popularity, including Goose The growing "buy local" movement has also Island's Bourbon County Brand Stout, which goes been a significant contributor to craft beer's suc- on sale every Black Friday (and often sells out that cess. By stopping off at the local brewery, drinkers same day). And to end the year, winter warmers know they're getting the freshest brew available and Christmas ales (like Anchor Brewing's annualAM CALAGIONE STILL REMEMBERS HIS rst major beer festival. It was 1997, a time when the term \"craft beer\" was still largely unknown, and the reaction to his offerings was not encouraging. People made fun of him, he says, and dumped the beer out on the table. Today, the founder of Dogsh Head Brewery in Milton, De1., is one of the most respected brewers in the industry, and those beers that people once scoffed at are now found on store shelves around the country. But Calagione didn't adjust his style to achieve successbeer drinkers adjusted theirs. Craft beer has seen explosive growth in the past 25 years. In 1993, there were 446 breweries in the US. Today, there are more than 6,000. And that number is growing steadily. As craft beer has claimed a bigger piece of the market, though, its denition has grown a bit muddy. Technically, any brewery that makes less than 6 million barrels of beer per year and is not owned (a 25% or higher stake) or controlled by a large alcohol-industry company qualies as craft. But for most people, the term more commonly